What eBay Hath Wrought 118: Rubbing is Racing

I had a relatively eventful commute home on Friday afternoon, with an 18-wheeler deciding that it was entitled to the lane space my car was occupying. I had been looking to move up or to the right in order to get out of the lane, specifically because I try to be careful around trucks and their blind spots. But no openings came available in the slow construction-congested traffic and I saw the truck's fender moving toward me from the left. He ground his wheel along the side of my car for a while, and the person in the lane to the right of me decided to let me change lanes at that point. The truck finished pushing me over and I looked to get over to the shoulder to talk about it. Once there, I realized the truck wasn't stopping, so I tried to get as much of a visual description as I could of it. Traffic was pretty slow, so the truck was in my field of vision for a little while.

Then I called the State Police to see what they could do for me. A couple of people pulled over to see if I needed help, but I was pretty distracted by the phone call and wasn't able to give them much attention. I hope they get some good karma in their lives for going out of their way to check on me, even though I wasn't very interactive. An incident response truck and a motorcycle officer showed up within 5 or 10 minutes, and I was able to write my report while the officer worked with police down the road on finding the truck. He took some pictures of my car, asked me some questions, and talked a lot on his phone.

After about 40 minutes he said that the police in the next state had found the truck and pulled it over. The truck driver denied everything, but placed himself at the spot of the accident at the right time and I believe the other officer must have found some of my paint on the guy's lugnuts. I guess in this case it helps that my car is bright yellow.

I was on my way home from work, so I was wearing my Army uniform and every so often people would drive by and shout, "Thank you for your service!" Who does that? I guess you can't knock them for expressing their feelings, but who drives by what is either a traffic stop or an accident scene and yells that at the person interacting with the officer?

Once all that happened I called my insurance company to start my claim and see about a tow home. The damage is really probably all cosmetic, but I didn't want to take any chances and I really didn't feel like driving myself home. We were moving pretty slowly when it happened, so I don't think I am injured at all, but I was starting to ache from being tensed up with anger and stress. The officer gave me the preliminary report, told me that he was sending a citation off to the truck driver, and rode off on his motorcycle. I was expecting a 30 or 40 minute wait for the tow truck, but it showed up after about 15 minutes and took me and my car home.

Now I get to work with my insurance company to see if I can get the truck driver's insurance company to fix my car. Since the other guy was issued a citation and my car isn't exactly a luxury automobile, I am hoping it will be a pretty quick process.

I picked up this Danica Patrick relic card from 2013 Topps Showcase from eBay with my October eBay Bucks certificate. It's got a little piece of sheet metal embedded in it and is numbered # 12 / 20. Danica was running pretty well in tonight's Bank of America 500 race until Joey Logano put her into the wall and she fell back in the pack, finishing 26th. Her green and pink car looked pretty sharp out on the track. I hope I can pick up the die-cast of it at some point in the future.