Please learn from my experience:
Last week I was involved in an accident at a busy intersection. It occurred around 1:00 PM. I was driving a white 4 door Ford pickup pulling a trailer and was struck while going through the intersection by a blue Chevy Cavalier.
Here are the facts. At the time of the accident, nobody stopped to see if both parties were ok. Also nobody phoned the Police Department to report the accident. Basically, there are no eyewitnesses. What is truly ironic is that this happened in the middle of the afternoon, and took place at a busy intersection. My account of the event is different from the other driver, and without eye witnesses, its purely a ?He said, She said?. Neither the police or either insurance companies can find fault. How will your insurance company represent you? My vehicle and trailer have sustained an estimated $8000.00 worth of damage. In the blink of an eye, maybe without any fault of your own, you could occur huge financial burdens!
Ironically, while dealing with this incident, I have learned that this is a very common occurrence. I guess many times eyewitnesses don?t come forward. I try to be informed about life lessons, but this one hit home really hard. With both insurance companies effectively wiping their hands clean of it, it?s my responsibility to try and find a witness. This is proving to be daunting. Both the Home Depot and Wal-Mart stores in the area have security cameras, but they don?t show the intersection. Also, I have placed an ad in the local paper and have had something read on the radio, but it?s a total shot in the dark. What I guess I would like every person to understand is that you need to make people stop, or at least write down a few license plate numbers if you can at the scene. And, on the flip side, if you see an accident, please report it. You never know, at some time during your travels you may need somebody to report something for you!
I wrote this short article for my paper so folks could learn from it.
I never found a eye witness so basically I could never prove fault. It is so frustrating because even the investigating officer thought the chain of events happened like I said. What happened is my truck and her car hit in the middle of the intersection. She smashed in both my passenger doors on my 4-door truck. She claims her light was yellow when she went into it. I claim, my light was green while I was in it. What happened, i am certain, is she lost control on the ice and slid into me while trying to stop. She had a yellow for awhile while she was trying to stop, but it totally was red as she was sliding in. My light was red as I entered the light. While closing in, it turned green. and I had momentum and speed as i traveled through. I got into the intersection fairly quickly and that is when she slid into me. What do you say?? She says I ran the light, I say she did, and yes she did! The police officer can't really make a judgement, one of us is lying.
Anyhow, all you contractors that have vehicles out of the road, inform your drivers! Also, it makes me think a lot harder about the new camera systems that are fairly cheap to install in work vehicles. If I would have had one, it would have shown my light being green when i went through. End of case.
Last week I was involved in an accident at a busy intersection. It occurred around 1:00 PM. I was driving a white 4 door Ford pickup pulling a trailer and was struck while going through the intersection by a blue Chevy Cavalier.
Here are the facts. At the time of the accident, nobody stopped to see if both parties were ok. Also nobody phoned the Police Department to report the accident. Basically, there are no eyewitnesses. What is truly ironic is that this happened in the middle of the afternoon, and took place at a busy intersection. My account of the event is different from the other driver, and without eye witnesses, its purely a ?He said, She said?. Neither the police or either insurance companies can find fault. How will your insurance company represent you? My vehicle and trailer have sustained an estimated $8000.00 worth of damage. In the blink of an eye, maybe without any fault of your own, you could occur huge financial burdens!
Ironically, while dealing with this incident, I have learned that this is a very common occurrence. I guess many times eyewitnesses don?t come forward. I try to be informed about life lessons, but this one hit home really hard. With both insurance companies effectively wiping their hands clean of it, it?s my responsibility to try and find a witness. This is proving to be daunting. Both the Home Depot and Wal-Mart stores in the area have security cameras, but they don?t show the intersection. Also, I have placed an ad in the local paper and have had something read on the radio, but it?s a total shot in the dark. What I guess I would like every person to understand is that you need to make people stop, or at least write down a few license plate numbers if you can at the scene. And, on the flip side, if you see an accident, please report it. You never know, at some time during your travels you may need somebody to report something for you!
I wrote this short article for my paper so folks could learn from it.
I never found a eye witness so basically I could never prove fault. It is so frustrating because even the investigating officer thought the chain of events happened like I said. What happened is my truck and her car hit in the middle of the intersection. She smashed in both my passenger doors on my 4-door truck. She claims her light was yellow when she went into it. I claim, my light was green while I was in it. What happened, i am certain, is she lost control on the ice and slid into me while trying to stop. She had a yellow for awhile while she was trying to stop, but it totally was red as she was sliding in. My light was red as I entered the light. While closing in, it turned green. and I had momentum and speed as i traveled through. I got into the intersection fairly quickly and that is when she slid into me. What do you say?? She says I ran the light, I say she did, and yes she did! The police officer can't really make a judgement, one of us is lying.
Anyhow, all you contractors that have vehicles out of the road, inform your drivers! Also, it makes me think a lot harder about the new camera systems that are fairly cheap to install in work vehicles. If I would have had one, it would have shown my light being green when i went through. End of case.
Well, was the light green or you? 