… it pours

Yesterday was such a fun and eventful day… ok, more eventful than fun.

The day was going quite well when at 4:00, I received a frantic phone call from my wife telling me she was in an accident. I was envisioning the truck wrapped around a tree or telephone pole. It turns out she was driving downtown when she hit a patch of ice in front of a stop sign and slid into another car (chalk that one up to the wonderful Cedar Rapids Roads Crew… they do a lovely job of putting all that sand down that doesn’t melt the ice like salt does). There was minimal damage to our truck, but the other car’s trunk was pretty messed up. The good thing was that no one was hurt. The policeman didn’t write us a citation for the accident, so we’re pretty hopeful that we won’t have to pay much. We did, however, get a citation because we didn’t have a recent insurance card in the truck.

I got to the scene of the accident around 5:15 and the police had just gotten there at 5:00. There were 14 other accidents around town (another one chalked up the the CR Roads Crews and their facination with sand over any sort of salt) and my wife and the lady she hit were on a waiting list for about an hour. The cop was a real jerk to her (other than not writing us a citation) which really didn’t make me happy. Anyway, we left the scene at about 5:30 and headed home. My wife, in the truck, followed me, in the car.

About 6 blocks from the scene, we got stopped by a train who thought it was a good idea to pull through town, stop, and then back up during rush hour. Needless to say, we were at a complete stop for 20 minutes waiting for the train. When we finally got through, we were waiting at a green light for the people in front of us to start moving when I heard a nice CRACK and my wife ran into me. It turns out someone behind us was frustrated about the train and wasn’t paying attention and slammed into the back of the truck and pushed it into the car.

All three of us pulled over into a parking lot and called 911. As soon as the police got there, I explained what had happened earlier and that we didn’t have proof of valid insurance. He told me that he pretty much had to write me another citation for the proof of insurance thing. We waited a while and the police came over, gave us the other guy’s information and let us go.

So, within 2 hours and 10 blocks, we had two accidents and racked up $1400 in citations (which we won’t have to pay if we show proof of current insurance within 30 days). The good thing is that no one was hurt, and I know that we’ll look back on this day in a few months (ok, maybe a few years) and laugh, but right now it’s kind of annoying. Merry Christmas to us! 😉

EDIT: It seems I forgot that my wife’s knee got banged up when the guy slammed into the truck. It’s nothing major, just bruised and sore.