First Car Crash

On October 4th, Megan got home from school and said she had to go work on the Junior Class homecoming float. I asked her to gas the car and to be careful. My windows were open upstairs and I was working on some things in my room. Moments after Megan left, I heard a huge crash on the street in front of the house. Mother's instinct (or maybe it was just common sense) told me it was Megan and I quickly ran outside. I saw a gruesome sight. The Camry was in the middle of the street, the bumper was almost all the way off. The tail lights were smashed and laying all over the road and the driver's side rear quarter panel was crunched in really good.

My unfriendly neighbor across the street, who we affectionately refer to as the "hermit" was cursing and stomping around. Megan was shaking all over and pretty close to "hysterical." I said, "What happened?" The hermit immediately said, "Well we both have blind spots and we didn't see each other." They went inside and called the police. Megan and I were sitting on the front bench in agony for about 30 minutes until the officer arrived. She asked me questions constantly, "Am I grounded?" "Am I going to lose my license?" "Am I going to jail?" OK maybe she didn't ask the last one, but she wasn't far from it. I felt bad for her and would have tried to console her more if I wasn't so upset and worried on what this was going to set us back financially, if Megan was responsible for the accident.

I asked the officer right off the bat, "How will you determine who is at fault?" He said, "I already know, it was your neighbor." We were so relieved. He had Megan write out her statement (which for her first police report, was a real professional job) and walked across the street to give the hermit a citation, which I am sure provoked another round of cursing and stomping. Very mature for a 60 year old.

Megan had a very sore neck for a few weeks and the car was in the shop for four weeks with a repair bill of over $5,000. It was quite the dramatic event for just backing out of a driveway. The hermit has been even more grumpier to us than before the accident and has never had the desire to even say he was sorry.