Getting2Work

If you drive, the odds are against you in getting involved in an accident.  Last Monday, after my now normal 2 hours commute, I got off the freeway and coasted down the off ramp.  Almost home I thought with a sigh of relief.  The off ramp that I always take spreads out to 2 lanes.  I stay on the right lane since I have to make a right turn on the first cross road which comes up pretty quickly.  On the left lane was a big white SUV and was blocking my view of any oncoming cars.  I inched out to see if I could see around the big SUV.  Well, no luck there!  Sometimes I am not sure if people are mean or just a natural reaction.  I swear as I inched out, so did that SUV.  Sitting up so high and being on the left lane, it really didn’t need to get out that far to see oncoming traffic.  But … whatever … I guess I’ll just have to wait till it moved out of the way.  I am almost done with my commute, I could wait another minute or so until a big bang sounded and I felt something slammed into my car.  I was shocked but realized that the car behind me had just hit me.  We pulled over to the parking lot right next to the off ramp.

The young lady that hit me, thought that since the big SUV was moving out, assumed that I would do the same thing.  Well …. BAD ASSUMPTION!!!! One never assumes anything.  I guess she had never heard of what “assume” stands for!!!  The only situation when one would consider pulling because another vehicle is blocking the oncoming traffic is if that vehicle was a semi-truck.  The time it takes for a semi to pull out into street traffic is a lot longer than it will take for a regular car to pull out.

I called my husband and he had showed up as we were finishing up exchanging information.  There was no injury and no major damages to the cars.  The young lady’s car did hit me hard enough and left an imprint of her license plate and it’s 4 bolts on my rear bumper.  There were also some slight stress marks on my bumper.  Typical of many young people who are equipped with phones with camera, this young lady was no different.  So she took some photos of my bumper with her phone camera.  Not really sure if the photos would show enough details because it was very dark in that parking lot and the flash really was not much help.  Anyway, I suppose she’s figured that in case I would claim more damage than there really was or that I would add other damages (which I had none and keeping my fingers crossed that I won’t have any others) that was not caused by her incident.  I don’t blame her.  After all she doesn’t know me, nor do I her.  As we were leaving, a guy from one of the business told us that that is a horrible ramp and I was the second incident that day.

So I called my insurance company the next day to report the incident.  The gentleman that answered my call was very good and took all the information I had and reassured me that there’s nothing to worry because any other information that I do not have, they will be able to find.  I must had taken down more than he needed because I had asked him, “I have this info and that info, don’t you need that?”  So I gave him all that I took down and described the events to him.  He gave me my claim number, adjuster name, appraiser etc. and what to do and expected.  I thought so far not too bad.  The next day I got a call from a lady who said she was my adjuster.  I thought it was interesting since that was not the name the gentleman gave me.  No problem … I called this other person and just let her know what info I had already given and see what else she needed.  Well, she was out to lunch when I called but her co-worker looked at my claim and said all the information was there.  When I got home that night, I found that Lizzy (my new adjuster) had left a message again.  What the $#%@?  Didn’t her co-worker left her a note?

I called again the next day and again another co-worker answered instead of Lizzy.  This lady told me that if Lizzy was already on the line with another person, her phone would be transferred.  So I took the opportunity to ask this lady more about the deductible and the process.  This is what I found out from her … if I had wanted to go with my own insurance company, I would have to pay the deductible while my insurance company would pay for the difference.  My insurance will refund my deductible only if the other party’s insurance company accept the liability.  But if I don’t want to pay out of my own pocket, I was to contact the other party’s insurance and deal with them myself.  Oh and of course the other insurance company will want to use their own appraiser.  Also if the other party’s insurance company does not accept liability, I (myself) can take them to small claims court.

So I can’t help but think and did ask the little lady on the phone … I pay the insurance company all this money and I have to do all the work?  Oh no, my insurance company will handle things if the other party is uninsured.  Wow, glad to hear that they will actually do something other than raising the rates.

