Yesterday I was sitting at a red light when someone behind me, not paying attention to the road, plowed into the back of my car.
My car is still running, although it’s going to need a lot of work. I am extremely grateful to the people who immediately came to our aid. The blow left me a bit dazed and I was wandering circles around my car, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do next. Fortunately I did remember to call my SO and let her know I’d been hit and I’d be home late, so she wouldn’t worry. But after that… what was the procedure? Call the cops? I didn’t have their number on hand…
The six people who stopped and came to help us were an immense help. They called the cops and helped direct us. I’m glad we live in a society where people still do that. I wish I could thank them again.
The cops came pretty quickly, which turned out to be an unfortunate thing. The officer (Ramirez) told me not to bother getting the other driver’s insurance information – he would take care of all that. All the information would be in the police report, and he’d give me the incident number as well as a phone number I could call to get my own copy and any information I’d need. In my foggy state this sounded like a perfectly fine idea. This is the sort of efficiency we like to see! All the information together in one place, easily accessible, and gathered by the authorities rather than the people who were just involved in an accident and my not be thinking clearly (or too injured to write down insurance information). It turns out I forgot the most important rule of life.
Don’t ever trust anyone else with anything important. Insurance information – that’s important. The cop – he’s someone other than me. Sometimes you have no choice and you have to rely on trust, but this was not one of those situations. I could have taken down that info myself and had a personal copy. I’m sure you can guess what happened.
I called the next day and the other driver’s info hadn’t been entered into the system. And the officer isn’t scheduled to come back to work until Sunday. So in the meantime I’m paying for the doctor’s visit and other expenses out-of-pocket, and I have to hope that his insurance company can be persuaded and cajoled into reimbursing me with less than 6 months delay and a dozen hours on the phone. I am displeased, to say the least. Let my stupidity be a lesson – always take down all the info you can. Snap pics of the insurance card. Cell phones are awesome.
I did suffer a mild concussion. More about that next post.