Goodbye Subaru Wagon......

From 7:30AM January 22nd, 2008 through 7:30AM on January 23rd, 2008, I had a really awful 24 hours. On Tuesday the 22nd, I was driving the Subaru Wagon to school. On the freeway in Oakland about 3-4 miles before my exit, I was in the 2nd lane from the left and a car, from my right, swerved into my lane. I swerved left to avoid it and the next thing I know I slam into the left side concrete barrier and then pinball off of the barrier and found myself skidding across all four lanes of traffic end up crashing into the concrete wall on the right side of the freeway at a 45° angle. Somehow, no cars hit me and I don’t believe I hit any cars. I was wearing my seatbelt and I simply got out of the car and walked around. I was completely shaken up. I was freaking out inside. I called my Dad and he answered and I literally said to him that “I didn’t want him to hang up, I just needed to have him there to talk to.” A couple minutes later the EMT shows up and asks me if I want to go to the hospital. I sign a waiver saying that I don’t. I didn’t have any pain then and I had a sore shoulder for a couple days but that is it. Things happened so fast. I talked to the highway patrol officer and then the tow truck came and took me off the freeway. This all happened in under a half hour. At the time through yesterday when I obtained a copy of the police report, I really had no idea what happened, whether or not anyone else was hurt or even how many cars were involved. Upon reading the report, I was grateful to find out that there was only one other car involved and that the person driving that vehicle was not seriously injured. The second party’s white Jeep Cherokee SUV was severely damaged, but the whole accident could have been a lot worse.

Now that I’ve had a week to let things filter though things and I think that what happened is that when I went to swerve, my driver’s side rear tire blew out. I remember getting out of the car and seeing that that tire didn’t have any black rubber around the rim anymore. A blown tire would have explained the loss of control of the car. Another piece of information that points in that direction is that just before Thanksgiving I had that exact tire patched because it kept going flat. I have heard from many people that I need to accept that it was an accident and that accidents do happen. However, what is nagging at me is the fact that I was found liable for the entire incident. Being someone who preaches the importance of accepting personal responsibility to his 9th grade students, it pains me to think that my negligible attention to that tire may have been the root cause of all this automobile carnage. It doesn’t sit well, but as with many uncomfortable things, time will allow that dagger of guilt subside. I hope.

I’ve heard from the adjustor and the value of the car is less than the repairs so the car has been declared a total loss. I’ll be getting $9,300 for the car. It also appears that I will be the liable party in this accident, so my insurance company will have to pay our damages to any person who makes claims. Luckily I carried massive amounts of insurance and so I’m going to have no real out of pocket expenses except for the rental car that I’ve rented.

So the issue at hand is what car I get to replace the one that was lost. I’ve actually reduced the amount of driving I do to less than 10,000 miles a year. I also am not someone who really feels that a car is a statement about me. I just want a car that gets me to where I need to go. So do I buy a new car? Or do I buy an older used one? What kind of car do I buy? Hybrid? Do I drive enough to warrant spending the extra money on a Hybrid? Do I go for a really small economy car? Do I go with something that can take biodiesel, which is becoming more significant in the Bay Area? Or do I go for the big dream and buy a Volvo and have European Delivery, which means I get flown to Sweden to pick up the car, have up to 30 days to drive around Europe and then drop off the car at one of 20 predetermined ports and then have it shipped back to the States? If I do that, then I couldn’t do it until summer and so can I manage without a car for a couple months? Questions, questions!

So you are probably wondering why the bad day lasted until the next morning at 7:30AM? That is because as I was driving to school in the rental car (a silver PT Cruiser) on Wednesday the 23rd, I was pulled over by a policeman and given a MOVING VIOLATION TICKET for not fully stopping at a stop sign. Talk about salt in the wounds. So, it appears that I will need to attend traffic school sometime in the next few months to have this removed from my driving record.

Addendum: Yesterday I came home to a letter from GEICO asking whether or not I was going to purchase a car within the next 30 days. If I wasn’t, they advised me to cancel my insurance policy. It never occurred to me that I should even do this. I spoke to a representative on the phone last night and I will be getting a reimbursement on the insurance that I’ve already paid for. It’s a small bonus, but a bonus nonetheless.