I guess everyone else knows all the details about what to do after any accident and all the claim processes.  I am the only one on this earth that did not know this.  If I had not decided to call again AND AGAIN even though the first and the second person I had talked to told me that they had all the information and told me what I had to do, I would not have known these other details.  Then I got in my mail all these forms from my assigned adjuster, Lizzy to fill out because she hadn’t been able to reach me!!!!!!  SHE HADN’T BEEN ABLE TO REACH ME?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  How about the other way around!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Call me an impatient person or whatever.  I expect my insurance company to give me all the details and lay out the steps and processes the first time I call them instead of a little more detail each time I call them back.  Give the information to the person as if that person does not know any of the process and it’s their first time.  Let the person tell you that they know this part or that part of the process.  Or how about doing the work dealing with the other party’s insurance.  I guess I’ve been lucky that I’ve driven so long that this is the first time I actually have to go through this.  Just think this is a very minor incident, can’t imagine if this is a major one.

Of course this is still not over.  Let me count my blessings so I can continue to deal with this …

1. no personal injuries
2. it did not happen ON the freeway going 70 mph
3. my car was not sandwiched so there’s only damage in the rear
4. my car was not pushed hard enough into oncoming traffic and possibly got broad sided beside rear-ended
5. did not have another accident the rest of the way home!

Got back to regular routine started yesterday. Monday’s drive was very easy. No problem on the way down (usually no problem in such early hour - 5 am) and no problem on the way home either. But then it was Monday. And Monday traffic is usually the best.

Tuesday is usually not bad either. But this morning there were quite a few maniacs on the road. Three times I had to break or slow down because some car/truck had to speed up on my right side (no, I was not driving in lane one) and cut in front of me or hit the car on his/her lane. Good thing I do pay attention while I drive so I could see and hear them zoom up. Knowing that between the choice of breaking hard to avoid rear ending the car in his own lane or cut in front of me, I know they always choose to cut in into my lane. I am not a mean driver either (remember the objective of being on the road - get to my destination without causing an accident or being in one) so I always let them in. Well, got to work in the usual time, so no big!

I had a mid-afternoon meeting and there were a few unpleasant surprises but it still ended around 4pm. So I wrapped things up and signed out right after the meeting. On my way out one of my team mates caught up with me and needed to talk. He wasn’t leaving yet, so he walked me out to my car while we talked. I totally understand his need to talk because a lot of the unpleasant surprises was directed to him as if it was his fault. It wasn’t! Anyway, I finally got on the road and it was traffic was moving ok. Then hit the usual slow down by the LAX airport but still inching along. As I go through the Sepulveda Pass, I make my move to the right lane right before we get to the down hill transition to the 101 freeway. There were a line of cars driving kind of close together that I wasn’t able to get over to the furthest right lane. I stayed in lane 5 as we crest and saw nothing but red tail lights. Not a good sign! Then I looked up and saw three helicopters above. Definitely not a good sign! Thought we were going slow by the airport, we were crwaling. Fire and paramedic trucks passed by the packed cars on the right shoulder. Luckily there is shoulder on this stretch of road. I couldn’t see what was ahead and didn’t know how far ahead the accident was. Finally saw the police and the flares. 4 right lanes were blocked off and I was on the 3rd lane from the right. So along with all the cars to my right I had to move one lane over. I was trying to merge carefully, so all I could see was a motorcycle down. The rest was blocked by some toll truck. I hate seeing motorcycles down because they had no protection. I reminded myself not to rubber neck and pay attention to traffic. As soon as the road is freed up, people goes crazy trying to catch up with loss time or something.
Since I didn’t see how bad the accident was, I logged on and hit Sigalert.com … The following was posted at the Sigalert site.

Mc in Lanes-Fell Under Truck 5:33 PM
Message/Item Delivered to LA Fire Department 5:34 PM
4 Vehicles to Right Shoulder 5:37 PM
Off Duty LASO On Scene, not Involved D, But Advise G Possible Fatality 5:43 PM
404-1, 2, 3, 4 Lanes Blocked Per 404 5:43 PM
North 405 Just South of Ventura Believes Possible Fatality Per Fsp} 5:43 PM
Sigalert Issued on the Blue 5:48 PM
404-1, 2, 3, 4 Lanes Blocked for Unknown Duration-Please Issue Sigalert

I am so glad I was being patient and didn’t swear under my breath about some idiot holding up the traffic. “Possible Fatality” … what’s an extra 45 minutes of being in traffic.