Friday, December 09, 2005

Hit and "One cheeseburger to go, please."

Click to enlargeChristy was in a minor traffic accident on Tuesday this week.

She's OK. A little shaken up, but who wouldn't be? As you can see, the car took a pretty good jolt to the right rear door.

We're waiting to get the official accident report so that we can get necessary repairs taken care of properly, but here's what happened:

Christy was going through an intersection on green when a little old lady ran a red light and collided with her passenger side rear door. Christy tried to swerve to avoid the collision, but couldn't. Once she was able to clear the intersection and get off the road, the little old lady was nowhere to be found.

What happened next put this recent McDonald's ad campaign into a whole new light for me:

Fortunately, there was a very cooperative witness who was directly behind Christy when the accident occurred. The witness noticed that the little old lady wasn't stopping, so she followed her. Where, you ask? Well, let me tell you: to the McDonald's Drive-Thru! The McDonalds is located right at the intersection where the crash was, so she pulled in, and got in line. The witness stopped long enough to get her license plate number and then went back to where Christy had stopped and gave her the information. When the police arrived, Christy and the witness told them what had happened and they went over to the McDonalds and found the little old lady in a parking spot eating her lunch!

A little advice from me to you: if you ever find yourself in this situation, when the police officer comes up to your car and asks about what happened, don't ask, "How did you find me?" More advice: don't put yourself between little old ladies and a nearby McDonalds. This is now the definition of "in harm's way."

Apparently, the rest of the conversation involved her trying to deny involvement and say that her car wasn't damaged, when, in fact, it obviously was. Then, she said something about being worried about her insurance rates going up, etc.

I guess you could call it a "hit and run," -- she just didn't run very far. I really don't know whether she was or will be charged with leaving the scene, but it seems like she should be. We were very thankful for the witness who not only followed the other driver and got her license plate number, but also stuck around to talk to the police. Without the witness, it might have just ended up being a typical hit and run. At best, it would have been one person's word against another's about what color the light was.

The main thing is nobody was hurt, so we're also thankful for that.

It may put a glitch in our plans to travel to Michigan for Christmas. It depends on how quickly repairs can be made or if we can get a rental without mileage restrictions. We'll just hope for the best. 'Tis the season!

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