Before anyone freaks out, this happened five years ago. I’m fine and so is my trusty sidekick, Toyota Corolla. Unless you were going to send money. In that case, I’m suffering from severe emotional stress from seeing my Saturn destroyed like it was. The doctors say large sums of cash help in the healing process. The doctor’s healing, at least. I’m writing this so the young and foolish among you can learn from my mistakes. Failing that, it should give you someone’s misfortunes to laugh at.

Our story begins when I was young, naive and living in Texas for the first time (now would be the second time). I was less than than a year out of college and just moved to Dallas to work for Macromedia. When you’re young and naive you assume things are going to work out for you, and that people will try to be honest. Experienced people laugh at this, then take the young people’s money.

Being Dallas, the public transportation leaves something to be desired, so everyone drove to and from work. The other notable thing about Dallas is the weather. Like most of the midwest, the weather can be sudden and severe, especially the thunderstorms. That day was one of those days.

I was driving home from work that evening, when I came to an intersection with a stoplight. Since I had a red light, I did the sensible thing and stopped. I was turning left at this intersection, and in this particular part of Texas that meant I had a protected green arrow light. This was a fairly busy intersection and it was raining moderately at the moment. Traffic in the opposite direction stopped, and I received the green arrow light. Foolishly thinking this granted me the right of way, I pulled out into the intersection. When I had crossed only two lanes of perpendicular traffic, I heard a sudden car horn and felt a car slam into me.

He’d hit me on the driver’s side, square in between the front and back seats. My first reaction was to start the car and get myself out of the busy intersection. But the car wouldn’t start. My next thought was to just get myself out of this busy intersection. But the driver’s side door wouldn’t open. Fortunately, the passenger’s side door would open, and I crawled out that way. The rain had turned into a downpour and I was instantly drenched to the bone. That’s when I noticed that the force of the collision had spun my car around 180 degrees.

I made it to the gas station at one of the corners of the intersection. I was already thinking about witnesses, but they hadn’t seen anything, although they had already called 911. I waited under the awning of the gas station, shivering, for the police to arrive.

When the police arrived, things started going bad for me. The driver who had hit me arrived at the gas station after the police showed up. He was Chinese, appeared to be in high school, and spoke very little English. His father (I assume) showed up not long after. I noticed his car still ran, albeit not well. The police asked us if we were alright, and best I could tell, I was OK. I just had a couple of bruises where the seat belt had caught me.

They needed to clear the intersection, so they called a tow truck for my car. Being relatively new in town, I didn’t know where to have it towed. Fortunately the tow truck driver knew where the Saturn dealership did its bodywork and offered to take it there. The tow truck driver filled out a form for me, in which he took down my name, address, and phone number. The fact that he had this information turned out to be important later on.

Meanwhile, the police had to pretend they were doing something. They attempted to gather up the insurance information. My proof of insurance card was still in my glove box, so a policeman offered to go dig it out. At the time, I didn’t know which one he grabbed because they never showed it to me, just to the guy who had hit me. After a while, the officer told us that he wasn’t going to file a police report because, and I quote “it was in our best interest.” For those of you keeping score at home, this is Lie #1. Unfortunately, I was young and naive and believed him.

Piece of advice #1 for the young:

If you are in a wreck, insist that the police write up a report.

Unless you’re at fault, then it really is not in your best interest. And don’t press your luck too much, the officer is the one with the gun, after all.

After everyone left, I had to find a way home. Fortunately, the gas station attendant was nice enough to let me use their phone to call a cab.

The next day I called my insurance agent. Being the helpful chap that he was, he essentially told me “don’t bother me unless you’re writing me a check for your premium.” And that was all I was able to get out of him. Thanks Allstate. I definitely feel like I’m in good hands.

The guy who hit me was obviously having much better luck with his insurance company, because that afternoon I got a call from Allstate. At first I thought: “maybe my agent did decide to help me out.” But no. Allstate was calling to inform me that my policy was no longer valid, and they weren’t going to help me in any way, shape, form, or fashion. After trying to figure out how this happened (it was a brand new Texas policy with the premiums already paid), he finally mentioned the policy number. It was my old Tennessee policy which, of course, had been canceled when I got my new Texas policy. So I gave him the real Texas policy number, and he had to go check to make sure that was valid. After all, I was not to be trusted. I had already tried to pass off an invalid Tennessee policy on them. Of course, what had really happened was the police officer had just grabbed the first insurance card he came to in my glove box, and given the number to the other driver.

Later that day I received calls from Allstate and Liberty Mutual (the other driver’s insurance company). I got to recite the same story twice, once for each of them. At the time I had no idea what the other guy was claiming. I assumed since he had so blatantly run a red light, that that’s what he would say.

