A crash education

Almost first thing this morning I got the news I had been expecting. My car is totaled. Granted, if you see that picture above, that seems pretty obvious, although in fairness to my dazed self on Saturday night, the left side of the bumper didn't exactly look like that after the accident. I'm sure that's some body shop inspection there.

I was pleasantly surprised that the settlement offer was a smidgen more than what I paid for the car in July, including the trade-in of my previous car. I was expecting to get lowballed, but the offer was reasonable. I pressed a couple of points--the four nearly new tires, mainly--and squeezed a little more out of the insurance company. All in all, I feel like I did all right in the process.

I was in for a bit of a shock when I stopped by the body shop to swap out the radio I bought with the factory-installed one. In the cold light of day--and probably with a clearer mind--the seriousness of what I'd been in hit me. The rear passenger door no longer opened properly, and the gas tank door would not close. There was some minor damage to the dash from the radio popping out.

The shocker, though, was seeing the driver's seat. It was twisted to the right. I remember that I couldn't adjust the seat when I got back in the car to move it to the side of the highway, but I was just chalking it up to not having all my wits about me. It turns out that the recliner in the seat was bent. The force of the impact launched me backwards and twisted the seat. And I was struck from behind. Whoa.

A worker at the body shop said there was no question that the car would be totaled. In reading the damage he also doubted that the driver who hit me slowed down at all.

Seeing my car in this state made me appreciate even more that I escaped relatively unharmed. Sure, I've had some pain and fatigue this week, and the process of settling all this is a hassle. I don't look forward to getting a car to replace this smashed one. Still, I'm feeling pretty fortunate that the car absorbed serious damage and not me.