As I reached to change the channel on my car radio, I suddenly
heard a noise of another sort.
BOOOOOMMMM!
I thought it was an earthquake. I screamed. My car swerved into both adjacent
lanes.
But soon I realized my car was the only one shaking, swerving. The closeness of a car in my rearview mirror
revealed I’d somehow been rear-ended on the freeway, while driving the speed
limit.
I steadied my car, thankful to be safe, while my
fight-or-flight response pondered the appropriate move. I said a quick prayer of there we no cars
immediately beside me, and began to pull over to the shoulder to assess the
damage. The car that had hit me
initially slowed down as well, and I began to think of what I was going to say
to the jerk when we exchanged insurance information.
“Excuse me, dear sir. That pedal beside the accelerator is
known as a ‘break.’ You see, it has a
use in addition to keeping the accelerator company. You can push on it if you would like your car
to slow down, or even stop altogether. For instance, you can employ it to avoid
running into the moving vehicle in front of you.
“Please be a dear and put this knowledge to use in your
future endeavors.”
That’s basically what I was going to say. Some version of
that, at least.
But I never got the chance.
As I slowed down, the car whipped in front of me and took
off.
I sped up to catch it, but it whipped in and out of traffic
with a recklessness I feared to match. I
got a quick view of the license plate and tried to set it to memory.
As I gave up on catching up to the car, I began to consider
what had happened:
What kind of person leaves the scene of accident like this?
How can anyone think this is ok? How can they live with themselves after doing
something like this? I’m going to pull over, report this to the police and make
sure they get …. Oh, crap.
What was that plate number again? It started with 5nxa…
I can’t believe I
just forgot the number. Some completely
horrible person just did untold damage to the back of my car, and neck, and
whoever it was is about to get away with it completely unscathed. This can’t be happening.
Wait, way up ahead, I see the car getting off the freeway,
apparently in hopes of leaving the trail cold and ditching me for good. Maybe
this gives me a chance…
I speed up and pull off as well. The freeway gods smile upon
me. The car is stopped at a traffic light.
The driver, at long last, has figured out the vehicle’s
braking feature.
There’s a line of cars, so I can’t see the driver clearly,
but I’ve now got his license plate. I repeat it aloud continuously, learning
from my prior mistake. The driver sees me and again starts weaving through
traffic. I follow for a while, but I’m having trouble keeping up and I’m not
sure what else I can accomplish anyway.
I pull over and call the police. After a long wait a highway
patrol office arrives. He seems more concerned about examining my insurance
card, registration and driver’s license than he does about the car that just
battered me. He quickly hands me a card
and leaves. When I told him I didn’t need an ambulance, I got the sense that he
thought I was wasting his time. He said
he would go to the address to which the car was registered, and he would follow
up.
I never heard from him again. When I calmed down enough to
look at the card he gave me, I noticed that it didn’t have his contact
information, just instructions on how to order the police report. I hope the officer
was this hard on the criminal too.
Three things struck me at that moment as indisputably true:
(1) resolving this isn’t going to be as easy as it seems like it ought to be;
(2) Between my reckless, selfish assailant, and the indifferent police officer,
people kind of suck sometimes; and (3) when I tell my parents in Alabama about
this incident, they’re going to blame it on illegal immigrants.
I was right on all counts.
I’m making progress on the first point. The police report should be arriving soon,
and I’m hoping it will included the name and address of the vehicle that I can
forward to my insurance company. I’m
assuming my uninsured motorist coverage will have to swoop in and save the day
regardless, but it’s worth a shot. The car’s been fixed, and after two weeks of
a sprained neck, physical therapy has me on the mend and trending upward.
As for the other driver, I don’t know if he escaped whatever
he was running from. Maybe he was
driving on a suspended license or was drunk and didn’t want to cops to find
out. Maybe he knew there was already a warrant out for his arrest, or that
there would soon be if he were questioned, or maybe he was already fleeing for
some other criminal act, which was why he rammed me in the first place. I hope he gets what’s coming to him, somehow.
While I don’t know what the ultimate fate of the other driver
will be, it at least appears he will not get away completely unscathed. California
has a law that all parties must promptly report any serious accident, and
provide insurance information, driver’s license numbers and license plate
information to the DMV. If one party
reports and accident and the other doesn’t, the non-reporting party can’t renew
their license plates until they provide the information.
So unless Mr.
California 5NXA833 decides to
cooperate, his reign of terror on the road won’t last too much longer.
