A Close Call
Last night I was driving to pick up The Girl from horseback riding around 5:45. It is very cold up here right now and the roads are icy, in particular Calistoga Road, which is the one I have to travel to get to the stables. I had called Geoff to see if he could pick up The Spawn from religious school at 6:00 so I wouldn't have to feel rushed. Luckily, Geoff was on his way home from work, so he agreed to do that (which just goes to show you what a great guy he is, because ordinarily he refuses to set foot on synagogue property, but he was willing to overlook that because he was concerned about my safety!)
How ironic then that, having just concluded an exercise in prophylactic auto-safety, we were chit-chatting away about Ponzi schemes (Geoff thinks his dad might be involved in one), when suddenly he went "Whaaa!" then I heard a crash, then.... nothing. Oh boy, my heart leapt into my throat and I started calling him over and over again on the cell phone, with absolutely the worst possible scenarios running through my mind. FINALLY, he answered, and he said "I'm okay, but I've been rear-ended. Took me a minute to find my phone. I'll call you back." Then I burst into tears and we hung up. (He later apologized for upsetting me; I told you he was a Great Guy.)
Well, it turns out it was a very serious accident. A woman in a Toyota Avalon with a baby in a car seat in back made a sudden lane change into the carpool lane, cutting in front of a full-size truck towing a U-Haul. The truck driver had to swerve to avoid hitting her, totalled her car anyway, then went into the lane Geoff was in and rear-ended him at a full 65 miles an hour. Geoff's truck became airborne, turned 180-degrees plus, and he landed back on the freeway facing the wrong direction. His emergency inertial switch kicked in, which detects the impact and stops the fuel pump, thereby keeping the vehicle from exploding, but it meant he couldn't get his truck re-started, so there it sat in the middle of the freeway facing the wrong direction. It was really lucky that no other cars became involved.
I'll just tell you right now, there were no injuries, and the baby was fine. Luckily, he (the baby) was in the middle of the back seat so away from the site of the impact.
Also luckily, an ambulance happened to have been passing in the opposite direction and saw the accident occur, so they pulled over and climbed across the center divide and started directing traffic and such. When the CHP got there, they closed all the northbound lanes, re-started Geoff's truck so he could turn it around and moved all the vehicles off the road. There was glass everywhere and they kept the lanes closed so they could sweep up. It must have been a huge traffic mess. Heh, at least Geoff didn't get caught in the traffic jam!
Amazingly, Geoff's truck was still drivable, and after talking to the police for their report, he drove home, where we were all very glad to see him! In fact, the kids' responses to the incident were instructive. I often feel that deep within The Girl's heart there lies, potentially, a very dense lump of coal, but when I told her that her dad had been rear-ended, her immediate response was, "Is he okay?" Truly, I would not have been surprised if she had said instead, "Does this mean I'm going to have to miss riding lessons?" Later, when he called to tell me that if they had to tow his truck, I would have to come and pick him up, she volunteered, "That's okay, I'll stay home and make dinner and take care of Henry." Again, I expected, "I'll stay with Henry, but you have to pay me." So The Girl gets full marks for stepping up to the plate when put to the test.
When I told The Spawn, he said, "Is he in the hospital?" I told him no, no, his dad was fine. Coincidentally, the day before, we had just been discussing Pintos, so he said "It's lucky he wasn't in one of those cars from the 70s that explode when they get rear-ended." I said, yeah, and I explained about the inertial switch on the fuel pump. For the rest of the evening, he kept saying, "It was a good thing he had that switch." Poor little guy, always overthinking and catastrophizing, just like Mom.
So this morning Geoff brought the truck to the mechanic to be looked at. The right rear fender and side of the truck are completely munched. The bed of the truck is at a slight angle to the cab, and the bed also hit the cab in the impact, so it's a little munched there, too. The muffler seems to have been cracked, because it's making a funny noise. However, our auto guy didn't think that there were any serious mechanical problems.
The only thing that makes the truck non-functional is that the right taillight doesn't work, so he's going to put a trailer light on there so Geoff can still drive the truck legally while we figure out what to do. He can't keep driving the truck long term unless he replaces the truck bed portion Apparently truck beds are held on by 6 bolts, and replacements can be found in junkyards. It wouldn't be pretty, but it's an option, I guess. It might still cost more than the truck's worth. The mechanic gave us a loaner while he finishes checking it out.
The accident was the fault of the woman with the baby, and it appears that she is insured (which, based on my experience over 3 years in a personal injury attorney's office, is something of a miracle). The truck is a 1994 with 210,000 miles, so it's worthless. I bluebooked it this fall when I renegotiated our insurance, and I think it was worth around $2,500. I suspect we'll get a check for that much and maybe a little more to get us to sign a release not to sue, but it won't be enough to buy a new truck. Luckily, when I reworked our insurance this fall, I did increase our "uninsured/underinsured" coverage, so if her company flakes out, we're covered.
We're weighing our new truck options right now. It just so happens that this is a very good time to buy a Ford truck (understatement) so we're considering that, but the pressure would be on to do it before the end of the year and I'm not sure I'm prepared to move that fast. Also, our mechanic has a used Toyota truck with only 50,000 miles on it for sale for a good price, and we trust him deeply. He said he'd do all the maintenance and warrant every single aspect of it for a year. We are not "car" people - we buy practical, pay cash, and drive it until it's dead. I think we've only owned, let's see, 3 Camrys and 2 trucks in our 25 years together.
