So, after we returned from France, two of my girlfriends and I headed to Bicester for a day of shopping. It was a lovely day and after they had each taken a child or two of mine, I gratefully bought them lunch.
We had left our cars at the school. When we got back from shopping, I saw what I suspected. I had left my keys in the car. Worse yet, they were in the ignition and yes, my car was dead. Thankfully, one of the ever so helpful groundsmen grabbed the school's battery charger and charged it for me.
The next morning on my way into school, I broke my passenger side mirror. It hit another car's mirror, mine broke, theirs did not...
Then later that week, as i was traveling to the grocery, the white van in front of me kicked up a stone and put a crack in the wind screen.
All the while I was driving around, I was feeling a growing amount of anxiety. In my nightmares, I kept hearing the sickening crunch of a car being hit. Then on top of it with all these things happening, I was definitely a nervous cautious driver. Around the 10 December, I was one of many that witnessed an accident. After that, my anxiety calmed down and the crunching noises stopped.
Of course all this is now irrelevant. Last Friday, 21 December, I was in a car accident. I was driving down a rather straight run of road when a lady who was trying to cross traffic and turn to go the opposite way down the road hit me. I tried to stop, but there wasn't any time. She hit my little Skoda right in the passenger side tire. The tire was shredded, the axel bent and something under the car was leaking.
Liam was with me, we were on out way to for him to finish his Christmas shopping. Thankfully we were both fine. The lady that hit me was in hysterics. I tried to talk to her as did a helpful passerby to no avail. So, an ambulance was called along with the police. My car was in the center of the road and not moveable. Her car was blocking one lane of traffic. Two nice gentleman helped direct traffic until the police arrived.
I had a witness give me her information as she saw the lady hit me. Soon Sean showed up to get Liam out of the car as I made phone calls and talked to the police. Accidents are handled differently here. Police generally do not get involved unless the ambulance is called or they need to be around to direct traffic (which both happened in my case).
The lady did not end up leaving with the ambulance. She had family show up. They managed to get her relatively calm. Then when she saw Liam get out of the car, she started screaming again. It was annoying, to say the least. Especially after we determined that she was not hurt.
I ended up giving my account to the police officer. One thing that he asked me (that threw me for a loop) was "would I be willing to witness if they persecuted". I was like "What?"???? I asked them for patience, as I was American (which he knew because of my license), and I asked him to explain. So, apparently all they wanted to know was that if she had broken any laws and that they had to charge her, would I be willing to come into court and be a witness. So, I agreed, that yes I would. In this case, she was not going to be charged anyway. The police filed a report and the insurance companies are left to figure out the rest.
I had some initial back soreness, but it was gone by the next morning. The insurance company has been really consistent in calling to make sure that Liam is ok. He had on a very thick fleece gap sweatshirt that protected him from the seatbelt. He was also relaxed when it happened as I did not warn him of the impending accident.
I was informed yesterday, that my Skoda aka the Tincan is a erote off. Meaning that the damage is greater then the worth of the car. I am not waiting for my ‘hire car’ to come though. I have also started looking for a new car. I am still waiting on a settlement offer. I have to admit that I am not looking forward to going through this process. As it happens, this does not come at good time in life. But then again, I have never known a car accident to happen at a ‘good’ time!
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