Summer is just around the corner and that means it's time to mark your calendars to join us for our 7th Annual Nevada City Adventure Open House, Saturday May 17th, 8am to 4pm. Some of the events planned include a swap meet, car show, prizes, and of course, great deals on the latest and coolest merchandise! Also this year we will be featuring the first ever Vtec Encounter.
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Sometimes dealing with all of these types makes me want to throw up my arms and stop looking out for anyone but myself. It's a self defense mechanism, and not a healthy way to deal with it. I think you just have to be more forceful with people like these and demand accountability from them.
I think that thing that irritates me most is that she was just oblivious to the damage on my vehicle, I really don't think that she even looked at anything beyond her bumper. And this is the very same problem that I have with a good number of the people that I deal with on a daily basis, they don't care about anyhting beyond themselves. I try to be considerate of others, most of the time I am successful, but for the most part it seems as if there is some sort of competition that everyone has signed up for to see who can be the most self absorbed individual on the planet.
On my way home from a Mini parts supplier's open house 4 or 5 years ago it started to rain. I was in my Mini, and not 2 miles from home when an oblivious old man in a Prius pulled out in front of me as I was crossing an intersection. I slammed on my brakes, but thanks to a combination of wet roads, terrible Falcon tires and no room to quickly pull into the other lane, I skidded into the back of him.
Now I was just heart broken to see from the drivers seat that the right front quarter panel was buckled up, and when I got out and saw the extent of the front end damage (bumper, grill, fog lights, front panel, right fender, tie rods, etc) I had to hold back my tears. I pulled it together just enough to ask the 75 year old man "Didn't you see me crossing the intersection?" , and his reply as he leaned down to inspect his barely scratched rear bumper on his Prius was "It's not too bad, but I'd like your insurance information as I'm going to get this repaired".
It took everything I had not to completely lose it.
It's amazing how oblivious people (especially non car people) can be when they cause damage to your vehicle. They don't care or know the difference between if they just caused damage to a Honda Civic or a 45 year old collector car that someone has poured years of effort into restoring.
Sort of related story: I was driving my 88 lincoln TC and had to stop short for a yellow light which turned red rather quickly. Not squealing tires short just short. As I come to a stop I hear a loud screech and feel a hard thump from my rear. As the light was red I got out to find that a focus had rear ended me, and had completely wrecked one of his headlight assembly, his bumper, and his hood had crimped up. His window was down so I said 'follow me to that parking lot' as to get off the road. 10 yards tops total distance. I pull into the parking lot and so does he and he gets out of his car and starts berating me about how my driving is terrible and that him rear ending me is my fault. There is no damage to the lincoln a series of scratches but no bent panels or broken lamps. my trunk opens and closes. I try to keep my cool and say that if he wants ill call the cops and they can assess the situation. with that he gets in his foc'd up focus and flees. What a tool! my scratches did buff out!
"22's? Shee, i be creepin on 10's gangsta. Bentley? real ballas drive minis" (real life first response of my best friend seeing my mini)
I was involved in a minor accident in a parking lot once. My wife was driving our VW Jetta and I was in the passenger seat. She had just finished backing out of a spot and put the car in 1st when a PT cruiser backed into us from an adjacent spot. I got out to talk to the other driver. He looked at the cars and said "there's no way to tell who's really at fault here. That should buff out, good thing for me my son owns a body shop." If he had said "that looks like an easy fix, drop if off at my son's body shop and he'll take care of it", I'd have been perfectly happy. But no, he implied that it truly was an accident. Well to make a long story shorter, GEICO determined that it was his fault to the amount of $600 to have the bumper remounted and painted.
I am amazed at how often folks have hit me or my wife and said the same thing, I just cannot believe the stereotypical answer of "it will just buff out" is used everywhere. I don't know if it is true stupidity or they just try to discount what has happened. I was hit years ago (I was parked) by a car that was parked with 2 small children in it, the kid(s) has released the emerg brake and the car hit me at very slow speed in the back bumper, the damage was so minor that I would have honestly let the thing pass had the guy who came out of the chinese restaurant in his own time with his take out been nice, instead he was rude and said his food was getting cold (while he car was resting against mine) I then insisted on calling the cops (and freezing his food while we waited) and eventually got almost 400 bucks out of him. Total Jerk.
Sadly it sounds like my sister hit you, 4 kids and a new suburban every few years that she promptly puts here own body work skills to.
Peter
No more cars left, Westpaminis is now just a memory, Good luck to all those hard working dealers left out there, We can tell you its not easy. We have fully enjoyed meeting all the fine folks we have in the business.
So I am running late for a product training session that I had to attend this afternoon, when I notice that I need to stop for gas and pull into the first gas station that I find. I pull up to the pump nearest the front entrance of the convenience store adjacent to the pumps and begin to fill the tank.
Now there are several rows of pumps, and each row has three pumps, most of which are empty. I find that the pump that I have chosen is having some sort of problem processing credit card transactions and decide to move to the pump located directly behind the one I am at currently. Before moving to the next pump I check to see that this pump is processing credit cards, which it is, and then I return to my car and begin to move it into position. I walk back to my car, a total of about six steps, and release the parking brake and begin to walk my car backwards to the next pump when all of a sudden I hear the slightest of thuds, no other noises preceeding this thud, just a very soft thud. I turn towards the noise, which came from the behind my car, and notice a 2006 Chevrolet Tahoe coming to a stop with the front bumper resting where the license plate light should be, and notice the light housing has been pushed up and out of the way by the Tahoe's bumper. I turn towards the driver in the Tahoe and notice that it is being driven by the all so typical soccer mom, and has a few of her oh so lovely teen, and pre-teenage children scattered about the vehicle. The soccer mom has a perturbed look on her face and gets out of her vehicle to inspect the damage, I immediately apoligize because I felt that I was partially, if not completely to blame for the incident because I was not looking in the direction of travel at the time of the impact. She looks at her bumper noticing some freshly applied red paint from my car and says, "It should just buff out, it looks like just paint." Before I can say anything else, she walks away into the convenience store while I stand there looking at the deformed boot lid on my car.
At this point I am a bit confused as to what exactly is going on, and I assume that she has gone into the store to pre-pay for gas or something of that nature, so I decide that since there is no major damage and a call to the police would not even result in a report being taken because we are on private property I would just exchange insurance information with her and let our respective insurance companies sort it out. While I am waiting for her to return from inside the store I decide that in order to expedite matters, I would move to another pump and fill my tank while I waited for her to return so that I could resume my trip as soon as we exchanged insurance information.
So I move my car to the pump immediately opposite her vehicle and fill my tank, and as I am about to finish she returns from her trip into the store. I am assuming that there will be some time for us to do the paper exchange while she dispenses her gas, but what happens next confuses me even more than her original speedy departure from our first encounter. I see her walking towards her vehicle, I make eye contact to insure that she knows that I am still there and while I am returning the pump hose to it's holder, she hops in her car and speeds away. She didn't even have to buy gas, she had a pack of cigarettes in her hand when she returned.
By the time that I gathered my senses and decided that it just wasn't worth the trouble of chasing her down to get her insurance info, she was gone. So I took another look at the damaged boot lid and decided that the damage was easily repaired. easily enough in fact that while I was speaking with another woman at the pump about how the soccer mom had just taken off , I pressed out about 90% of the damage with just my hands. After I got home from work I worked out the rest of the damage and have only one very minor dent to remove, which should be easily taken care of when I am at work and have full access to my tools.
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Posted: May-09-2008 03:44PM
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