A True California Vehicle

Lindsey and I used to joke that a car is not a Californian car until it is dented. Well, our "dreams" came true while we were enjoying our weekend together as some drunk or high or both "yahoo" did not notice that we were stopped at a stoplight for over five seconds and decided rear-end us. The day started nice enough - we ran some errands, got our car washed (oh, the irony there), and drove around Huntington Beach looking at the neighborhoods around the beach area. The street parking was very full, so rather than enjoy the beach we decided to head home for some dinner. It was on the way out of Huntington Beach on the PCH at a stop light that we heard an incredibly long screech of hard breaking and felt a smash to discover the "yahoo" driving in a large Chev Silverado truck had flattened our recently cleaned car back-end.

Once we pull over to the side of the road, he immediately begins begging that we resolve this personally without the police because 1) he was in an accident last week and 2) had a few beers just before he hit the road (Definitely two reasons to encourage us not to call the police). We immediately noticed he had Florida plates which just increased the possibility that we would never see him again. The driver also learned not to mess with my normally pleasant wife. She was pretty upset and just kept repeating "Call the cops. We are calling the cops." I just looked at the guy and said, "Hey, I am not messing with that. We got to call them."

I told him that he had until the cops arrived for him to get his shit together, but it is being reported. He immediately went on about how we came out of nowhere and it was either us, another car, or a tree. I just decided to try to ignore him, because his stupidity would send me over the edge. The "out of nowhere" comment was ridiculous because we were driving out of Huntington Beach on the PCH. On the weekend, no car, in their right mind, can move very fast in this traffic. Also, we were stopped at a stoplight for 5-10 seconds before he hit us. This means after drinking or whatever else he took off like a bat out of hell on a crowded road and was so out of it he did not notice three lanes of traffic stopped at a light.

Now I will give this guy credit in that he stayed. In this situation, I would have bet big money that he was going to make a run for it. It is pretty easy to get lost in the crowds here, so it would have been easy. But he stayed and accepted the consequences.

Once the cop arrived, the first question he asked the "yahoo" after getting his expired registration and insurance document (he claimed that he did they are both valid even if he didn't have the current documentation), was "have you been drinking today?" This guy was screwed. When the second officer arrived and went with him back to his truck to find the expired registration, he returned with a handful of prescription drug containers that he found in the truck cab. This guy is so screwed.

On a good note, the Huntington Beach police officer was without a doubt our most pleasant experience with U.S. authority figures. He took our information, did not give me a hard time about being a student without his passport on him, cracked a few jokes to make the experience more pleasant, let us know that we could legally drive the vehicle while waiting to get it fixed, and quickly sent us on our way so that he could deal with the yahoo! We couldn't leave fast enough from that experience.

Now, we are going to discover if State Farm delivers the service they promote.