Car Accident

Monday when we got up Jenn said that she had heard there was a big car accident on my regular route to work. I decided to be smart and take an alternate route. As I was going along the little main street of our small city towards an intersection with another main road, a big Chevy Impala made an ill-advised left turn directly into my path. I had enough time to slam on the brakes and shave about 10 km/hr off my not overly speedy 50, before I crashed into the Impala. The driver was an elderly man, and his elderly wife was with him in the car. Nobody was injured (although yesterday and today I’ve had a sore neck and blinding headache barely staved off by Super Motrin), but my truck and the other car were smashed up. A City police officer was at the light going the other way and offered his information as a witness. My insurance company has already stated that they think it was clearly the other guy’s fault and they’ll waive my deductible.

I’m hoping my insurance company won’t try to write off my truck. The damage is fairly superficial, limited to the hood, bumper and front fender. My truck is older (a 1994 Toyota) but it only has about 130,000 km on it. The blue book value is probably somewhat lower than it’s replacement cost would be. As with any time this kind of thing happens, I’m totally not prepared to have to pay for a new vehicle.

My insurance covers a rental vehicle. The rental place issued me what I’m calling a ridiculously huge truck. It’s a Dodge Ram 1500 4×4 quad cab. I feel like an enviro-villain driving it to work in traffic, towering over the other typically huge Albertan SUVs. I’m going to see if they can change it for a small car or something.