My Kids’ First Car Accident

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The day hadn’t really started off well anyway. I’d woken up with a tweaked back, barely able to stand, so I had scheduled an emergency chiropractor visit and taken Edward to church with me so that I could work on music sorting and planning, and he could spread toys all over the choir room. It was during this time that I got the call. Ruby had a half day of kindergarten yesterday, and her mother and I had completely forgotten. She was sitting in the office, waiting for someone to come pick her up. We raced over there and retrieved her, taking her out to lunch to apologize for abandoning her and causing severe emotional scarring, and then headed to my chiropractor for personal fixing. When all of that was done, I realized we needed to go back to the church to clean up, and when we finally had done that, it was time to go home. That’s when it happened.
I was driving south on Pine Street when I saw someone pull out to the road from a parking lot on the right side of the road. She stopped and glanced my way, and then looked to her right. We were basically on top of her at this time, so I could clearly see her in the car and what she was doing. And then, still looking right, pulled out in front of me and turned left. I honked. I slammed on my brakes. I tried to swerve left, but there was no time. She continued to try to turn left, so even though I swerved, I basically T-Boned her car, right in the middle of the street.
I glared angrily at her as we both pulled our cars into the parking lot across the street. Both of my children were screaming and crying at the tops of their lungs and there were pieces of car everywhere. When I got out to survey the damage, I was amazed that either of us were able to move our cars. Her front wheel was now at a 45 degree angle, and my front end was all smashed in, with the engine block clearly visible and fluids leaking everywhere. The poor girl was freaking out a bit, and was horrified that I had children in the car. It probably did not help that they were both still screaming.
I got the kids out of the car while the girl called her father and some people who were working in the building, whose parking lot we were now occupying, called the police. From eavesdropping on the girl’s conversation I learned three things. 1) She is a college student. 2) This is the third car she has destroyed recently and has not even paid for this one yet. 3) The second one she totalled was totally not even her fault, DAD!
The people from the shop that had called the police came out and offered to watch my children while I dealt with the mess outside. Since it was way below freezing out, I said okay. Ruby and Edward were ushered inside while I waited for the police and phoned my insurance company.
The good news is that both my insurance company and the police officer have determined that I was not at fault in any way. The bad news is that they towed my car away and suddenly I was stranded with two children, one suddenly in severe need of a new diaper, in a shop on the side of the road. And not just any shop. An artist’s showroom of a shop. An artist who specializes in glass and lights. So to be clear, my stressed out children were now stuck in a large room completely filled, top to bottom, with extremely fragile and breakable items priced anywhere from $500-$2000 each. And we were there for an hour and a half.
Luckily nothing was destroyed, the artists there were super nice and awesome, and eventually my mother in law came to pick us up and we got home okay. I did hear from the girl’s insurance company, who assured me that they would almost certainly be accepting liability, as soon as they interviewed the police officer from the scene, got a final copy of the police report, submitted all the paperwork, got a sample of my DNA, and successfully cloned a velociraptor. So any day now.
I did get a copy of that police report. From the report I learned three things. 1) The driver of the other car, who I will not specifically name of course, did in fact end the spelling of her name with the letter “i.” 2) She was born when I was in high school. 3) I was clearly not at fault. So for now I am just thankful that nobody was hurt, and that I cannot be yelled at by anyone for this accident. But it totally sucks. That’s all I’m trying to say.
Posted in Car, Driving, Edward, Misadventures, Parenting, Ruby.

8 Comments

  2. Only in Vermont could you leave your young children with complete strangers in an artist’s showroom for an hour and a half. Safely. Good work living in a nice community!
    Sorry about the college idiot.

  3. Good to know that everyone’s okay, but I think the kids might suffer from mild trauma from this. Wasn’t she conscious when this happened? She glanced at you so she probably must have seen that you care when you came. People, remember to always be in your right state of mind when driving because kids can even get hurt because of accidents like this. I think she should learn her lesson and be asked to pay for emotional damages she has caused to your kids.

  4. At least now, you can just humor about it. Maybe it’s really better to get over the incident quickly for the kids. It’s either they’ll forget about it or they’d be badly traumatized. I’m glad you’re all okay though. 🙂 Stay careful and alert on the road, Tenor Dad. You saw here that even if you’re responsible, you cannot expect the same from everybody. What happened to the poor girl, if you don’t mind?

    • Oh, she was fine. I mean, she cried a lot, and all of her friends seemed to abandon her, but I think she was friends with a tow truck driver, so he came and got her. He seemed to think her car could be fixed pretty easily.

  5. Yes, everyone should just be thankful that no one’s hurt. I hope that your kids were no longer scared of what happened, so we can say that everything’s really fine now. Hopefully, this accident with the kids can help that girl realize her driving mistakes.

    Regards,
    Nannie Leick

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