Followers

Wednesday 28 February 2007

Crop, Bang, Wallop...

...and the awful sound of broken glass.

There was I, merrily on my way to Diane's when it happened...
This is what my car looked like before - now it's rear-end looks a little sorry for itself :o(.

As I was saying, there I was off to Diane's via the duel carriageway (going through the 'village' at that time of the evening usually means a long wait at the level crossing) when it happened. The end of the duel carriageway joins one of those roundabout/flyover thingees so there I was sitting (stationary, still, NOT moving), indicating, perfectly positioned for taking the first exit once there was a gap in the traffic when BANG!!! and the sound of lots of broken glass.

Now I don't say that I ever want things like this to happen but if they must, why is it when it is raining that fine yukky drizzle???

Engine off, Hazard lights on, get out of car...GET SOAKED!!!

The car behind me didn't look too good (that was the source of the broken glass sound) but luckily the damage to my car seemed to be mainly to the bumper - no broken lights (yeh). The other car was occupied by four lads, only the driver got out and he seemed to be really sorry for what he had done (I don't think he was speeding otherwise I would have been shunted onto the roundabout, I think it was more a case of not really paying attention and misjudging his stopping distance in the wet conditions).

Details exchanged and on our respective ways...

Didn't get much scrapping done as I spent most of the time on the mobile notifying insurers etc. Can I just say that Royal Sun Alliance are to be congratulated, initial contact was easy, the operater was very helpful and they had the car hire folk contacting me within 20 mins to arrange for delivery of a replacement car...way to go!!!

The impact has caved the centre of the rear bumper and actually split the metal so I am informed that this technically means the car is not 'road-worthy'. It doesn't look too bad but the insurers want to check that the sub-frame hasn't been damaged.

Phonecall to work, this morning, to book a day off...

So here I am, waiting to take delivery of a replacement car and waiting for a call from the bodyshop to let me know when they can collect my car for repair.

No-one was hurt and cars are only 'things' but it's still a pain in the rear...no pun intended :o)

4 comments:

Chrissie said...

Ouch!

Glad you weren't hurt or anything. I had that happen to me once (in London) as I was sitting behind 4 other cars at a traffic light, and some dork brain went into the back of me at 20-30mph because he was wiping a fly off his windscreen and not looking what was ahead. I went into the back of the car in front of me, who went into the back of the car in front of it...etc. etc. etc.

I had bad whiplash and was in shock and (the worst bit) the police just gave me all my stuff in the car in carrierbags and pointed me in the direction of the tube station. I was in some forsaken suburb of London (couldn't tell you where for love nor money) and was only 18 and had about 10 bags of stuff. It was a nightmare trying to walk/tube/train home.

Stupid beggars.

If it happened now I'd insist that someone HELP ME!!!!! What they get away with when you're only a kid eh?

Anyway...back to you (LOL). Hope the car gets sorted soon and all that. Damn the excess, that's what I say!

misteejay said...

Thanks Chrissie, I'm fine and there's nothing wrong with the car that can't be fixed.

Whiplash, yuk, had a spell of that about 12 yrs ago after an 'argument' with a tipper lorry. For some reason he was most put out that I was in a central reservation waiting to turn right when he wanted to race down the middle of the road...but that's another story...>:o

Nicola said...

oh glad to hear your ok sorry the car is not so well off.

caroline said...

i`m glad your not hurt.
i think my wort prang, was in my dads driveway, when i forgot my nans nurse was there( i had just walked past the car, very short attention span)and ended up reversing back into her car!!thankfully she was alright about it, but she wasn`t having a good day as she had just been bitten by our friendly squirral:(