A Little Fender Bender

A couple of weeks ago Matt got into a little fender bender on his way to work. It was rainy and wet. Traffic stopped all of a sudden and he didn't stop in enough time and hit the guy in front of him. Luckily neither one of them were hurt. There cars were smashed up, but they were able to get out of the way of traffic and settle the matter peacefully. Matt said the guy he hit was very nice about it.

Matt called me about 6 o'clock in the morning to let me know what happened. He had planned to just continue onto work, but when he tried to drive away he found out that the steering wouldn't work. He called the insurance people and they called a tow truck. I had to take my Aunt Nadine to the airport that morning, so I just told Matt I would leave home a little earlier than I had planned and pick him up and take him to work. The airport is not that far from where he works; so it wouldn't be that far out of the way for me.

I figured the tow truck would beat me to him, but when I got there it still hadn't arrived. Matt had to be there when the car got picked up; so I waited with him for a little while. After awhile when the tow truck still hadn't arrived I had to leave for the airport anyway so my Aunt wouldn't miss her flight. By this time Matt's accident had happened over 2 hours ago.

I had planned to wait until her flight left to leave the airport, but I just ended up getting all her business taken care of and leaving her there so I could go pick up Matt.

I guess not long after I left the tow truck came, but the guy really took his time loading the car up. They had a hard time figuring out where to take the car. The towing guy wanted to park it at his lot; the insurance people wouldn't give him a suggestion as to where to take it. Finally Matt decided to take it to a dealership he knew about. When they got there they found out that the dealership didn't have a body shop. They were told about a different place they could take it to. I guess after driving back and forth for awhile they never could find the place they were told about, but eventually in all there turning around they ended up in the parking lot of a different body shop. At this point Matt was getting pretty frustrated. I guess the tow truck drivers' driving skills were pretty scary. The insurance people said Matt could take the car anywhere he wanted so he decided to just stay where they were instead of trying to find the other place.

Anyway, by the time I got to where he was it was almost lunch time and he had given up on the idea of going to work that day. When we got home he made calls and took care of all the kinks with the insurance company. They weren't going to get him a rental car that same day, but he talked them into arranging one for him that evening so he would have a vehicle to drive to work the next day. He has been really enjoying driving the Pontiac G6 that he get to drive around until his car is fixed!

That first morning was pretty chaotic and frustrating, but things haven't been too bad since then. It was so nice that Kara has been staying with us; so I didn't have to drag all the kids around with me that morning. It seems like the repairs are coming along on the car. I'm not sure when it will be ready. We're not worried about the time limit of it all as long as it gets done. Like I said Matt is really enjoying his brand new car for awhile! We do have to come up with the deductible, but we are very thankful that Matt wasn't hurt and that he didn't hurt anybody else.

I took a few pictures of the car. As you can see the damage was pretty minimal. We are very thankful that God was watching out for him, and that there weren't more people involved.

As I look at these pictures again I'm amazed that he couldn't drive the car to work that morning. Its kind of weird that the steering wouldn't work. He said the air bags didn't even deploy; so the impact couldn't have been too hard. If the air bags would've deployed it may have totalled the car and we don't have gap insurance; so I'm thankful for that too.