The Bimmer Takes a Hit

I'd been in Tucson for three days, having spent most of the days working. It was a busy week at work and I had only a little time to see any of the local sights.

My aunt had suggested a few local eating establishments I might like, including a diner on Grant Street, a few miles down from my hotel, that was a favorite of her daughter's.
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On Friday morning I looked up the address online and drove there for a late breakfast. It was a classic old-time kind of place, just like in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, with a counter and round stools, where I took a seat and ordered scrambled eggs and bacon without toast, as is my custom.

It was a little past eleven when I finished. I had a conference Skype call scheduled with some co-workers at noon, so I paid the bill and left the restaurant, with the intention of getting to a nearby Starbucks by the U of A campus in time for the call.

I was heading west on the bumpy asphalt of Grant (the streets in Tucson all seem torn up). The traffic was moving along at about 40 mph. I was in the left lane, with the intention of taking a left when I got to Campbell.

All at once I saw the traffic in front of me come to a quick halt. The right lane was clear but the left lane was blocked. So I jammed on the brakes hard, and after a split second of wondering what might happen, I realized I was going to stop with plenty of room to spare.

Then I instantly looked up into the rear view mirror, where it was a different story altogether. I could see the red car coming in the lane towards me. It was slowing but the equationless extrapolation in my head told me immediately: he's not going to make it. I realized I was going to be hit.

The red car's brakes squealed in the last instant, and then BAMMMM!! I felt the hard jolt rock the car. 

I was unharmed, it seemed. There was manifestly no issue about that. But I was I was filled instantly with a cocktail of wild emotions. Immediately I felt the great mixture of sadness and anger that my car was probably severely damaged. For a car this old, any major body damage is basically a mortal wound. My day, my week, my month were all about to get very complicated. The road trip as I knew it, and my current lifestyle, was certainly finished.

I sprang from the car almost immediately, filled not with this sadness-anger, but instead somewhat elated by a counter emotion: it wasn't my fault! I knew from driver's ed that in this time of collision it is always the fault of the person who hits from behind. Just knowing that made me feel like I was as light as a clould.

The driver of the red car, a 2006 Toyota as it happened, had already gotten out of his car as well, in the middle of Grant Street. He was dark skinned, about twenty years old. I figured he was Hispanic. The traffic was whizzing by us. A whole line of car were stopped behind us.

As I walked back alongside my car on the driver's side, I saw the front of the red Toyota. It looked as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it for a few minutes. The grill was mangled and lying on the ground.

I mentally braced myself for what the back of my car would look like. I pictured the rear end bent in, and the trunk door pried open. If I were lucky it would still be driveable.

But when I got the space between our cars and looked at mine, I was filled with overwhelming happy relief. From all appearances, my car looked as if it hadn't incurred even a scratch from the whole incident. The bumper was as straight and level as before. The only indication that my car had even been in an accident were the red shards of the other car sitting on the bumper of my own. BMW 1, Toyota 0.

But my happiness was tempered with caution? What about internal injuries? My car has probably 300,000 miles on it at this point (the odometer broke last year at 254K). A jolt as hard it sustained might have damaged the drive train or the suspension.

The driver of the Toyota looked at my and said hopefully, "looks like your car is OK."

"I don't know that yet," I said back curtly. Whenever I am in this kind of incident, I tend to get very tight-lipped and business-like, out of a fear of saying or doing the wrong thing.  I had ever right to this caution, of course.

I asked him if he had insurance. He said yes, but that he didn't have it with him. His girlfriend had it, because it was her car. Hell, this is not going to be good, I thought.

He suggested moving the cars out of traffic. I balked at this at first, not wanting to be buffaloed into doing anything wrong.

While this was happening, several people had come up to help, or just to watch. A guy called out to be from across the street. He was the employee of auto body shop there.

"It's all on camera," he said, pointing back to the building. "In case you need it." I told him thanks.

After thinking about few seconds more, I realized moving the cars was the best thing to do.

It was the dire moment of truth, when I turned the key. The car started up fine. I put it in gear and steered it a few feet away to the parking lot of a lumber yard on the right hand side of the road. I half expected the other driver just to split, but he followed me and parked beside me.

He told me that he would get his insurance info and call me, and that I could even follow him to his girlfriend's house if I wanted. I told him just to give me his contact info. I got my clipboard out of my backpack and handed him my pen.

His named turned out to be Arab instead of Hispanic. He kept repeating how he would call me as soon as he got home. The more he insisted, the more I assumed that I was never going to hear from him.

I wrote down the license plate of his car---it had an NFL Arizona Cardinals theme. At his suggestion, I took pictures of both of our cars with my smartphone.

By this time I was eager to get rid of him, so we parted ways. I drove off into traffic and brought the car up to speed as I approached Campbell, then turned left, following my original plan.

I kept expecting to hear some dreadful noise of scraping of whomping from the undercarriage, to have the car pull off to an angle from a screwed-up alignment.

But all seemed utterly normal. It seemed almost too perfect, to have gotten away from the incident with absolutely no consequence. I even had time to make my Skype conference call.