So the story. Sorry if its a bit short, or maybe I shouldn't be sorry, but I am still pissed off as all heck.
My grandmother recently (around the time I got BB, actually, since she performed moving duties) into an Erikson Living community. She's 90, and pretty feisty for 90. But she had gotten into a car accident a few years ago that totaled her Corolla and she reached the point where she didn't want to drive anymore. They provide much of her needs their (including 30 large meals a month- the food isn't even bad). But of course she likes getting out and doing things, and I try my very best to go see her and help her with stuff once a week (I live 50 miles away, so its not like we can hop by after work easily- I wish I had the time to do it more!)
So we were by, and offered to take her to Shop Rite, about a mile and a half away. Along the route, there is a point where the road leading from the community (ever noticed how communities of glorified nursing homes are located way the heck and gone where nobody can see them? I mean I know Erikson is the best, and my grandmother is happy here because she has made some friends, but I am not fond of nursing homes, or the way society tends to treat older folk like they are a burden of some sort!) that joins a more major road just prior to an intersection with a major state route. Oh. Probably time for another picture...
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The intersection is a pain in the ass, and your can probably see from the sat photo. People come flying towards the intersection at considerable speed, and the location of the stop sign is not ideal- especially considering that green patch is a knoll and obstructs line of sight. I'm familiar with it, and I stop at the sign, and then roll forward until I can ascertain that neither the speeding idiots that drive on the road, nor the Walmart idiots that are stupid enough to shop at Walmart* and also pull out onto the road way too fast, aren't present. Then I accelerate on to the road.
The woman who hit me claims that she had thought that I had gone already, and accelerated without looking. I believe she accelerated without looking. The circumstances she described are in fact plausible. I do wonder, however, if she had been texting or talking on her cell phone (Does that generation of CRV have bluetooth?). It doesn't really matter as she admitted to the responding officer that it was absolutely her fault. Her getting a ticket for distracted driving is not going to improve my life in any discernable way, and she was honest enough to admit her fault, and if she was distracted, I assume she will be more careful in the future. So screw it.
Anyway, I got rear ended in the "pull forward" segment of that process. I have been rear ended twice before, by a late 90's Explorer in my C220 and by a Dodge Dakota in my E300 Diesel. Neither felt nearly as hard as this impact, which is impressive. In those two previous accidents I was driving by far the lighter car (4100 lbs to 3150ibs for the first, 4500lbs to 3600 lbs for the second). In this accident, I was driving by far the heavier car (3400lbs vs 4750 lbs unladen, or 3600lbs vs 5380 laden). I'm not sure what speed she hit me at, but it was enough to dent in the rear door (which is not a flimsy structure, as we all know) about 9 inches.
Then again, the car did what it was designed to do- the door absorbed the impact and none of us were injured, including my 90 year old grandmother.
(* I hate WalMart. Their prices are high, and you can get much better pice/quality ratios at Boscov's, BonTon, Dillard's, and Belk for dry goods, and much better prices on food from Albrecht Diskont (ALDI))
