Post by RoadRunnerIf the above statement is true (that you have been in loads of
accidents) I am surprised you can can anyone to insure you.
I'm Step 9.
They happen less frequently than they used to, but they happen.
Since they're matters of public record:
==> c. 1966, I was in the front seat of my father's Monterey, in one of
those booster seats with a steering wheel (like Maggie Simpson's). He
hit something or someone's car or something. That booster wouldn't
count today.
==> c. 1977, I was in the front passenger seat of my father's car
(probably the New Yorker, could have been the LeSabre) northbound on
I-684 in a snowstorm, he rear-ended a car that was stalled in the left
lane, which somehow got that car started, which was a good thing.
==> c. 1981, I rear-ended someone with my father's car in Westchester
Square, in the northeast Bronx.
==> c. 1982, I met someone by accident in the middle of the
intersection of Winthrop Street and Dunster Street, Harvard Sq, which
was then uncontrolled, since then it has a stop sign, again my father's
New Yorker
==> Dumped a motorcycle about 3 times, but seatbelts aren't an issue;
same thing with two significant bike-car incidents (illegal left turn,
my bad; door prize, his bad), and rear-ended without damage once each
bicycle and motorcycle, early 1980s.
==> c. 1982 I clipped a parked vehicle with the back of a shuttle bus
==> Another shuttle bus accident I think - I remember filling out the
form
==> (Plus the time I totally screwed up and followed too closely some
guy with lumber out the back of his truck, and touched it, right after
he'd told me I was following too closely. Whoops.)
==> c. 1983 I clipped another car at the Whitestone Drive-in, again
with my father's car. We pooled our cash and gave the guy like $50. I
also got my father's car stuck in the mud at Ferry Point Park (under
development) and had to get towed out. Thereafter I had my own car :-S
==> c. 1983 I drove a Buick Electra into the backseat of a Toyota whose
operator assumed she had a protected left turn. Arguably I had last
clear chance to avoid it. This was Bartow Avenue, heading eastbound
under I-95 in the Bronx. A little baling wire and my grille was back
like new.
==> c. 1983 I spun the Electra on the highway from Boston to New York
in a blizzard, and bounced off a handy snow bank
==> I've spun the Firebird twice I think, around 1985, once
single-vehicle, once on I-84 or so when just as I was passing a truck
the guy drafting the truck, who was operating on a learner's permit,
decided it would be a good time to pass it.
==> c. 1985 I was getting on I-95 NB at Connors St, in the Bronx, and
somebody getting off went through his stop sign and
clipped my left quarter, again the Firebird
==> December 23, 1985 on Northern Boulevard in Nassau County in the
Firebird, my version: the car in front of me rear-ended the car in
front of it which had stopped to make a left turn; her version: the car
in front of me stopped suddenly and would have avoided hitting the car
in front of it but that I came along and hit it
==> 1987, Lexington St, Waltham, at Trapelo Road, once again the
Firebird, I collided with with a car that was being driven from the
strip mall across Lexington St to the liquor store
==> 1998, I-84, Boston to New York, I was in the #3 (left) lane, a car
in the #3 lane was stopped, the car behind that car swerved into the #2
(middle) lane, I slowed down, a car that had been in the #2 lane
swerved into the #3 lane to avoid that car and rear-ended me (Firebird)
==> c. 1989 I backed into the grille of my wife's Escort while parking.
I can't recall any other reportable accidents (not counting the
time the UPS truck clipped my pickup which was parked, or the time
someone backed a pickup into the Firebird at the Thunderbird Motel in
Yarmouth) until 1998, but I'm probably forgetting something. That
means the other pickup, the DeVille, the CJ-5, the Delta 88 were all
unscathed. That doesn't seem right.
==> c. 1998, on Mall Road, Burlington, the operator of the car behind
me honked, so I slowed down to avoid whatever hazard she saw that I
hadn't, and she rear-ended me. I was in my wife's car, but we didn't
bother reporting the accident.
==>1999, Arlington, Mystic St was detoured onto Old Mystic St for
paving. Coming southbound I stopped at the stop sign for re-entering
new Mystic St, the operator behind me expected that I wouldn't stop,
and rear-ended me. I got a whiplash out of that one, but I don't think
a seatbelt would have helped, it was about getting slammed while I was
looking over my left shoulder for merging traffic.
==> February 2002, I was a passenger in the Escort, my wife clipped
another vehicle's quarter panel pulling into a parking space. She
avoided a surcharge because the damage was just under $500.
==> October 2003. I was on the Leverett downramp to Storrow in the left
lane, about to enter the little tunnel after inching forward for about
10 minutes, a much more important person came down the right lane, and
instead of using the surface connection, crossed the right branch of
the left lane, and attempted to drive through my front right fender. I
was going to let it go, but she telephoned the cops who pulled me over
10 minutes and a 1/4 mile later, so we exchanged papers, and I
collected a settlement.
==> November 8, 2004, a wheel chock fell off the back of a truck on
Washington St, Woburn (at the Winchester line.) The SUV in front of me
drove over it, my Fiero has a lot less ground clearance and I hit it.
I'd say that counts as "loads".
I'd love to use public transportation, but there isn't any (at all
usually, reliably the other times) between where I live and where I
work.
--
- David Chesler <***@post.harvard.edu>
Iacta alea est