Details

Okay, so I owe you all a few details.

Mr. H and I had just picked up Aaron from my mom's house and were going home at around 6:30pm . Our house is 3 miles away and a narrow 2 lane road connects them. We got half way there when the accident happened.

Off the road is a side street that leads to a neighborhood. The speed limit was 45 mph. Ahead of us, on the right, were 2 cars at a stop sign. The first car took off from the stop sign with plenty of space between us and it. The second car took off right after the first- kind of a stop and roll- a yield (kinda). Except we were fast approaching. Mr. H was driving, I was on the passenger side, and Aaron was sitting behind me.

He started honking at her thinking she would realize we were *right there*, but she kept going. Mr. H swerved to the left trying to avoid the car by going around it, but it was inevitable she wasn't stopping. She crashed into the front right corner of the car. The air bags deployed and we wound up in a field across the street. It all happened so damn fast.

I've always thought that if I were ever in a car accident (this was my first) I wouldn't get whip lash. My child/pet/stuff wouldn't fly through the windshield, because I'd put my arm out and stop it. Yeah right! It happened so fast I didn't even have time to think of what was happening. I was worried about Aaron because I didn't know where her car would collide into ours. I didn't know how bad the damage would be. No, my life did not flash before my eyes, but it was a little scary. Shocking to say the least. In the seconds before the cars hit eachother, Mr. H yelled out and I thought he was hurt, so that only worried me more.

Once the airbags blew up in our faces, I knew it was serious. It immediately burned our skin and it smelled like smoke. Like something was burning. That kind of freaked me out. We got out of the car, called 911 and waited for the police to come. None of us seemed to be hurt, which is a good thing, but we are a little sore in the usual areas- neck, back, shoulder, collar bone (from the seatbelt). We have a few scratches, bruises and burns, mostly from the airbags, but we are okay.

Mr. H keeps blaming himself because he thinks if he had braked sooner, if he swerved in the opposite direction, if we was going a little slower, if, if, if... he could have avoided it. We could have done all those things, but the bottom line is, if she had stopped at the stop sign instead of running through it, we wouldn't be where we are. Can I hear an 'Amen'?

The cops arrived, took our statements, and found the other driver at fault. She swears she stopped at the stop sign, and looked both ways before turning. Well she must be blind and deaf, because I don't know how she missed us. What really pisses me off is that the cop had to physically tell her how to stop at an intersection. "You need to come to a complete stop, look both ways, then proceed..." How did she get her license? (I have a few funny ideas about how she got one, but I won't share them here :-P)

She is a middle eastern woman driving a fairly new Lexus with 3 KIDS UNDER THE AGE OF 4 IN THE BACK SEAT! Not only could we have been seriously hurt, but she could have killed her kids. Dumb bitch! People like that really chap my hide.

We went to retrieve the police report this morning and in it she claims we hit her. Whatever. The first car that was in front of her, turned around after witnessing the accident in her rear view mirror. She gave her statement to the cops, so that's on file as well. They can say whatever they want, but she's the one who got the ticket. And that has to stand for something.

I have a nice car (I think). It's a '98 Explorer Limited. It's not a "wow!" car, and it's certainly not a luxury car, but it's my car. It's the only car I've ever owned (and it was paid off) and it was a CLEAN car. The interior looked like a brand new car. Mr. H is very much a car nut and he takes pride in maintaining my car. Earlier in the day, he took it to get inspected, and get the oil changed. Just last weekend he changed the brakes by himself. Earlier in the year we had the transmission rebuilt. We have put at least $5000 into this car this year alone.

They are talking about totalling the car because it's 10 years old and it's going to cost more to fix it then it is worth according to NADA. The problem is we have put so much time and money into maintaining this car. A car salesman over the weekend asked a confused, "why?" in response to the amount we have put in to the car. The thing is, a car is an investment. It's like a home. You add to it. You fix things that go wrong. You improve it's performance. You take care of it. You don't toss it out like a used sponge and buy another one everytime it starts to smell. Sure, if it's a POS, then go ahead, but mine wasn't. It was good to me.

They say it's worth $4500 and I think that's bullshit. There is no way we can replace my exact car in the condition it is in for that amount. No way! Sure we can find another car, but it's not going to be fully loaded like mine was. And if it is, we can't afford that with the amount they're offering. And why should we have to make payments on a car because some freakin' idiot doesn't know how to stop at a stop sign?

We looked at a few cars this weekend. Some I even liked. It was exhausting though. There's so much out there and we haven't car shopped in a long time. We also picked up a rental car today. It's a 2008 white Explorer. It's nice but it doesn't have the character mine did. We also went to the ER today to get checked out- just in case. He gave us scripts for V.icodin and and muscle relaxants- woo hoo! Oh, and Mr. H spoke to a family friend who just happens to be a personal injury lawyer. His specialty? Screwing over insurance companies :-)

Happy Autumn Y'all!