That sounded like an accident…
Ok, so I’m visiting Keith to see the kitten he adopted, and in the late evening we’re watching tv and hear tires screech and a loud bang! “That sounded like an accident in the parking lot,” I said. But we knew that it was a bit loud to be car vs. car and would probably not have made the building shake like it did. We walk out onto his balcony and there’s this VW, over the curb and touching the building right at the entrance to the apartment. We ran downstairs to discover that his front door was jammed shut. The car had hit the facia of the building to the side of the door, which moved the framework around the door such that the latch in the doorknob was unable to clear the frame. We were stuck.
To top it all off, my car was parked in the spot right next to the one the driver of the VW was attempting to park in. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but the rear driver side corner of the car was resting on the front passenger side of my car. I wanted to go down and take a look, but I was stuck (and I wasn’t about to jump for it). I called the police since the driver’s husband didn’t seem particular interested in calling. While waiting, this idiot gets in the car and starts to back up! Uh, fucktard, don’t move your car until I can get my car out of the way so that you don’t do any more damage to it! I yelled at the guy to wait until the police got here because a) I didn’t want him doing any more damage to my car and b) I wanted the police to see things the way they were.
A South Brunswick police office showed up around 10 minutes later (I had called their main number and not 911 as no one was injured so they didn’t dispatch it as an emergency). After he got the rundown of the situation he asked if it was OK to move my car so they could move the VW out of the way. I tossed him my keys (yeah, I’m very trusting) and he moved my car. From what I could see from the balcony, it looked like there wasn’t any major damage to my car. The VW on the other hand had quite a bit more damage. It’s hood was dented downward a bit, the front fascia was cracked, sidemarker was shattered, and a cooling line (or maybe the radiator itself) was punctured and was leaking coolant. To play it safe, the officer radioed for a township inspector to come out before anyone tried to force the door open, just in case there was structural damage.
So, Keith and I were standing there, waiting for the inspector to show, all the while the officer is going over the usual paperwork that’s involved in an accident. The story from the person driving the VW was that she was attempting to park the vehicle and her foot slipped off the brake right onto the gas pedal. The officer left me a copy of the report number for pickup and issued a citation to the lady for careless driving. While we were waiting the property manager showed up, as did the maintenance guy. When the officer had finished his report he left, leaving us to wait for the inspector to show around 15 minutes later. He took a look and gave the ok for forcing the door open as most of the damage was in the fascia of the building and some of the framing around the door (but nothing that apparently was load bearing).
Once I was finally able to get outside I walked over to my car to get a better look at the damage. The most obvious issue was the edge of the bumper popped a little lose as a clip came out. There was a small dent in sheetmetal, scrapes in the paint, and several abrasions in my headlight/sidemarker assembly. Overall, not much damage, but to say I’m fucking pissed doesn’t quite cover it as I haven’t even had the car for four months. Oh well, I’ll deal with the insurance company on Monday and work to get it fixed (on their dime) as soon as possible. As for the building, the property maintenance guy was able to beat the frame into submission enough to “secure” the door with a new lock (had to destroy the old one to get it open). That will hopefully get a better fix during the week, as that’s going to require some framing and reattaching the brickwork back to the front of the building.
I’ll also try and post some pictures sooner or later.
