Wednesday, June 07, 2006

We Weren't Hurt

On our way to get baked potato soup in a bread bowl from Panera Bread, Kate and I were in a car accident on Route 17N in Paramus. Traffic was pretty heavy and we were almost completely stopped when BANG! a car hit us from behind and WHAM! we were pushed into the car in front of us. I immediately called the police and they told me to get out and check with the other drivers. It was actually a four car accident. An Indian woman in a BMW SUV was evidently trying to change lanes and with the front left of her car she hit the back of a Range Rover, which hit us and we were pushed into an Audi. The guy in the Audi was a douche. He was waving us off to the side of the road (a bad idea). If at all possible you should never move your car from the scene of an accident until the cops get there. It's the only way they can reconstruct the accident and determine what happened. The Indian woman was apologetic and clearly understood it was all her fault. Her car sustained major damage to the front left.
The Range Rover may have gotten the worst of it because there was substantial damage to her rear and her hood was pushed up from where it hit us.
Kate's car isn't too bad, the rear bumper is badly dented. The spare tire may have saved it from more damage but the entire rear door will probably need replacing.
The front of Kate's car is fine, although the way the douchebag in the Audi was carrying on you'd have thought he'd been injured in the accident, his rear bumper had a minor scratch.
The cops came quickly and were nice and good, taking our info and filling out a report. The cop confirmed that the Indian woman is responsible for the whole thing, so although it will be a hassle to fix the car, it should be covered.
In the book "Blink", it talks about how the mind slows things down in stressful situations. From the time the car hit us in the back until we stopped moving was probably no more than two seconds, but in those two seconds I remember the two sounds of the impact front and back, I remember getting thrown forwards and jerked back, and I remember looking at Kate's face, in shock.
The kicker to the whole story is, for the second straight time, Panera Bread was out of bread bowls.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"substantial damage to her rear and her hood was pushed up" - just what else where you doing within those two seconds.