I was involved in a little bingle with the car yesterday. Actually, I ended up with half of a Ford Focus under my tail end on the X-trail. Fortunately there were no significant injuries, no major dramas, and there was a lovely thing called insurance. But, it got me thinking (actually, my mind has been racing all night from it)...
The whole process of an insurance claim after an accident is a funny thing. You spend a brief period of time with the other persons involved in the accident at the scene - let's say up to half an hour. That's a very confronting, emotional and almost intimate time to spend with a complete stranger. Both parties are usually quite vulnerable, and nobody ever thinks clearly in that situation. You exchange personal details - name, address, phone number. If you're thinking straight enough, even drivers licence and insurance information. But you then walk away (in the best case instances), still somewhat in shock, thinking about all the phone calls and arrangements you now need to make. Once your insurance company has been informed, they often ask if you can provide a claim number from the other party (especially if the other party is liable). So, you go back to your scrappy piece of paper with shock-induced scrawl as handwriting, to find the other person's phone number. The idea of calling them seems daunting - will you be greeted pleasantly, or with hostility? Were they legitimate in their details to start with? Are they going through with the claim or will they deny everything? So, you send an SMS instead!! "Please let me know of any claim details from your insurance so I can provide it to my insurer to get the repairs underway. Thanks." or something to that effect.
After a couple of brief pleasantries with required information contained within, you generally never hear from the other party again. You don't know how their car went at the repairers; you don't know how they pulled up mentally and physically post-smash.
You have this massive encounter with a total stranger in a potentially dangerous and high-risk scenario, only to never have any interaction with them again. It's quite bizarre to think someone has such impact on your life at the time (think of the inconvenience and expense you are left with) and then they vanish almost as quickly as they appeared.
2 comments:
Very interesting thought. Luckily haven't encountered the situation myself yet, but it's gotten me thinking about whether or not I'd do it any differently.
Although I'm sure that there's a story somewhere about a happily married couple that met when he/she drove into the other's car... :)
And regardless of what you think you would do in that situation, you never actually do it like that. Shock takes over and you forget how you're meant to act. If all else fails, keep an accident checklist in the glove box including police and traffic phone numbers and insurance details, and reminders to take photos of damage and get all details from the other party
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