My first car accident!

I had my first ever car accident on June 23rd a few weeks ago. I was sitting on the Queensway stopped in a traffic jam, the last car in a line of of 100 or so backed up from St-Laurent. The whole roadway had been empty when I merged and got into my lane, which I thought was pretty unusual. I had looked back and saw a car a football field and a half away, but then I saw the big line up of cars sitting at a standstill 200m ahead. I braked to a nice slow stop about 2 meters from an SUV, was sitting there for 3 or 4 seconds when I heard the squeal of tires locking up.
I distinctly remember saying "Oh No" out loud and was creamed from behind at a standstill by some nice lady from Cornwall going 100km and propelled forward into an SUV and bounced back a few meters. The SUV's bumper was so high and my 2007 Honda Civic's bumper so low I ended up scooping under the truck's behind snapping it's spare tire off. No air bag went off in my car (which is probably good, I hear it's like getting punched by Mike Tyson), maybe because my front bumper was not impacted directly. The SUV's rear end did end up pushing my radiator and engine and a whole bunch of other crap inwards into the engine compartment a few feet.

When I came to a stop there was all kinds of hissing and wacky smells leaking into the cab of the car, rad fluid, air conditioner crap, windshield wiper fluid, just about everything. I shut the car off in park, popped the seat belt (which felt like it had become embedded in parts of my body), stumbled out and looked around. The lady that hit me and the lady I hit were out of their cars and no one looked hurt. I called 911 and then went over to meet the new Friends I had just made. 911 told us to move our cars off to the side of the road if they were drivable. I told them everyone seemed ok so they didn't bother to send an ambulance (oddly enough as soon as I hung up, the adrenaline wore off and my neck, leg and chest started to hurt like a sonofabitch!)

The lady that hit me said my lights came up at the last minute very fast and she had no time to brake. I nodded at this crap and didn't say anything because I had been sitting at a complete stop listening to John Frickin Mayer on my Ipod for 3 or 4 seconds before she realized that me and the other 100 cars were actually not moving at all on this particular stretch of highway. What's that following rule? 2 seconds? Whatever. No one's hurt, I'll just write out my version in the police report.

After I moved my car out of the way I stopped traffic (you take your life into your own hands when you try this, most people are morons) and some idiot in a sports car honked and tried to pass me on the shoulder where our cars were parked (there wasn't enough room). I was trying to grab the huge spare tire from the SUV which was still sitting in the middle of the road which Mr sports car was about to drive over. He yelled something at me and I hefted the tire up out of the way so he could see what I was doing (which was stupid because it hurt to lift it) and he waved a thanks and sped off to try and run over someone else on his way to work. For some reason I thought the tire may be mine and I wheeled it over to compare sizes, but it was much too big. So I looked at the SUV and the light bulb went off (maybe I should have asked for that ambulance!(grin)

There was an OPP on the scene immediately but they were not the responding officers, they were on their way to pick up some prisoner and stopped to assist. Right at this time three tow trucks swooped in out of nowhere and almost caused a 2nd accident trying to maneuver themselves in front of our smashed cars. These guys were from Gervais towing. Tow Trucking is very vulturous because they only get paid if they tow you. If two companies show up they all try to reverse into position in front of your car so they get the tow. They leap out of their frickin trucks and try to talk you into hooking your car up right away even before the cops get there (I guess they thought the cops that stopped to help had already surveyed the scene). The cop that stopped to help out went over to yell at all of the tow truck drivers for being idiots trying to reverse on a highway in the passing lane trying to get the tow and came back to advise us not to let them tow us until the assigned responding officers got there and took down the details of the scene. He also advised us to call our insurance companies to make sure they dealt with this particular towing company.

I had to ^$*& shoo the guy off of my car as he had his hook out and was on his hands and knees trying to see what was left of my car to attach it too. VULTURES!

The other cops showed up, took my report, talked a lot with the lady that hit me and charged her with something. I didn't get a copy of the report because the lead cop said "You don't need it" and poked a thumb back at the lady "She's gonna need it.".

That was good news. I didn't have to pay a $500 deductible! My insurance company was very good, they even had a car rental waiting for me next door from the body shop I towed it to(there's an Enterprise Rental place next to CARSTAR. Good thinking there). It was kind of funny that from where I got smashed up, I could clearly see this body shop across a field real close to us. I decided to go there.

So the car is a total write off. My neck and leg are kinda back to normal. I had a few seat belt bruises that impressed the kids and I also have something that makes a clicking sound in my chest sometimes when I move a certain way near the sternum that I'm gonna have looked at soon. I can't do a push up yet or lift anything with my arms held out. I'm told this is normal when you total your car.

Hey, any accident that you can walk away from is a good one! We just bought a new car this week, a 2009 Honda Civic in a better color with amazing 0.09% financing for 5 years. That's one good thing to come of this.

I'm having a few problems with the insurance company and Honda Financing as I write this, but that's another Blog posting!(grin)