Rear ended

I got rear ended yesterday on my way to work. I'm ok though so that's good.

I was cruising along heading West in the left hand lane. There was a sanitary sewer truck a little bit ahead of me in the right lane. We were coming up on a "T" intersection with a green light for us, we were the cross street. The left turn lane's light was just turning yellow when all of a sudden another truck (some sort of larger pickup work truck) decides he doesn't want to sit at his red light anymore and comes on through along with a car right behind him. Luckily I was far back enough to see them and started to slow down. I knew he was going to hit the sewer truck though and sure enough he does.

I slow down even more, almost to a complete stop and glance in my rear view mirror and see a car coming up behind me. I glance to the right lane and debate moving in to it but the two trucks are still there and although they're still moving I don't know for how long and I don't want to take a chance of running into either one of them so I stay where I am. I did notice that the car was slowing down though so I glance back and he's not slowing enough and sure enough he hits me. I had tensed up when I first saw him but when I looked back and new he was going to hit me I made myself relax which I'm sure helped me not get whiplash or anything else. All this took less than a minute maybe even less than 30 seconds. I'm not sure really, just know that it all went very fast and slow at the same time. It seemed like one of those times when you seem to be seeing things as a spectator although you're a part of it.

In the meantime the two trucks are still going forward. When the sewer truck first got hit (it's the kind with a circular tank) it starts to lean to the right. As he's trying to get it under control he starts to head into the left lane (by this time I just got hit myself) and the truck that hit him has continued straight ahead. The sewer truck hits the median (luckily it's one of those real low curbs) and then leans again to the right but not quite as much as before. He continues up onto the median and goes over the other side but he goes over in such a way that he starts to lean pretty far to the left. But he doesn't tip, he gets it back up right and finally stops a couple hundred feet up the road facing West still but now in the right lane of the East side.

Meanwhile the car that was behind the hitter had stopped and luckily didn't get hit by anyone. He or she, not sure which, pulls up on to the median as I do to get out of the way of the traffic. The car that hit me took a little bit longer to follow me up there but eventually we're both up there and out of the way. As I'm driving up on it I hear sirens already. Turns out there was a cop a few cars behind the truck that did the hitting and saw that accident happen. He didn't see mine though since he was watching the trucks.

He by passes us and goes up to the trucks and I consider calling it in but figure he had to have seen us so I don't bother. Plus I'm sure there were other people calling. So I called work instead to let them know I'd be late. Then I called H Ditty to let him know what happened. While talking to work the person who didn't get hit but ran the red light took off. I'm sure they didn't want to take a chance of getting a ticket. Oh well, lucky break for them.

By the time I was talking to HD the cop had come back to us and was talking with the guy who hit me. HD asked how I was feeling, any whiplash etc. but I was good. There was a little tightness on the back of my neck on the right side but I figured that was more from the adrenaline rush or even the stress of the situation but it wasn't bad at all. The cop came up to me and asked what happened. I let him know and he said ok he'd have to talk with the other guy for a couple more minutes and he'd be back. I grabbed my insurance card and license and waited for him to come back and get them.

When he did he said he'd take care of us before going back to the two trucks. But before he was even back in his car there were two more squads coming in. Then a couple paramedics (one for our accident and one for the other) and one fire truck showed up. I let the paramedics know that I was fine, they asked what happened so I told them and then they asked again if I was good and didn't want to be checked out.

I at one point finally checked out the damage but it's pretty minimal. There's a crack in my bumper and one of my backup sensor disks popped out. Which by the way they don't work now, tested them when I got home. And my right turn signal is shot along with the brake lights on that side. Luckily the taillights still work though, so at least they're not all out. But I don't know what got damaged to make the brake and turn lights not work but the plastic covers are just fine, they sit too far up to have been hit.

The guy who hit me though, his car is squished. He has a Nissan Altima and his front end got squashed up and both his air bags went off. Neither of mine did and I couldn't even tell you if my seat belt locked up or not, I honestly cannot for the life of me remember.

I was worried for a little bit though because I keep forgetting to put my new insurance card in the glove compartment so the one I had to give the cop was the expired one. Luckily it just expired on August 1st so it wasn't too bad. When I pointed it out to him I wasn't even finished talking when he told me not to worry about it. If I had been the one to do the hitting then it would've been an issue but since I was the one hit he didn't care. He just wanted it for the info. So that's good. When he gave it back to me along with my license he just told me to make sure I put the new one in by today. Which I have.

So I have to fill out my portion of the report and mail it in. I told H Ditty that he'd have to do it for me since his handwriting is better than mine. I don't have penmanship like most girls, there's now loopy smooth writing coming out of this chick. It's small and completely unsmooth. Even when I print, although it's legible, it doesn't look good. So yeah, he'll have to fill it out for me. We were going to do it last night but went and saw Superbad instead.
The tightness in my neck lasted throughout the day. I had taken some Aleve when I finally got to work and I think that helped some although I had a slight headache on and off for the rest of the day. But today I have no pain anywhere so I think all my neck needed was total relaxation such as sleep provides.

This morning one of my coworkers watched as there was a near collision in front of her. Luckily everyone just avoided it but she was afraid to move for a bit though. We've had some pretty good rain showers/storms going through and last night one of the storms made a lot of lights go out. She was at one of those intersections that had no lights and a lot of lanes including two turning left from all sides. So yeah, a lot of cars which mean a lot of people who feel they deserve to go whether it's their turn or not.

Ok, gotta go, have a better day than I did yesterday.

Media quote of the day: He rear-ended the frigging Queen! - Marge - The Simpsons