Car damage
Today, as I was driving to register for a CHL class, I sat with a bunch of other cars waiting for a train to clear the intersection. I was heading east on Plano Parkway, on the overpass above Hwy 75, facing the northbound service road intersection, preparing to turn left onto the service road.
Once the train passed and everyone got giddy with newfound freedom, two cars simply could not wait for me to turn during my green "protected turn" arrow, and decided to turn right int front of me. The service road at that point had three lanes, so the U-turn car turned into the inside lane, the westbound car turned into the outside lane, and I turned into the middle one. I was behind them by about half a carlength, so we formed a V. For two seconds everything was good. Then I noticed that both cars are simultaneously creeping into my lane. (A diagram to aid understanding.)
I honked, slammed on my brakes, and-I thought-barely missed being crushed by them both. The car to my right, shocked by the discovery of a car already in its new lane, quickly aborted the maneuver and darted into the Olive Garden parking lot. The car to my left, similarly aghast, veered out of the lane, almost collided with the edge of the road (its lane was apparently closing right then), sped up, entered into my lane (with a blinker this time), then hopped onto the freeway ramp. I saw a small kid in the back seat glance at me.
I didn't feel any impact and decided that there is no reason to stop, especially seeing that one car already politely departed. When I arrived at my destination, though, I saw some very minor damage. The bumper isn't even misshapen-just either lacks paint or the other car's paint is very firmly etched into it. Either way, I cannot scrape it off with a wet sponge. :-)
The Plano police said that there is no reason to file a report if I don't intend to file an insurance claim. This is my car's third occurrence of damage. The first was Jeff's big ass deciding to test the alarm and making a large round dent, and the second (which is also visible in the photo above) was me overestimating the distance to a light pole. This is the first battle scar, and hopefully the last for a while.
Once the train passed and everyone got giddy with newfound freedom, two cars simply could not wait for me to turn during my green "protected turn" arrow, and decided to turn right int front of me. The service road at that point had three lanes, so the U-turn car turned into the inside lane, the westbound car turned into the outside lane, and I turned into the middle one. I was behind them by about half a carlength, so we formed a V. For two seconds everything was good. Then I noticed that both cars are simultaneously creeping into my lane. (A diagram to aid understanding.)
I honked, slammed on my brakes, and-I thought-barely missed being crushed by them both. The car to my right, shocked by the discovery of a car already in its new lane, quickly aborted the maneuver and darted into the Olive Garden parking lot. The car to my left, similarly aghast, veered out of the lane, almost collided with the edge of the road (its lane was apparently closing right then), sped up, entered into my lane (with a blinker this time), then hopped onto the freeway ramp. I saw a small kid in the back seat glance at me.
I didn't feel any impact and decided that there is no reason to stop, especially seeing that one car already politely departed. When I arrived at my destination, though, I saw some very minor damage. The bumper isn't even misshapen-just either lacks paint or the other car's paint is very firmly etched into it. Either way, I cannot scrape it off with a wet sponge. :-)
The Plano police said that there is no reason to file a report if I don't intend to file an insurance claim. This is my car's third occurrence of damage. The first was Jeff's big ass deciding to test the alarm and making a large round dent, and the second (which is also visible in the photo above) was me overestimating the distance to a light pole. This is the first battle scar, and hopefully the last for a while.