My Jetta is a magnet to people and not in a good way. Yesterday morning I was rear-ended while sitting at a stop-light. The woman who hit my car had stopped behind me and we were sitting there for awhile so when she rammed me it was completely unexpected. The light was still red, in fact! Joe suspects she was leaning over to retrieve something when he foot slipped off the brake and onto the gas. From the way she explained it, her foot got caught.
After her car bounced off mine, we both got out to check our cars and I asked, “what happened?” I initially thought she was rear-ended and pushed into me until she explained what she did. She was very apologetic and we moved to the gas station across the street to exchange info. I took the woman’s name and insurance info, but forgot to get her license plate # because I am no good under these type of situations. I even called Joe to ask what I should do. How embarrassing, acting like a helpless housewife which I am not like at all!
Luckily there isn’t a lot of damage to my bumper so I didn’t feel it necessary to call the police. Joe had me check the car more thoroughly once I got to work and all the doors are still aligned properly and the bumped isn’t pushed in, there’s just a spot really low where the paint was missing and a small dent. )Also some scratches I didn’t notice until Joe pointed them out when I got home from work.)
When I got to work my coworker suggested I call the police station to report what happened but the officer was a total jerk and advised me in a very unfriendly manner that they don’t take one-sided reports and I would need to come to the station with the woman and our cars to file a report. So whatever. I feel lucky I haven’t been in any major car accidents. All three times I’ve been rear-ended it felt pretty rough even though it was nothing in the grand scheme of things. Twice now the damage was slim to none except the last time when my bumper was pushed in and my tail light was broken. So I’m thankful it wasn’t worse. I finally calmed down a few hours after arriving to work. It was just a shock to my system and I couldn’t think straight.
I told Joe we could take the car in and get an estimate to get the bumper repaired but he didn’t want to deal with the aggravation so I guess that woman should feel lucky we’re not greedy. It does bug me to have dings and whatnot on my car that I haven’t caused, but it’s been like that from the beginning – the very first week I had the car someone in a white car left me some of their paint on the passenger side door. My trunk was keyed once too. Yay! All in all, the car still looks pretty damn good after seven years and I’m going to run that thing into the ground.
But people of the world, please leave my poor Jetta alone!
Sorry you were hit! I don’t always think clearly in those types of situations, either. The one time I was rear ended, I couldn’t find a pen to write down the woman’s information and I swear, for a second, I thought she was going to refuse to let me use hers!
You do not need both people to file a police report. Would they turn someone away in a hit and run? That officer was a jagbag and needs to get off his high horse. He gives cops a bad name.
Sorry about the accident. Hopefully everything gets resolved to your satisfaction. Keep us informed.
My Jetta was hit just a few days after I bought it. That car had so many problems anyway…ugh…so glad to not have it anymore.