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my turn



T Berk wrote:

> Glad you're OK, too bad you couldn't vent some frustrations on the other
> driver. (It aint right, but it feeeels sooo gooood.)

She's hosed.  She'll be lucky to still have insurance when this is over, if
she still does, it will cost an additional arm and a leg over the arm and
a leg that it must cost already.  I suspect that her parents are NOT pleased
today.

A lesson here for others to heed: yesterday the CHP officer we waited an hour
for to take an accident report tried to tell us that we didn't really need
to have a report taken at all; he said that with no injuries and all proper
information exchanged, we could have just been on our merry way, turned the
whole mess over to our insurance companies, and been done with it, leaving 
them to work things out.  He said that for an accident like this, they 
wouldn't even bother to get a copy of the report from the CHP.  He said he'd
be glad to go ahead and take a report "if we wanted him to" since he was
already there, but it really wasn't necessary.  I was buying all this 
nonsense and was about to tell him to go ahead and hit the road, when he
turned to the girl and she basically admitted guilt.  So I turned back to
him and said "take that report!!".. which he then did.

I related this conversation to my State Farm agent this morning and she
was furious.  She said that she hears similar stories all the time, and
that what he said is total BS - which now makes sense to me.  If there
were no report, no witnesses, and 2 damaged cars, it then becomes my word
against hers and her story could change completely.. hell she could even
be in a neck brace by the next day, trying to sue my ass.  So the agent
was very pleased that she had confessed to the cop (something you NEVER
do by the way, whether or not you are at fault!).  

State Farm has a gig where if you go to one of "their" accredited shops,
you don't need to get more than one estimate and they waive your
deductible and get right to work.  The shop that had originally been
recommended to me 2 years ago to paint the 'rocco was on the list (they
ultimately did not paint it as they didn't have time when I got it done)
so I went there.  The guy spoke very highly of working with State Farm,
saying they don't cut corners on him, no longer use non-OEM parts (remember
that flap a while back over this?), and generally make it very easy for
him to fix cars properly and without delay.

Moral of this story to this point - is GET A POLICE REPORT! if you are
involved in an accident, particularly if you aren't at fault, but I'd get
one either way just so the facts are recorded straight in the first place.

--
Kevin Collins
Huntington Beach, CA
'86.5 16V 2.0
'00 Passat GLS 1.8T