Well, I found a recent inquiry into getting a different auto insurance
policy to be, ah, shall we say, "enlightening" I still have my current
policy which doesn't take that particular weirdness into account, but
anyhoo, check this out.
One of the reasons the potential new insurer had for rejecting us from the
preferred rate was an accident my wife had in September 2004. This
insurance company, rather than using the CLUE reports (which have their own
problems), go into a DMV driver's history.
Huh?! What accident? Something like that isn't something you just
casually forget.
So we call the DMV, get the name of the town (it's the same town as the
school district my wife used to work at), and so we get the report.
Oh, yes, now the memories come back. But why on earth did the officer
write an accident report for THIS incident?!
Keep in mind my perception may be skewed. Once, in college, a fellow
student ran out in front of me from between two stopped cars in traffic
(not anywhere near a crosswalk). I hit him hard enough to flip him over
and land him on his back. However, he insisted I was fine, and only
reluctantly stayed to exchange information with me, and when he was about
to leave, police showed up, repeat info exchange, and the officer was going
to call an ambulance.
"Nah, I'm ok, I don't want to miss this class."
"Uh, are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Well, ok, uh, well, um, in that case I'm not going to write up an accident
report. I'll just put in an entry on the night's incident sheet."
So, somebody who landed on the pavement, and no accident report because he
was unhurt.
Ok, back to the present now. My wife's accident was that she hit a student
on a bicycle. Now, as awful as that sounds, here's the circumstances.
1) The student was a high-schooler riding in an elementary school parking
lot on his bicycle.
2) Hugging near the parking-lot-line, shielded by two SUVs
3) The wrong way on a one-way street.
4) My wife put the car in drive, and had traveled a total of 12-inches when
she hit the cyclist. Never got her foot to the gas pedal.
5) The kid was knocked down, picked himself and his bike up, and took off.
My wife was only able to get a first name.
When she went into the school and mentioned it to the principal, the
principal said "Don't worry about it."
However, when she called me and told me, I told her to immediately get the
police. The *last* thing we need is this kid remembering the car and
license plate, and then his parents being the first ones to the police,
deciding that they might have a big settlement coming.
Well, she followed my advice, and the report, I believe, still lists things
as "pending". Neither the kid nor his family ever contacted police.
So I guess my confusion is, why was a full blown accident report written up
at all, and why was it submitted to the DMV if there was no actual second
party (well, the first name my wife got from the kid is written in,
followed by a question mark)?
Or was it that the one back when I was in college did wrong by not writing
a full accident report, and thus hopelessly skewing my perception?
Anyhoo, I know the insurance company said to submit the report, and any
accompanying explanation, so that our insurance application will be
reevaluated. It's not a big deal, it just strikes me as exceptionally
strange. Not like alien-abduction strange or anything, but just sorta weird.
Well, in any case, thus the subject-line I used.
- Joe Vahabzadeh
