I moved to Dallas nearly a year ago. Before that, I had only been in one minor collision when I was 17. In the past three or four months, I’ve been in two more minor collisions with people who shouldn’t be on the street anyway.
The first time was the night before I switched to evening shift about three months ago. They decided to switch me over in the middle of the week so I was trying to stay awake as long as I could that night. I was getting tired around 23:00 so I decided to drive Downtown and maybe walk around a little. It had just rained so the roads were slick.
I was driving down a major street through a hispanic area (lots of illegal immigrants) and saw some guy ahead who had spun out into the ditch in his truck. He managed to get out and was driving not far ahead of me when he spun out again into the median and then, staying on the throttle, went back into the street right in front of me. The guy was probably drunk but I didn’t think about that at the time. There was a car in the lane beside me so I couldn’t swerve; I just had to hit the brakes. It wasn’t enough. I hit him which bent up my hood, dented the corner of the fender, and busted the headlight.
Now keep in mind that I was tired and hadn’t been in any kind of collision since I was in high school. I was also completely startled by the event. It took me a minute to get it in my head that it really happened. That led to a series of mistakes. I had heard that if the damage is minor (under $500), you should just trade insurance information and go on. I started to call the cops, but I figured the damage was minor so I just traded insurance information. I know now I can get a brand new hood and headlight on eBay for $200 total, so I’d say the damage was indeed around $500 or less.
Unfortunately when I tried to find his insurance company online, it didn’t seem to exist. I called mine and they couldn’t find it in whatever registry they have either. I ended up getting fucked on that deal. I bought a new headlight assembly, bent the hood out myself, and chalked it up as a lesson learned.
Fast forward to last night: I was driving to an arts district here with a lot of music clubs to meet up with some people. Again, it had just rained and the roads were slick. I was in almost exactly the same spot as last time at about the same time of night and was actually thinking about the previous accident. I was about to turn left at an intersection. There are two left turn lanes that turn onto a three lane street. It has lines that show that the far left turning lane is supposed to go to the left lane and the other left turn lane can choose the center or right lane. That’s the lane I was in and I turned into the center lane because most people get in the right lane to hit the freeway onramp down the road. There was a guy to my left and he ended up trying to take the center lane too. Of course that meant going through me…
There was no disbelief this time. I was fucking pissed. I think I started cussing while his truck was still against my car. I quickly pushed the anger to the back of my head so I could handle the situation logically. Honestly, I think it helped being pissed off helped out because I was going to do whatever I could to ensure he was responsible and I wasn’t going to trust anything he said. Plus I think a lot more clearly when I’m pissed off than when I’m nervous and shocked.
So after he hit me, I pulled over to the left lane in front of him. He said we should pull over across the street into a parking lot and I agreed. Over there, I took a better look at my damage. The rear door was dented in pretty badly and there were smaller dents on the rear fender. He walked back and started playing it off as though the damage wasn’t much. He also asked me if I had been drinking for some reason. I suspect that he had. I told him I was calling the police and he said I shouldn’t do that, he would just give me his insurance card. I continued to unlock my phone and dialed 911. He was walking to his truck, waving for me to come to get his insurance card, but I just stood beside my car. Then he got in his truck and started driving off.
I was actually anticipating that he would do that and was already looking at his license plate. When he started driving off, I had just got the 911 dispatcher on the line and managed to yell it out before he got too far away. Unfortunately, she asked me to repeat it and I’m not sure I got the last three digits exactly right the second time. I hope the investigator can get a copy of the recording to confirm what I said the first time. At the very least, I hope with the first three digits and a description of the truck, they can narrow it down to someone in the area.
About ten minutes later, a policeman arrived and I gave him a description of what happened and what the truck and the man looked like. He spoke positively that I was able to get a license plate number as most people aren’t able to do that.
I’m not sure if the fucker was drunk, didn’t have insurance, or both, but he certainly shouldn’t have been on the roads. The only thing I really wish I’d done was take a picture of him and his truck before I called 911 but hopefully they still have enough to find him. And if it goes to court, I don’t have a problem showing up as a witness. I hope the mother fucker goes to jail for a little while and if he’s illegal, I hope he gets shipped back to where he came from. Of course that probably won’t happen but I can hope, right? If I remember correctly, hit-and-run is a felony so it won’t be a slap on the wrist.
I’m hoping I’ve just had really bad luck and this isn’t a normal thing here. I don’t care to go through this a couple of times a year.
Because of the way people drive here, I try not to drive anywhere I absolutely DO NOT have to. Even then, I try to go the back ways where there is less traffic and less chance for me to have an accident.
I’d imagine that if you don’t know where the closest police station is to your house (and you should…) then the closest fire station would do in a pinch. Still, that’s some world-class douchebaggery right there, and I’m sorry you had to encounter him.