Fred Voorhees
09-15-2006, 1:07 PM
Yesterday (Thu) coming home from work, my mind wandered to the vacation trip coming up in two weeks. For some reason, I thought "just don't get into an accident in the next two weeks." The thought process being that I need my Dodge pickup to tow our camper the roughly 250 miles to Syracuse,NY as we always do every late September/early October. Well, shouldn't have thought of that.
This morning, about five miles from home on the way to work, I'm stopped at a red light, first one in line at the intersection and minding my own bees wax. Because it was still somewhat dark at 6:10AM, I guess that caused me to look up to my rear view mirror to see some quickly oncoming headlights. Had what seemed like a millisecond to comprehend what was in the offing. Before I knew it, you got it - I was rear ended. Non-license holding foreigner wasn't paying attention I guess and plowed right into the back of my truck. Coffee all over the inside of my cab, snapped my head back against the seat, crap flew all over the place inside the cab, general mayhem for a second. Knocked the hat right off of my head (and I didn't even know that at the time until I was talking to the officer). When it was over, one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was to go back and check the hitch area to see if there was any damage (refer to the thought the day before).:(
Surprisingly, the only damage I noticed right away was that the step bumper was turned under the body and the way it looks, the hitch actually stopped the progress of the turning inwards of the bumper. As far as I can tell, no hitch damage. The blow pushed my truck about ten feet into the intersection, which luckily, had no vehicle traffic in it at the time. Foreigner didn't want me to call the "policia", but I wasn't taking any chances, especially since I knew this one was by no means my fault. Truck was still driveable and I needed to go to work because being a foreman at this one, I needed to put together a material list for delivery for next week, and to call the mens time in for the week. Upon further inspection in the job parking lot, I noticed that the tailgate did get a bit of a dent in it and some "brushburns", so I stopped at the police station on the way home after an abreviated stay at work to take care of the essentials and informed them of the extra damage that wasn't noticed at the time of the incident.
SWMBO was concerned about maybe visiting the doctor, but I feel fine. The highback seat in the truck absolutely stopped my neck from any kind of whiplash kind of deal, though I will pay attention to it for the next day or so just in case. Dang :mad: I guess fate stepped in and played off of my thoughts of yesterday.
On the good side, I feel fine, the truck is driveable and it looks as if the trip will not be affected at all by this. I have always given the inside and outside of the truck a good cleaning before our trip so I used today as an excuse to do the interior - heck, with the Dunkin Donuts Dunkachino all over the seat and rug on the floor, it smelled real good in there so I really needed to clean either way. Out came the wifes rug and upholstery steam cleaner and the interior is now cleaned up fresh.
And life goes on........................
As I said, never tempt fate.
Took the pics below to document the damage for insurance purposes. Can't see the damage to the tailgate real well. Small indentation, but the scratches are there to see if you look closely.
This morning, about five miles from home on the way to work, I'm stopped at a red light, first one in line at the intersection and minding my own bees wax. Because it was still somewhat dark at 6:10AM, I guess that caused me to look up to my rear view mirror to see some quickly oncoming headlights. Had what seemed like a millisecond to comprehend what was in the offing. Before I knew it, you got it - I was rear ended. Non-license holding foreigner wasn't paying attention I guess and plowed right into the back of my truck. Coffee all over the inside of my cab, snapped my head back against the seat, crap flew all over the place inside the cab, general mayhem for a second. Knocked the hat right off of my head (and I didn't even know that at the time until I was talking to the officer). When it was over, one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was to go back and check the hitch area to see if there was any damage (refer to the thought the day before).:(
Surprisingly, the only damage I noticed right away was that the step bumper was turned under the body and the way it looks, the hitch actually stopped the progress of the turning inwards of the bumper. As far as I can tell, no hitch damage. The blow pushed my truck about ten feet into the intersection, which luckily, had no vehicle traffic in it at the time. Foreigner didn't want me to call the "policia", but I wasn't taking any chances, especially since I knew this one was by no means my fault. Truck was still driveable and I needed to go to work because being a foreman at this one, I needed to put together a material list for delivery for next week, and to call the mens time in for the week. Upon further inspection in the job parking lot, I noticed that the tailgate did get a bit of a dent in it and some "brushburns", so I stopped at the police station on the way home after an abreviated stay at work to take care of the essentials and informed them of the extra damage that wasn't noticed at the time of the incident.
SWMBO was concerned about maybe visiting the doctor, but I feel fine. The highback seat in the truck absolutely stopped my neck from any kind of whiplash kind of deal, though I will pay attention to it for the next day or so just in case. Dang :mad: I guess fate stepped in and played off of my thoughts of yesterday.
On the good side, I feel fine, the truck is driveable and it looks as if the trip will not be affected at all by this. I have always given the inside and outside of the truck a good cleaning before our trip so I used today as an excuse to do the interior - heck, with the Dunkin Donuts Dunkachino all over the seat and rug on the floor, it smelled real good in there so I really needed to clean either way. Out came the wifes rug and upholstery steam cleaner and the interior is now cleaned up fresh.
And life goes on........................
As I said, never tempt fate.
Took the pics below to document the damage for insurance purposes. Can't see the damage to the tailgate real well. Small indentation, but the scratches are there to see if you look closely.