Travelogue V: F-word 150

I have returned home from my road trip to southern California, and the time since I pulled into my garage and dragged myself inside Chez Tim has been largely spent sleeping. It's a long drive.

Not two hours after my departure from Dad and Marty's place, though, there was some minor drama. There's a point on the route I was on where the freeway splits off with a fork—take these lanes to go this way, these lanes to go that way—which occurred not long after a previous fork, and I missed it. I realized I was in the wrong lane just as I was too far gone to move over, so I instead got off at the next exit and sought to rejoin the proper road.

I was stopped at a red light and went to consult the map on my phone. In the few seconds my attention was on that, my foot had apparently let up just enough tension on the brake pedal for the car to start rolling forward and I heard a soft thump. I looked up and realized that I had rolled forward and impacted the truck ahead of me at the light.

Oops.

After a second of WTF? reaction, I backed up back to appropriate distance and thought, OK, embarrassing, but no harm done. A couple of seconds later, the driver of the truck got out and came toward my window. I rolled it down as he approached. "Apologies," I said, "I guess I let up—"

"Show me your license," the guy said. "And insurance."

I did a double-take. Yeah, I'd tapped the guy's bumper, but no damage done.

"Are you fucking with me?" I asked, a bit dumbfounded. Maybe he's trying to be funny.

"No!" he yelled. "Show me your license and insurance! You're paying for that!"

I showed him my license and insurance card. "What exactly are you expecting me to pay for?" I said, indicating the back of his undamaged truck.

Instead of answering, he mocked me as he photographed my insurance card. “‘Apologies.' Jesus." Would he have preferred I didn't apologize? 

Instead of asking him if he'd like me to take the apology back, I just said, "Seriously?"

He pointed at his bumper. "That was PRISTINE. You'll pay for it!"

I looked at the bumper more closely. "I'm seeing maybe half an inch of a scratch if that," I said, still remarkably calm.

"It's going to have to be repainted! And it won't match, and I bet there's more damage—" he stopped ranting in mid-sentence.

The allegedly pristine bumper post-bump. Before sending this to State Farm, I noted that of the various mars on his bumper, some must have been preexisting. A Ford F-150 bumper is anywhere from 19-24 inches off the ground; the foremost part of my Prius is the license plate frame, which spans 15-21 inches off the ground. The area I circled in gold contains two tiny mars potentially caused by the bump at either side of the reflection glint; the red circles indicate areas unlikely to have been caused by the bump as the point of impact would not have stretched that far; the blue circles note mars that are impossible to have been caused by the bump.

I stopped short of telling him that I, myself, had been looking into touch-up automotive paint for my own new-to-me car that came with some small paint nicks and thus knew that if he really cared about his tiny bumper mar that a bit of sandpaper and a can of touch-up automobile spray paint can be found at AutoZone in matching colors to various vehicles including Fords for about $25. And if it's a color that isn't standard, one can be ordered online for about $40. He clearly wasn't interested in anything I might have had to say. Meanwhile, the passenger in his truck (wife?) got out and took photos of the back of the truck.

I held out my hand, indicating I wanted my cards back. He handed them to me and ranted some more about how I'd hear from him and regret it. "You do what you feel like you need to do, fella," I said. He walked back to his truck ranting.

The light changed and he took off. I followed and he preceded me onto the freeway before he then got off again at the next exit. I went on my way.

Not 40 minutes later my phone rang. Thinking it had to be about this, I pulled over—I was on US 395 by then, a two-lane road with wide shoulders—and answered. It was a rep from State Farm. "Wow, that guy wasted no time," I said the the rep, who identified herself as Hannah from State Farm and I briefly flashed on those dumb State Farm commercials where a guy has to explain to his wife that he's not cheating on her, he's just talking to "X from State Farm."

Hannah was quite pleasant and asked for my version of the story, what I estimated the speed was (based on time of the event and typical distance between vehicles at a red light, I said it was about two feet per second) and if there was any damage to my car. "No, none," I said as I got out to verify that was correct. Hannah and I covered some more information and she anticipated that, given the claimant's belligerence, he might try to harass me but if he does, "just send him my way and hang up." Points to Hannah from State Farm.

Surprised as I was to get that call as quickly as I did, I was glad of it. After it was done I was able to put the incident out of my mind for the most part, while before the call I was, of course, rehashing the whole thing in my head over and over. Yes, because the guy was an asshole, but also because I was embarrassed. In 40 years of driving this was the first and hopefully only time I'd found myself in a situation where anyone's insurance came up.

Anyway, that's how the return trip started. From there on it was non-confrontational.

I was on that particular route only because I wanted to make a particular stop and wanted to make the best possible time getting there. That's the topic for the next travelogue post: Manzanar.