Meanwhile, getting to and from work became a hassle. No public transportation came out my way, so I had to bum rides from my coworkers or work from home. I would call the insurance companies (both his and mine) every so often to see how far along they were. Every time I called them they told me they were waiting on the police report, and that if I drove down to the police station, got it, and faxed it to them, they’d get through the claim a lot quicker. So I did that. Except all the police gave me was the transcript of the radio traffic pertaining to the accident. I asked if there was anything else, and they said no, there were no other reports. I faxed the transcript to the insurance company, who quickly let me know that was not the police report. When I told them that’s all the police had, they told me the police were required to file a real report because the amount of damage done. So maybe it wasn’t in “my best interest” as the officer had proclaimed before.

The insurance companies were taking so long to process my claim, that I had to rent a car. Now, I should point out that at the time I was only 23. Being 23 is significant in that its less than the magical age of 25. You see, when you turn 25, you transform from a deranged, homicidal driver into the World’s Safest Driver. No, just kidding. Its when the insurance companies have determined you have enough resources and influence that they can no longer gouge you, without possible legal repercussions. The magical age of 25 is important because most car rental places will not rent to someone under 25 because of the insurance companies. I called a lot of places in the phone book, and the only one who would rent to me was Enterprise. Well, them, and Rent-A-Wreck (their real name).

Although Enterprise would rent to me, since I was under 25, they forced me to take all the optional insurance. So even though I was renting their smallest, cheapest car, people over 25 could rent a Rolls Royce for half what I was paying.

I rented the car for almost a month, after which the cost became prohibitive. I decided that at this rate it would be cheaper to just buy a new car now, even though the insurance companies hadn’t decided the claim yet. I returned the car to Enterprise and walked down the street to the Toyota dealership. I didn’t dare tell them that I had no ride home unless I bought a car from them then. There’s no telling how much that would have cost me. I ended up buying a 2002 Toyota Corolla CE (manual transmission), which was probably the cheapest car on the lot, bless the poor salesman’s heart.

I ended up going back to Allstate to get it insured, after discovering everyone else would have charged me even more. My agent was happy to help me this time since I was giving him money, instead of making waves by wanting to file a claim. This is when I found out what the other driver had told the insurance companies. My agent was filing through my history to determine how much he could overcharge me, when he came across the report. It turns out the other driver said that I was the one who ran the red light, and he was just minding his own business charging through those dark pink lights. (He didn’t really say that last part.)

Now, I’m not sure why the young man lied about this. He was young and not from this country. I also noticed that it appeared to be his dad’s name on the insurance, and I would guess, the title. I can only conjecture that he didn’t want to admit to his dad he had just totaled his car and run up his insurance premium. It probably also dawned on him, that despite being a busy intersection, no one stopped to be a witness, so it was his word against mine. Or maybe in China you’re supposed to run through red lights. I don’t know.

Meanwhile, the insurance companies just sat around, pontificating about how much they could raise my rates. Finally, two months after the actual accident I received the verdicts. Liberty Mutual had determined that their driver was not a fault, and Allstate had determined that I was not at fault. That’s right, two people claim the other ran a red light, and no one’s at fault. Its just one of those cosmic mysteries that we’ll never figure out. Or maybe its a mystery that’s only solvable by a police report. I’ll never know.

After learning neither insurance company was going to pay for my car (I had only liability on my car), I needed to get rid of the old Saturn. So I called up the body shop to see how it was doing. “Still totaled”, they said. I asked if they could find a scrap yard that would take it. They said yes, they could and would call me right back. By “right back”, they apparently meant “never.” I called them again two weeks later, and repeated my question. Again, I was told they’d look for a scrap yard and call me right back. Once again, they never called back.

About a week after that, I got a frantic message from the manager of the body shop telling me to call him back immediately. It turns out the towing company (remember them?) were trying to repossess my car because they hadn’t received any money. Now, I’m not sure how they expected to get any money since they hadn’t sent me a bill or even called me. And I knew they had both my address and phone number, even though I had neither of theirs. Although I didn’t want the Saturn anymore, a repossession would show up on my credit report. The manager of the body shop told me I needed to bring my checkbook down there so we could get this all sorted out.

By the time I got there, I was livid. I couldn’t believe the towing company was trying to repossess my car without even contacting me. The body shop manager was the one who ended up contacting me. I’m not sure how much talking the manager got in, because I let him know how I felt. I told him the towing company had my name, number, and address, but hadn’t even attempted to contact me. Failing that, they obviously knew the number of the body shop, who, in turn, obviously had my phone number. I also told him I had called his body shop twice and no one had called back. He appeared to be taken somewhat aback. I’m not sure if it was because I was so angry, or because his employees had performed so poorly.

In the end, I gave him a check for the towing company, since they couldn’t even be bothered to show up for payment. I signed ownership of the Saturn over to him, and he didn’t charge me for the two months of storage for my Saturn. I also found out that the reason no one called me back was no scrap yard wanted my car. They wouldn’t take anything older than a ’95 model, and I had a ’92. So even if the towing company had repossessed my car, they wouldn’t have gotten any or much money out of it.

So let that be a lesson to you kids. Don’t be young, and whatever you do, don’t let someone run a red light and crash into your car.