I was misting in Orange county as I left and headed south towards San Diego to join the 8 into Arizona. Rain continued lightly until I got to SD where is fell a little heavier all the way out of town and into the "mountain" community of Alpine. Once over the mountains, by then it was dawn, the skies gradually cleared and by the time I hit the Arizona/California border, sunshine was the name of the game.
Just outside Casa Grande, where I-8 joins I-10, I saw someone entering the highway and they momentarily lost control of their car. It went into a sideways skid and I thought "Please don't wreck, I don't want to sit around and wait for the police.
They righted themselves and continued on and I did as well.
At 12:23, I was nearly downtown on the 10 when I heard a horn honk and out of the corner of my eye I saw a car swerve. It righted itself and as I took my foot off the gas, over corrected and slammed into me broadside. My passenger side window exploded, both side airbags deployed. The driver over corrected again catching my rear end and spinning me 180 degrees where I stopped, watch traffic coming towards me in slow motion. The all stopped but the driver headed down the highway to the next exit.
Three cars of very nice people took the time to stop and assist me. They were more worried about the driver taking off and I only wanted to move my car out of traffic and over to the side. Two young men literally stepped into traffic, the lookie loos just didn't seem to want to stop to let me get over, but the guys got all the traffic to halt and I maneuvered the Camry across three lanes of traffic and onto the shoulder.
The witnesses had already called 911 and after a moment I said to them that if they were willing to hang around to make statements that we should head on down the exit ramp so that I'd feel safer and wouldn't worry about their safety as well.
About half way down the ramp we were joined by a Arizona Highway Patrolman who motioned to us to continue on down off the Interstate.
When we turned into a gas station and lo and behold there was the guy that hit me. Fortunately he didn't try to leave the scene, but...
I took this picture at the gas station.
Long story, short. The kid, 19 to 22 years old, who'd just gotten his license back 2 weeks prior to the accident was given several tickets and will likely loose his license for 3 to 5 years according to one of the patrolmen.
The witnesses that saw the accident and were nice enough to hang around and make statements were, in my opinion the reason he took responsibility for what happened. My thanks to them for taking the time to help me out and make sure that I was okay.
I waited for a tow truck to take the car to a secure yard for the night and the driver was nice enough to show me where it was and drop me off at a nearby Holiday Inn where I'd spend the night.
The next morning I walked down to the collision center and waited a couple hours for the car to arrive for the initial overview.
It arrived around 11:30 and Jonnie, the lady who did the appraisal thought that the car was repairable (Not what I wanted to hear) and would be calling me on Tuesday with the final numbers to send to the insurance company. She got one of her guys to give me a ride and by noon I was at Avis renting a car to take me home.
I got a nice Jetta, headed back to the hotel to get my bags and then back to the collision center to pick up the rest of my stuff out of the car. Here's a couple more pictures of how hard I was hit.
I was on the road back home at 12:30, jut 24 hours after all this happened.
Got out of Tucson with no issues but just outside of Willcox the interstate was closed because of a dust storm. A 2 and 1/2 hour 70 mile detour took the place of a 50 minute drive to Lordsburg. I felt really sorry for all the west bound drivers as when I arrived at Lordsburg, I saw a 2 lane line of trucks, RVs and cars a mile long waiting to get onto the detour. Unbelieveable.
Kept going thru Deming, where I had planned to spend the previous night, thru Hatch and onto Albuquerque. Arrived there at about 8:30 and headed on toward Santa Fe. Just 20 or so miles past Santa Fe, the coolant light comes on. I pull off the highway, by now it's starting to rain with snow mixed in and let the car cool for a few minutes.
Start it back up, no lights. Drive a couple more miles and again the light comes on, this time with warning chimes. So I pull over again, turn it off and call Avis roadside assistance. It's almost 10 by now.
Can you drive it to the nearest Avis. Where is that? Where are you? It'll be the airport at Santa Fe. Okay, it's your car, I'm not paying for it if it blows up. Make sure that you call the airport and tell them I'm coming, I don't want to get there and have nobody be there.
The stinking light never comes back on the whole way to Santa Fe.
I get off and go to a gas station for directions. We have a airport? Seriously. That's what the counter help said. Another lady asked which airport? Anyway she gave me directions and I said should I get on the interstate? Oh no. It was right next to the Interstate and I could have saved myself 10 minutes.
Got to the Avis counter. No one there. "SHIT" I said. And a head pops out from the back. I'm here for the car? Needless to say, Avis never notified him.
Got out of Santa Fe at around 10:15 and headed home., again.
Made it home at 2:30 in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment