I was hoping to drive my Maverick there, but I couldn't get it started on Thursday. I charged the battery for an hour, but that didn't help. I didn't think it was the battery, which is new and appears fully charged.
The car was sitting in my garage for over a month. My house is on a slope and the car was pointing up hill, so the gas wasn't getting to the carburetor.
Lou offered to help me move it out of the garage, but I was afraid if we moved it and it still didn't start, it would be in a worse position. I called for a tow truck on Friday, and the driver put it on his flatbed truck with the engine tilted down and it started right away.
I was flabbergasted by the Police Report. Officer Troy Montemayor previously told me the young man who hit me had some drug related items in the vehicle. It was a marijuana pipe, still warm, on the center console next to the driver's seat.
The driver admitted that as he was approaching the light on Bollinger and Alcosta, he "dropped his cell phone and was looking for it." Then he ran the light at 40 mph. At least he was honest about it.
At that point I broke out laughing. This is too funny. He was smoking pot, talking on a cell phone, and looking for his phone on the floor of the vehicle while going 40 mph through the red light. And they say 18 year-olds are adults!
Another driver heading north on Alcosta slammed on her brakes and missed hitting him; so he went through the intersection and hit me. In the Police Report I'm quoted saying I saw him on my right, which wasn't possible. He was on my left.
I am directionally challenged. When I was in elementary school I wore a rubber band on my left wrist to be able to tell left from right. In my first blog on the accident I said my car was on the South side of Bollinger, when it actually finished up on the North side of Bollinger. So his car was on my left side not my right side and the broken ribs are on my left side. From now on I won't need a rubber band to know left from right.
My insurance company offered me a settlement for the value of my dead Focus, but that was $2000-3000 less than it would cost me to replace it with a new one. I don't want any expenses from this accident. It's bad enough I had all the inconvenience and pain. So I called a lawyer to see if I could get a better settlement than Farmers was willing to make.
I'm not typically a litigious person, but I feel I deserve to be compensated since the accident wasn't my fault. I called my nephew in Maine to ask how to go about this, and he said I didn't need a lawyer. I could do it all myself and save the big fee.
I thought that was funny since he's a personal injury lawyer in Maine and very successful at it. I decided it's worth paying the 33% to the lawyer to not have to deal with it on my own. I signed the paperwork on Friday.
I have no ill feelings towards the young man who hit me. I hope he learns a lesson from this and doesn't do anything as foolish in the future. I plan to write to the DA's office recommending he spend three to six months in community service helping seniors. Maybe some of their wisdom and experience will rub off on him.
