Collision course

Living and driving in rural upstate New York for 25 years, I accepted the fact that it wasn't a question of if I would ever hit a deer, it was when I would hit a deer. Everyone did, sooner or later, including me; the damned things were everywhere.

Likewise, when I moved to Hampton Roads, it didn't require great observation skills to quickly realize that it wasn't a question of if I would ever be involved in a collision while driving in the urban traffic here -- it was when. Heck, I figured that out in my first month of commuting to Norfolk on I-264, when it seemed as if the road turned into a parking lot every other day due to an accident up ahead. Most everyone I knew had had at least a fender bender, and I knew it was only a matter of time before my number came up.

It took seven years, but it finally happened last Thursday, as evidenced by this shot of the rumpled front license plate.

As luck would have it, the incident did not even happen on the Interstate, on which I thankfully no longer commute. No, I was minding my own business driving south on Princess Anne Road, heading for the community college for my night class. As I approached the Independence Blvd intersection, the through light was green, and the yellow was not imminent (the left-turn signal had just gone red). Which is why it took me by surprise when a vehicle that was well ahead of me suddenly braked, for no apparent reason, and stopped just short of the light. I pumped my brakes and slowed considerably, but the speed limit on that stretch of Princess Anne, as those of you familiar with the area probably know, is 50 -- and it was raining. I slid into the back end of the stopped car. The light finally turned red.

The other driver and I both got out, yelled at each other a bit, then I retrieved my license plate, which along with its holder had been ripped off the bumper (below). Then we drove to a parking lot to assess the situation.


Neither of us was hurt (thank God), and the other car had no apparent damage; it must have taken the impact dead on to the rear bumper. My car was not as unscathed, though it wouldn't have been a big deal if the ripped-off and crumpled plate was the only problem. In fact, even the punched-in front edge of the hood wouldn't have bothered me all that much; heck, the hood latch even still worked OK.


Indeed, that was all the damage that I could see, so we ended up exchanging names and phone numbers, and I went on to my class (for which I was, of course, rather late).

Came the dawn. I reattached the license plate (after stepping on it to flatten out the considerable curves it had assumed) and betook myself and my poor little PT Cruiser to a body shop off Bonney Road for an estimate on straightening out the hood. I figured that probably wouldn't be too bad, as there was nothing structurally wrong with it, and I wasn't concerned with getting it to look brand new. (The car is six years old, after all.)

That's when things started to go downhill. The estimator came out to the parking lot and before he even looked at anything, informed me that the odd odor I had noticed that morning was the smell of overheating. To my considerable dismay, he pointed out that some kind of support bar had been pushed back into the radiator, and something was leaking. So far I hadn't gotten any dashboard warning lights, so he recommended that I take it home and park it (if I wasn't going to get it fixed immediately), and keep an eye on the coolant level. He then wrote up an estimate that included replacing the hood and grill in addition to the radiator, which came to just over $2,000. (That seems to be the going rate for that kind of front-end damage, doesn't it, Dr. Heimlich?) Since a considerable portion of the cost was for the body work, I discussed with him the merits of just getting the radiator replaced and then looking for a hood from a salvage yard (Lord knows there's enough silver PT Cruisers around). Then I headed home to mull over my options.

That's when the things-going-downhill situation accelerated. I was turning onto South Plaza Trail when the engine temperature spiked to what my owner's manual calls the "critical level" and sounded a warning chime of ten "dings" to make sure it had my attention. Evidently, having been put on notice that it was damaged, the radiotor decided to stop pretending to work. With the car spewing white smoke from under the hood, I pulled off into the first parking lot I encountered (a church) and prayed that it would cool down. The coolant level was somewhat low, though still above the add mark, so I dumped the half bottle of drinking water I had left into the overflow reservoir, followed by a roughly equal amount of antifreeze (I always have a jug of it in the car). When the temp gauge was down halfway between C(old) and "critical", I pulled out again and proceeded. This time I got almost to Holland Road. Ding... ding... ding... I pulled into the Food Lion lot and let it idle with the heater running full blast until it looked like it might be safe to set off again.

And so it went, with the intervals between the renewed ding... ding... dings getting shorter after each pull-off and cool-down period, until -- less than 3 miles from home -- it simply wouldn't cool down any more. I gave up, parked it on a side street, pulled out my cell phone, and called my motor club for a tow. They told me a truck would be there in "between 45 and 55 minutes". An hour and a half and two more phone calls later, a humungous flat-bed finally showed up, loaded my car, and off-loaded it in my driveway after chewing a 15-foot rut in the neighbor's lawn across the street.

By now it was nearly 3:30. Did I mention that I never got lunch? I threw a sandwich together and grabbed a Coke. Then, because I had decided I didn't want to take a chance on being blindsided by additional hidden damage (I had had an hour and a half, minus phone calls, to contemplate this possibility), I called my insurance company and laid out the whole miserable tale. An hour or so later, another flat-bed "tow" truck was loading my car aboard (thankfully, without further carving up my neighbor's yard) and it was on its way to a repair shop for the insurance adjustor to evaluate. In any case, I have a $1000 collision deductible, so it's going to cost me.

So. I am now carless, for I know not how long. I never did pick up rental reimbursement coverage, despite the best efforts of the gecko's agents -- after all, I didn't have a job I had to get to, so I didn't see the need -- so I'm hoping to avoid having to get a rental. I've lined up a ride to work with a co-worker who lives in VB, and I prevailed upon my long-suffering friend (the one who fetches my furniture purchases and helped me install the bookcases) to chauffeur me on a couple of fairly urgent errands today. Hopefully the car will be fixed within the week. (And then I'll have to prevail upon my friend to take me to pick it up. Sshh, don't tell him.)

I just hope that now I've had my accident, I'm good for at least another seven years, by which time I'll be genuinely retired and can just stay home if the roads aren't bone dry.