My car, my car!

[mandragora]

So, I'm sitting at home working on some legal stuff this afternoon. When I hear this tremendous sound through the open living room windows. I run to the window and I see my car (my precious baby) which had been nicely parked a couple of doors down from my house - it's London, we mostly don't do garages, as there's not often the room.

My car was now skewed against the side of the road and forced back against the car that was parked behind it.



And beside him was a rather shaken and pale man, who was already apologising profusely as he leapt out of his BMW. He was reversing up the road (it's blocked off at the end and is very narrow so you can only get one car down it at a time), and because of the rain his windows were so steamed up that he couldn't see properly where he was going. I know, I know. Why didn't he open the windows to clear them...?

I moved my (beloved) car forward to inspect the damage. There are chunks gouged out of the back and the car that mine was foced against has a broken number plate. The impact point was the passenger side, which is now nicely dented, but only around the wheel rim. So, the car is still driveable, which is good for getting it to the repair shop...

I have all the man's details, he's fully insured, has admitted complete liablity and I have a witness. The £200 excess I have to pay on my policy will be reimbursed by his insurers (eventually, knowing insurers) but there's the pain of the paperwork. Not to mention being without my car whilst it's repaired. Although the weather has broken slightly and it's no longer insanely hot it's still pretty warm and the courtesy car I'll be given in the meantime had better have air conditioning.

But it could have been worse, the car could have been really damaged. As it is, though, it's not going to be cheap.

"Oh," he says, "it's a really nice car, isn't it?"

"Well, it was," I reply. *snerk*

However, I do have one burning question.

What is it about BMW drivers and why are so many of them such bad drivers?

Comments

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

more money than sense

Most likely. Personally, I've never liked BMWs, and the fact that so many people who drive them are bad drivers only serves to confirm my (really wholly reasonable) prejudices.

And. You did what? Oh, oh, ouch! Although, those rubbish lorries (driven by the bin-men, you know *g*) are huge, so they are difficult to avoid and so you probably didn't have much room...

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

No, I have no excuse. I didn't hit it hard. I was moving very slowly. In fact, I think I made contact without realizing it, and found out with the sproithunk noise of the heavy plastic inverting at the corner.

'Said truck' was the pickup, not the lorry, but in my defense there was an unusual and long piece of boat sticking out of it. I think he would have been more annoyed with me if I'd damaged the boom to the main sail.

And yes, I'm that much of a goof. The cool points I lost with that maneuver.

[mandragora1.livejournal.com]

Yes, but damaging the boom would have been infinitely worse, as you write. Besides, I think you cool can take it. Plenty to go around.