We went to the gym in the dark morning hours and when we got home and I was about to get ready for work when Rick said I could have my prize...so he goes to a hiding spot (i followed him in hopes that i'd know one of his secret hiding spots) ... he pulled out a card and told me to read it out loud...so I read my lovey dovey riddle filled card and realized he had called me off of work for the day and I needed to pack my bags stat so we could make it to our dinner reservation and then Disney the following day. WHAAAATTTT?! at this point I was excited. & tearing up. (he got me a massage too! -- and he made sure my sunday school class was covered because we wouldn't be in town -- where did he come from?!).
Bags packed. leaving home right on schedule. jamming to Avicii's Wake Me Up. waiting at the left turn signal red light to get onto the interstate...and then as if in slow motion and super speed at the same time...crash bang crunch screech etc..."why whyyyy whyyyyy" "well, shoot"...Rick's door was jammed so we both climbed out the passenger side and we were super blessed that a state trooper happened to be driving by a minute after the accident so we didn't have to call and wait for a cop to show up.
somebody had run their red light from the interstate off ramp, barreled through the intersection, swerved, took out the sign in the median (not sure how it ended up under our car), then hit our car, and ended up back on the other side of the road. They thought their brakes had gone out but the officer tested them and believes it was a mistake between gas and brake. They were very apologetic and I think we were all scared to death.
Although it was absolutely terrible timing (but then again, when does an accident have good timing?!), we've really tried looking on the bright side of this. Blessings: nobody was hurt, the person at fault has insurance (!!!), the person knew/accepted their fault so it was a calm after accident scene, a few people stopped to make sure everything was ok, the officer's timing and niceness, pretty sure the sign slowed the other vehicle somewhat before hitting us, the fact that they hit where they did...and not closer to the driver door or anywhere that Rick could have been hit, that the sign didn't fall onto our car/windshield .........if there is any "best" kind of accident to be in, we got pretty lucky.
2.5 weeks without a car makes me very grateful for mine.
Advice if you find yourself in a car accident (as a third party claimant - aka not your fault):
- We had no idea what to do so we called our insurance - we were given two options: go through them and pay the $500 deductible for repairs or go through the other person's insurance. Since we had zero fault and didn't think we should pay a dime, we opted for option 2.
- Be really careful of how you word things while talking to their insurance - they will seriously try to find any fault to put on you. They asked things like, did you both have your seat belts on?, so you were stopped because the light was red?, how was the weather?", etc...anything that could have contributed..
- If you don't NEED a rental car you can ask them to pay you out and they might offer x amount of dollars per day in place of a rental. Rick was on night shifts so we were able to share one vehicle.
- Know where you would want repairs done. We chose the nissan dealership because we didn't want it to mess up our warranty if it went somewhere else.
- Have a tow company in mind before an accident happens. We had no clue so we just had the officer call whatever company was on his list. Well, it would have cost us $100 cash on the spot to have him take it anywhere but the tow company's body shop...so it had to sit there until we got back from out trip because another thing we didn't know is we had to sign over the rights to the vehicle to the insurance company. SO ask if you can do that when they pick up your vehicle....or pick a tow company that's located near your house....because it was inconvenient to have to drive across town to sign a piece of paper.
- My car was pretty new...a 2013 and in perfect condition prior to the accident. Now that it has been in an accident it has lost value...because who wants to buy a car after they find out it's been in an accident?! Some places automatically deduct 33% if the car has been in an accident...there is this thing called Diminution in Value (DIV) and the insurance company will not mention/offer it, and they will give you the run around, but it might be worth going after. (I'll update this on how that turns out at a later date)
p.s. we still ended up at Disney and still had an excellent weekend
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