Geoff's at the doctor right now, having his neck looked at. It's a little stiff, but not significantly worse this morning than it was last night, which is a good sign. This current truck is the one we got after he was in his head-on collision in 1994! (also not his fault). After that, he couldn't even look up for about a week, so this is already much better than that.
Looking over this post, I see I used variations on the word "lucky" 6 times. So let me just add, LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY!
How ironic then that, having just concluded an exercise in prophylactic auto-safety, we were chit-chatting away about Ponzi schemes (Geoff thinks his dad might be involved in one), when suddenly he went "Whaaa!" then I heard a crash, then.... nothing. Oh boy, my heart leapt into my throat and I started calling him over and over again on the cell phone, with absolutely the worst possible scenarios running through my mind. FINALLY, he answered, and he said "I'm okay, but I've been rear-ended. Took me a minute to find my phone. I'll call you back." Then I burst into tears and we hung up. (He later apologized for upsetting me; I told you he was a Great Guy.)
Well, it turns out it was a very serious accident. A woman in a Toyota Avalon with a baby in a car seat in back made a sudden lane change into the carpool lane, cutting in front of a full-size truck towing a U-Haul. The truck driver had to swerve to avoid hitting her, totalled her car anyway, then went into the lane Geoff was in and rear-ended him at a full 65 miles an hour. Geoff's truck became airborne, turned 180-degrees plus, and he landed back on the freeway facing the wrong direction. His emergency inertial switch kicked in, which detects the impact and stops the fuel pump, thereby keeping the vehicle from exploding, but it meant he couldn't get his truck re-started, so there it sat in the middle of the freeway facing the wrong direction. It was really lucky that no other cars became involved.
I'll just tell you right now, there were no injuries, and the baby was fine. Luckily, he (the baby) was in the middle of the back seat so away from the site of the impact.
Also luckily, an ambulance happened to have been passing in the opposite direction and saw the accident occur, so they pulled over and climbed across the center divide and started directing traffic and such. When the CHP got there, they closed all the northbound lanes, re-started Geoff's truck so he could turn it around and moved all the vehicles off the road. There was glass everywhere and they kept the lanes closed so they could sweep up. It must have been a huge traffic mess. Heh, at least Geoff didn't get caught in the traffic jam!
Amazingly, Geoff's truck was still drivable, and after talking to the police for their report, he drove home, where we were all very glad to see him! In fact, the kids' responses to the incident were instructive. I often feel that deep within The Girl's heart there lies, potentially, a very dense lump of coal, but when I told her that her dad had been rear-ended, her immediate response was, "Is he okay?" Truly, I would not have been surprised if she had said instead, "Does this mean I'm going to have to miss riding lessons?" Later, when he called to tell me that if they had to tow his truck, I would have to come and pick him up, she volunteered, "That's okay, I'll stay home and make dinner and take care of Henry." Again, I expected, "I'll stay with Henry, but you have to pay me." So The Girl gets full marks for stepping up to the plate when put to the test.
When I told The Spawn, he said, "Is he in the hospital?" I told him no, no, his dad was fine. Coincidentally, the day before, we had just been discussing Pintos, so he said "It's lucky he wasn't in one of those cars from the 70s that explode when they get rear-ended." I said, yeah, and I explained about the inertial switch on the fuel pump. For the rest of the evening, he kept saying, "It was a good thing he had that switch." Poor little guy, always overthinking and catastrophizing, just like Mom.
So this morning Geoff brought the truck to the mechanic to be looked at. The right rear fender and side of the truck are completely munched. The bed of the truck is at a slight angle to the cab, and the bed also hit the cab in the impact, so it's a little munched there, too. The muffler seems to have been cracked, because it's making a funny noise. However, our auto guy didn't think that there were any serious mechanical problems.
The only thing that makes the truck non-functional is that the right taillight doesn't work, so he's going to put a trailer light on there so Geoff can still drive the truck legally while we figure out what to do. He can't keep driving the truck long term unless he replaces the truck bed portion Apparently truck beds are held on by 6 bolts, and replacements can be found in junkyards. It wouldn't be pretty, but it's an option, I guess. It might still cost more than the truck's worth. The mechanic gave us a loaner while he finishes checking it out.
The accident was the fault of the woman with the baby, and it appears that she is insured (which, based on my experience over 3 years in a personal injury attorney's office, is something of a miracle). The truck is a 1994 with 210,000 miles, so it's worthless. I bluebooked it this fall when I renegotiated our insurance, and I think it was worth around $2,500. I suspect we'll get a check for that much and maybe a little more to get us to sign a release not to sue, but it won't be enough to buy a new truck. Luckily, when I reworked our insurance this fall, I did increase our "uninsured/underinsured" coverage, so if her company flakes out, we're covered.
We're weighing our new truck options right now. It just so happens that this is a very good time to buy a Ford truck (understatement) so we're considering that, but the pressure would be on to do it before the end of the year and I'm not sure I'm prepared to move that fast. Also, our mechanic has a used Toyota truck with only 50,000 miles on it for sale for a good price, and we trust him deeply. He said he'd do all the maintenance and warrant every single aspect of it for a year. We are not "car" people - we buy practical, pay cash, and drive it until it's dead. I think we've only owned, let's see, 3 Camrys and 2 trucks in our 25 years together.
Geoff's at the doctor right now, having his neck looked at. It's a little stiff, but not significantly worse this morning than it was last night, which is a good sign. This current truck is the one we got after he was in his head-on collision in 1994! (also not his fault). After that, he couldn't even look up for about a week, so this is already much better than that.
Looking over this post, I see I used variations on the word "lucky" 6 times. So let me just add, LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY LUCKY!