It's just a little smashy, it's still good, it's still good!
This weekend, coming home from my parents for Christmas, I was involved in a little smash-up. Roads were a little wet, traffic was tight and rather slow moving, and I was travelling down a slight decline just north-east of the Palisades Mall in New York on 287. Abruptly (as most accidents seem to happen) everyone decided it’d be fun to stop as fast as possible. I slammed on my brakes and slid my Nissan Altima into a Mazda 626. Apparently I wasn’t the only one surprised, however, as there were 3 other identical accidents around me.
Mmmmm... Crash-tastic!
Shaken, but still in one piece, the other driver and I pulled to the side, as did the other unfortunate people. We got out, made sure everyone was ok, and assessed the damage. Her car may have added a scratch to it’s already impressive collection, but mine was a little worse for wear. As it was my fault, she said it’s up to me if we want to get the insurance companies involved, but right as that question arose, a very friendly police officer rode up and asked for our paperwork. He was probably sent to the scene because one of the other accident groups were screaming all irate-like and most likely reported all the accidents in the vicinity to 911.
This was the nicest, most helpful police officer I’ve ever seen in one of these situations. He made sure we were ok, asked for our paperwork, and in about 5 min, presented us with a printout detailing each others information and sent us on our way. I expected an impatient, slightly-condescending cop to hand me a ticket for some reason, but not this time. This made the experience a little less aggravating.
So, hats off to the Tarrytown Police K9 unit!
Anyway, being in situations like this really makes you think… After driving for almost 10 years or so without an accident (just a slight fender bender about a year after I got my license) it really makes you second-guess those “well, I’ll just send them a text message while I’m going 80mph” or “sure, I can eat this taco while driving..” I was concentrating on driving because of the traffic and the road conditions and I got into an accident that may actually end with my car being totaled (it’s not really worth fixing a ‘99 Altima if there’s anything other than cosmetic damage).
Also, so far, I’m happy with Geico. They’ve been very helpful and I’m only responsible for my deductable (as expected). But I’ll be sure to post if anything of note happens.
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