I finally have something post worthy. This morning on my way to work on south-bound Powers near the Platte interchange, I was driving in the middle lane when a semi concrete truck hit me from the left (fast) lane and started pushing me. I managed to move the car out of the path and the damage was minimal so I’m very thankful for that. The Civic *is* still driveable although the area near my left quarter panel and tire is pretty ground up. After pulling over and the other driver not following, I rushed to write down his license plate number with shaking hands. I feared he would hit and run but about a 1/4 mile down he pulled over. I pulled up behind him and called Casey while I assessed the damage. He got out and looked at his truck then got back inside. I called the police to report the accident and they said they would be sending someone over but in the meantime we could begin exchaging information. I got out of the car again and went to try and tell the driver all of this and he said, “My company won’t let me talk to you. I can’t say anything until they arrive.” While we were waiting for the cop to arrive, Casey showed up and I started to calm down some.
Finally, the cop showed up took my statement and then gave me paperwork to fill out and return to him along with the usual docs (DL, registration, and insurance). THREE trucks showed up from this guys’ company to assess the situation and take pictures of my car and all of that – not talking to us and only glaring the entire time. After the officer looked at the semi and then took the driver’s statement he came back and asked which lane *I* as in again and I told him the middle lane (same thing as I had originally) so he points to the right lane and is like this one? I said no the middle one, pointing to the middle lane, and told him that there was a lane on either side of me and that this guy was in the left lane and moved into me. He was like yeah, that’s what I thought but the driver is saying he was in the middle lane and you were in the right lane. So the guy was LYING to the officer about what happened. Anyways, the officer finished with my paperwork and gave me the other driver’s information (which I didn’t check til I was at work and trying to call USAA) and told us that we could leave. As I was getting back into the Civic from the FX, I overheard the cop telling the driver that he would be given a $90 fine for driving in the left lane.
After a shitty morning I was finally able to call the insurance about the accident around 10:30. I gave my statement to the rep and gave him all of the information he requested from the form I was given. He asked if I was cited and I said no and that I didn’t know if the other driver was cited anymore than getting the ticket for driving in the left hand lane but I was told I could leave and didn’t find out everything that happened. (The bottom of the incident report thing says it takes 5 days for the police report to become available.) I also made sure to tell him that the other driver didn’t list his DL on the form, his company’s phone #, his insurance phone #, and the license number he gave was DIFFERENT than what was on the truck. I gave him BOTH numbers although emphasized which one was actually on the truck. The rep told me that when dealing with commercial companies more than likely they would fight anything being their fault because claims are so costly. He was going to work on tracking down the company and find out what was going on and then get back to me. He left me a voicemail saying that the other company said they weren’t going to pay anything right now and would be fighting the ticket. So he was ticketed and I can’t wait to see what the police report says. I’m pretty upset that there’s a possibility he can just deny responsibility and get away with it. My car may not be the greatest in the world but I didn’t do this to it and he should be the one fixing it!
Today has just been a horrible day between the accident and work and I’m glad it’s almost over. Hopefully, there’s progress on both fronts SOON!