[trackbird]

Have you ever had one of those chains of events that only needs one thing to have changed to stop the end result?

My friend had a Mazda dealer tell him that he'd need new rear brakes soon. We moved our Mazda out front and I swapped the Camaro for his Miata so we could work in the garage. It turns out he didn't need brakes at all (1/32" worn, if that) and we switched back. My wife was getting quite hungry and wanted me to go get dinner. No problem, I'll take the Mazda and then I can put it back in the driveway when I return. So far so good....

About 1/2 way to McDonalds, I was thinking that I should have driven the Camaro since it wasn't blocked in the garage, but I hadn't.

I get to the drive through and pull up behind a couple cars. Then I hear a "pop". I check the mirrors and a black 2004-ish Grand Am had backed into the corner of my bumper with her bumper. I got out, walked up to the window and advised her that she hit my car. She didn't seem to believe me, but she couldn't leave because I was in her way (which is how she hit me). She looked at my car and started to blow it off, then she saw the red paint streaks on her black bumper and was convinced. I called and tried to get an officer to take a report, but they were busy and said they'd be here in about 2 hours. No thanks (when I left, my wife was getting so hungry that she was going to start feeling ill soon).

One of the two of them hustled the 4 small children (all 5 and under) from the backseat (no car seats) to the inside of the McDonalds play area and came back out. I asked if they had an insurance card, "no". Do you have insurance? "no". Can I get your name and address? They spoke in Spanish for a while and finally gave me a cell phone number and a name. But they couldn't remember their address (which is why I wanted an officer to respond). So, I took the tag number off of the car, a description of the car, the time, date and location and wrote it down. I'll give it all to my insurance company and let them fight it out with the person the car and tags are registered to. By the time this is all finished, I'll probably have to fight with my insurance company to cover it and get them to try to locate the driver to get their money back. I'm just frustrated that people don't pay the least bit of attention, they don't know where they live (yea, right) and they understand everything I say, but don't seem to speak any English.

[/rant]

Note to self, learn Spanish. I've been thinking that for a while, but I guess I should finally look into doing something about it.

[trackbird]

My insurance company ran the tags, found an address and a last name (that didn't match). Either it's a house full of people and she was driving someone elses car (probable), or she lied to me. Either way, they are trying to get in contact and I was also advised that I can file a form with the state about a car with tags and no insurance and start the process to get the owners license suspended (if they can't produce proof of insurance).