w261w261
06-30-2005, 05:35 PM
Last weekend my 15 year old son and I drove from CT to WV to buy fireworks. While we were there I got a little too close to a big MF 18-wheeler (he decided to turn right from the middle lane at a stop sign with no warning or turn signal). I was proceeding slowly beside the trailer, and as I saw the cab cranking to the right, I realized that shortly I was going to be squashed like a bug against the wall to the right and the trailer to the left, so I threw it in reverse and tried to get away to the rear. The tire of the trailer rubbed up against the left front of the car, pushing the side mirror all the way forward (I never realized they could go that far in that direction), and wiping out my just installed JDM side marker, the left front fender, the bumper cap, and cosmetically, the driver's door. Duct tape got us home, and there was no suspension damage. When the Traveler's insurance adjuster arrived, he wanted to total the car, which he said was worth $2,100. The damage was $1,500. We had to keep it there so that the car wouldn't be totalled, forcing me to get a salvage title, reregister it, etc. He was, as I knew he would be, immune to the argument that I had just paid $500 just to have the leather on the driver's seat (Se-i) repaired, or the 2 kilobucks of suspension work done over the past year. I was just happy that first, we weren't squashed like bugs, and second, that the car survived. I would have fixed it anyway, but at some point I guess it would have had to have been parted out. Glad it wasn't this time. Oh yeah, after the trucker and his buddy in another rig who was behind us chatted up their buddy the cop, I got a ticket for failure to yield, thus putting the $500 deductible on my head. At least the fireworks are great, although it turns out I could have bought the same stuff in PA.