#rear ender

[sexandcourvoisier]

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[sexandcourvoisier]

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You gays can't get enough of me, can you?

[thepotherer]

Rear Ender

I was rear ended, shunted, taken from behind, I had my back door bashed in after some bloke went up the back of me. 

Now I am as tender as a tender thing, memories are raw and vivid of those seconds when my back window spattered over me, of the very terminal sound as my car’s personal space was so rudely invaded and re-shaped and the sight (through the now open) back of my car of a biker jumping up angrily and accusingly. I won’t go into the details of the actual accident; I have written it out about 50 times in total and have had to explain to everyone I know and those that I don’t what happened. I am so sick of describing it and so convinced of the limited attention span of those I am regaling with the tale that I have condensed it into the minimal amount of words…..

Clear road

Right turn

Pulling over on right

INDICATOR ON!!!

Bash!

Biker up me!

Crumpled bottom 

Not injured, he built like brick s**t house

At scene admitted attempting to overtake (will that be mentioned in his statement? Will it my arse)

To recap:

INDICATOR ON AT ALL TIMES!!!!!

I NEED A DRINK.

(Ten minutes to be allocated here for fits of frustrated tears, again.)

I used to love driving. Now I drive like someone who doesn’t want to get where they’re going, someone who wants as little as possible to do with the steering wheel, the pedals and the entire view through the windscreen.

The only reason I think any of us is able to get in and drive every day is because we never let ourselves think of the dreadful possibilities of every road we pull onto, every lane change we make. As soon as something happens to you, you go into (what I hope is going to be temporary) paranoid old lady mode. Expecting the worst of everyone and yourself, not trusting what you see before you, convinced that at every turn you see a kamikaze biker weaving in and out of traffic, honing in on your bumper as his target.

All I see when I get in the car now are scenes of carnage from the film Final Destination…. lorries piled high with poorly secured tree trunks jack-knifing, cars catapulting through the air, rag doll bodies flung in every direction, and that’s before I have even pulled out of the parking space. 

Worse almost than the accident is dealing with your insurance company. It is only when you have to contact your insurer for anything other than paying your renewal that you find out that your cover is made up of some kind of co-operative between about 7 different ‘never heard of’ companies. One deals with opening of post, one with answering phone calls (sporadically), one with fobbing you off and telling you to call one of the other 6 companies and one for scaring the hell out of you with talk of giving up and letting the other side win.

After each phone call to my insurer it is necessary to have a brown paper bag to breathe into and a bottle of Gin as their doom and gloom report worsens.

Anyone you ask, even 5 year old girls playing hopscotch, will spout at you the universally acknowledged rule that if someone goes into the back of your car then it is the other party’s fault for not being aware of the vehicle in front of them and for not allowing them enough room. It seems that the only people in the country unaware of this rule of the road are my insurance company. 

And why is it that the other party always has a far more aggressive and pro-active solicitor?! I was getting letters within a day of the accident from his solicitors while my insurance company hadn’t even opened my envelope.

Like sitting next to the class swot at school who covers up all his work, even when all you are doing is drawing pictures, insurance companies won’t even tell you what they have written to the other party on your behalf, let alone allow you to have a copy of any correspondence. You have no idea whether behind your back they are actually saying to the other side, “Well yes she is a daft woman and they do tend to be all scatterbrained and they do their lipstick while they are driving and they get distracted by thinking about kittens and flower arrangements and between you and me mate I’m sure that we can just tell her that there is a new law against pulling over to the right hand side of the road while indicating and that will be that and we can send her on her paranoid way.”

I do wonder what the journey to and from work for someone working for an insurance company must be like. They hear all day long about accidents and circumstances and blame and then they must drive home with some kind of Terminator-like heads up display in front of their eyes, clocking every potential accident and immediately determining whose fault it would be. I do that now. Every time I am about to change lane on the motorway; If the person to my left pulls out in front of me suddenly without indicating would it be my fault if I went into the back of them?! I find myself dropping back and slowing down as I ponder this, and then 10 people pull in front of me from all sides like a display troupe of evil knievels because I am driving so slowly.

So nothing is resolved but I have certainly learnt a great deal from all of this…

Before even speaking to the other party and asking if they are alright (be careful this may be seen as an admission of guilt/responsibility) get your camera out, take photos of the scene exactly as it is, every angle, don’t give a toss about manners and good British behaviour in such a situation and think beyond this to the letters that you are going to be dealing with from this person’s solicitor. 

Grab any witnesses and cling onto them with a death grip – they may the deciding factor in whether you keep your no claims bonus next year.

Have a dictaphone concealed and ready to go at all times so that you can ask the other party what happened, with a bit of luck the shock will mean that their lying instinct hasn’t yet kicked in and you will record some truth. If they are being cut out of the car by the fire brigade perhaps wait five minutes before questioning them.

If the police turn up don’t just take the form that they fill out giving the other party’s details without examining it very carefully – mine had the wrong name given, the wrong home address and the policeman wrote his own name and ID number as legibly as if he was on a bouncy castle. 

Along with this, take everything they say with an enormous pinch of salt. They told me that of course it was the biker’s fault, thus reassuring me hugely. They had just come over after talking to the biker and they had probably told him the exact opposite to keep him happy too.

It takes me right back to childhood. My friend and I at about age 8 were both besotted with an older boy who we followed around every playtime doing handstands in front of to show him our knickers and racing past him to show just how fast we could run. One day we plucked up the courage to ask him which of us he liked best…..

He said he would tell us but he had to tell us separately, he placed us at diagonally opposite ends of the netball court, he then whispered in my friend’s ear, told her to stay there, walked achingly slowly over to me and whispered in my ear. He then removed himself from the diagonal – We two girls sprinted for our lives to each other, joy all over our faces, “He likes me best!!!” We both said in unison before our chubby little faces fell and we turned to see him creased up in hysterics with all his mates, mocking us. We both growled like hateful moggies before sprinting towards him, virgin socked legs and Mary Jane shoed feet ready to kick his gorgeous, evil shins to bits.