Seat belts really do save lives...

[laurence]

Glad you are o.k.!

What is with people and lying about car accidents? Do they tell their friends, "Yep, I caused it, but you gotta work the system." or do they even lie to them, and themselves, about what happened? DW was run into by a teenager on a bycicle, and his parents lawyers up and tried to threaten to sue (the ding in the car was on the side, I'm not sure how you hit someone with the side of your car). Basically, their lawyer new he had little to work with, but still managed to bully her parents into signing some sort of "nobody is at fault" agreement, so DW's car still had the dent when I met her. Another friend got rear ended at a stop light, woman tearfully apologizes, yet she gets a call later saying she was going to be sued for cutting her off and braking suddenly or some such.

Tip: throw a disposable camera in your glove box if you don't have one of those camera phones.

[Martha]

REW, so glad everyone is ok. It is so easy to forget how dangerous the roads are.

[kaudrey]

I'm glad you are OK.

About 2 years ago I was the victim of road rage, got cut off, and slammed into a jersey barrier after a few 360s. 3 airbags went off, I was wearing my seat belt, and the car was totalled. I walked away with an abrasion on my face from the airbag, but that's it.

People stopped to help and several stayed to tell the police about the jerk who cut me off. They never caught him, but GEICO took the police report and waived my deductible because of the witnesses' accounts. Never expected that part!

Kind of funny - it was a Volksagen Passat, and everytime I see those commercials now, I tell people that they are true!

Karen
who loved her Volkswagen...sigh

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo! It was one of those accidents that make you ask "What the HELL was she thinking!!??"

Yikes. Sounds like you're going to get through this OK.

But in the morning she'll still be stupid.

[Caroline]

Quote:

Tip: throw a disposable camera in your glove box if you don't have one of those camera phones.

That sounds like a GREAT idea, for many reasons -- thanks.

[REWahoo]

Update:

Today, six weeks after the accident occurred and after less than stellar service from the much ballyhooed USAA (when USAA hadn't secured a copy of the accident report three weeks after the accident, I drove to the DPS office, paid for a copy and faxed it to the adjuster ), I finally learn what the hold up has been. The 'lady' who hit me and did two somersaults in her car allowed her policy to lapse a week prior to the wreck. Now I'm getting my fender replaced and painted (hopefully to match the rest of my car) using my UIM coverage and I'll be out the $250 deductible!!

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy no one was seriously injured, but wouldn't you know - the dingbat who caused the accident and was ticketed for passing in a no passing zone - had no insurance! Sheesh...

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Seems completely unsurprising. Bad judgment tends to be demonstrated with good consistency by those who have it.

At least nobody in your car got hurt.

[laurence]

That is so weak. But hey, even though you are out the $250 deductible, I know you are ahead by not paying the extra to have a smaller deductible. Many people don't do the math on that - good on ya, mate! We actually upped our deductible to $500 some time ago, and that paid for itself in 2 years ( I think ).

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laurence But hey, even though you are out the $250 deductible, I know you are ahead by not paying the extra to have a smaller deductible. Many people don't do the math on that - good on ya, mate! We actually upped our deductible to $500 some time ago, and that paid for itself in 2 years ( I think ).

A couple of years ago we increased our deductible on collision and comprehensive to $1000, but I don't recall doing anything with the UIM deductible. After your comment above, I went to the USAA web site to see what deductible options I had for UIM. The only choices are "decline coverage" or the $250 deductible.

Anyhow, since the 6 mo premium on UIM coverage runs me a whopping $20 per vehicle, it doesn't appear there is much savings to be had by increasing the deductible.

[laurence]

Mixed up my deductibles. I was thinking of the collision/comprehensive. My misunderstanding! Carry on, nothing to see here! 8)

[cute fuzzy bunny]

$500 on the cars and $5000 on the house right now...we were carrying $2500 on the older cars but dropped it back to $500 when we got new ones...I'd probably not have bothered with small dents on the old ones, but I dont wanna drive a new car with a dent in it.

HUGE drops in the premiums at those deductibles. Pays for itself in a couple of years and pure profit after that!

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo! The 'lady' who hit me and did two somersaults in her car allowed her policy to lapse a week prior to the wreck.

Somewhere the GEICO Gecko and the Caveman are high-fiving each other over their fortunate timing at USAA's expense...

[Patrick]

Take the old bat to small claims court for the deductible!

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick Take the old bat to small claims court for the deductible!

The address she gave the on the accident report is a PO Box and her phone number is "not in service". I'm not optimistic that my efforts to track her down would be worth the slim possibility I could get $250 out of her. So...I'm gonna just move on.

[Gearhead Jim]

Maybe not worth the actual dollars, but satisfaction...?

OTOH, people like that are not fun to deal with, perhaps not worth the aggrevation.

CFB's comment about the consistency of bad judgment is true beyond belief. In police work, we stop the guy with no license plate light to give him a warning because experience has taught us that he stands a good chance of having no insurance, suspended license, arrest warrant, etc. If you or I had some situation where a traffic stop would get us in a lot of trouble, we'd be meticulous about our driving and the vehicle condition. The dirtbags live in a sort of parallel universe where no one understands that actions have consequences.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I like the tricks my neighbors daughters boyfriend employs. Doesnt have a front license plate (illegal in CA) so he can have a "Duck Hunter!" plate instead, which automatically assures you of at least 1-2 tickets per year. Pickup bed is always full of empty beer cans.

Is there specific genetic situation that causes these situations to occur? :

[Gearhead Jim]

It does appear to be genetic. I've been working in the same village 30 years now, long enough to watch dirtbag kids grow up to become dirtbag parents raising their own dirtbag children and even dirtbag grandchildren.

I'll probably retire from that job this year just because the "customers" are so depressing.

[TromboneAl]

We were out the $1,000 deductible when a piece of plywood came out of the sky on a windy day and hit the front of our car. Someone hadn't tied it down well to their car apparently. We never found out where it came from. The total damage was $3K.

[Leonidas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny Is there specific genetic situation that causes these situations to occur? :

Just an unending chain of irresponsible decisions.

I like Gearhead Jim's "parallel universe" comment.

Most of us would not let our insurance lapse because we don't want to get sued and have to pay a judgement, or go to jail, or get our license suspended. The odds of any of those things actually happening to you are small, but the possibility of all that hassle falling into our lives is enough to keep focused on budgeting to make the payment. The people in the other universe just get in their car and drive. They only worry about the consequences when they have an accident or get pulled over. Like Jim said, that's when you find out that there are a lot of other things that they decided to not take care of.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Funny thing is, you see these people stumble through life with occasional brushes with the law and consequences of their actions, but the incidence of problems seems wholly decoupled from the volume of loose ends they leave and risks left uncovered.

I always cross my t's and dot my i's, but I leave the house with a piece of TP stuck to my shoe and fourteen cop cars come flying into my driveway with the guns drawn.

Maybe the person and their actions just sort of blend together and any discrepancies are whats noted.

My wifes old neighbor (who fully fits the 'pull me over, there's at least 3 violations in plain sight' profile) had a different observation: "Well...you look like you could afford to pay a fine! They pull me over, they're gonna have to feed me and keep an eye on me until tomorrow and they'll never get a dime cuz I dont have one to spare!"

Hmmm...

Maybe I'm doing this all wrong.