A Short History of Accidents

On Friday I was in my second auto accident since I’ve been in Germany. The first was with a small BMW sports car, the second was with a motorcycle by way of a bus.

The first accident occurred a couple of months ago. I had my truck for a couple of weeks, but had not yet moved out of the hotel. I was at the Media Mart or the grocery store. I had been waiting for the new Wilco CD to come out over here, and would go to the Media Mart to look for it and do some grocery shopping next door. I always park away from stores because of the tightness of the parking spaces. There are always more spaces the farther you get from a store. I don’t even remember what I had bought that day.

I got into the truck and started it up; I put on the seatbelt, and checked the mirrors. I put it in gear, and turned to look behind me, and saw nothing moving. I look to my left rear a couple of times, because this is where the traffic will be coming from, and it looked clear. So I start back slowly, looking to the left for cars coming through the lot. I get about halfway out of the parking space when I feel and hear a crunch. Not a good Corn-Flake crunch, but a “this is going to cost me serious money” crunch.

I stop the truck and immediately check all my mirrors. I see nothing. There is nothing behind me! So I pull the truck back into the parking space and get out. I see a small blue BMW convertible in the space directly behind mine. A woman gets out of the car and we start looking at each others cars. I tell her that I don’t speak German. Luckily, she speaks pretty good English so that is not a problem. We are both looking at our vehicles and I can see a dent in my bumper. It’s somewhat large in area, but not deep. We look at her car and see … well … we can’t see any damage. None.

Up until this time I was calm. Now however it’s a different story, I’m furious. I let into her, “Look what your little car did to my big truck!”

Well, it didn’t actually happen that way. We looked at each other incredulously. “But I heard a crunch” she said. “So did I”. Finally we did find a broken plastic cover on one of her taillights.

“Yeah! Take that!”

It was emasculating, I tell ya! My big pickup has a big dent in the bumper, and her little BMW convertible sports car has a cracked light. Do you remember that scene in “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” when his heart grows ten sizes? Remember how they showed it with a magnifying glass?

Well, just picture that scene going in reverse, only with my testicles shrinking instead of my heart.

I guess she felt bad for me, because she turns to me and says “Shit Happens”. She was really nice about it. We both just happened to start backing out around the same time, and were both angling our cars out of the parking spaces, and we hit. I told her that I didn’t even see her (even after we hit), she said she didn’t see me either. Of course I was in the big red truck… one might expect to see THAT in the rearview.

I asked her what would normally happen, and she said that I would have to pay for the damage to her car, and she would pay for the damage to mine. I told her that I was not worried about it. I think she was probably getting the better end of that deal, because a plastic taillight cover is probably a little cheaper than a bumper. We shook hands and parted ways. I thought that she really did me a favor, because it’s not really a truck until it’s got a dent.

I am still a little broken up about her not sustaining as much damage as I did. The motorcycle, however, was not as lucky.

We had our Organizational Day picnic today. After I left I gave a friend a ride home, and turned to head back to the Rheingau. As I was coming up to the highway everything was backed up. I wasn’t too upset because I get of at the first exit which is not far. It was stop and go traffic, and the going was not going far. There is a motorcycle behind me, and I’m waiting for him to start moving up between cars as hey usually do. This guy however is just staying right behind me, in the center of the lane. I make it to within 300 meters of the exit. I’m stopped, with my foot on the brake and am getting ready to put the truck in gear to move forward another 10-20 feet, when I feel this crunch behind me. It was kind of a double crunch, and when I looked back the motorcyclist was pushing himself up on the tailgate of the truck.

When I got back to see what had happened, he was on his feet, but was visibly shaken. I thought he was in shock and speaking gibberish that I couldn’t understand. That was until I remembered I was in Germany. He was really pretty spooked about it (and rightly so). They took him away on a stretcher, although he was conscious and even helped himself up onto the gurney.

The motorcycle was almost entirely under the bus which was stopped about one foot from my truck. This guy was lucky that he didn’t lose a leg or two. I couldn’t tell what they were saying to him, but I think he may have some bruised (maybe broken) ribs. I didn’t even talk to the bus driver. A guy who had witnessed it was there and he spoke decent English, and I told him what happened. The Polizei officer just told me that I could go (after he took my information). He told me that I’d get a copy of the report in the mail, and I’d need to take that to my insurance company. I made sure to write down all of the license plate numbers of those involved, a quick description of what happened, and got a business card from the officer. He never even asked me what happened, but it was probably obvious being that the bus drove the motorcycle into the back of my truck. At least I can be pretty sure that the bus company has insurance.

The damage is not really that bad. A couple of dents and scrapes in the tailgate, a couple in the bumper, and a small scrape in the left quarter-panel. Ironically it also broke the plastic cover of my tail light. I guess we will have to see how this all pans out, but I should get a new bumper out of the deal, and some dent pulling and painting on the tailgate. I was a little shaken when it first happened, but by the time the cop told me I could leave, I was ready to go.