All but one were decades ago.
1. I was driving my parents' six-week-old '65 Chevelle Malibu when a kid in a '56 Buick and with no insurance and who, the cops said, admitted he had been feeling up his girlfriend, ran a red and T-boned me in the middle of the intersection. No one was hurt. Four years later my dad received a letter from the insurance company saying the kid had finally finished paying.
2. A gravel truck ran a stop sign and ripped the right side off my '56 Austin Westminster. I lay across the seats (no seat belts) and was uninjured.
3. A guy ran a red, smashing into my '60 Falcon wagon. I scored a new right-front fender. The day I got it back from the body shop, I drove into a car-radio store's repair-and-installation garage where a customer in an Oldsmobile, without looking, backed into me. No wheels for another week.
4. I was driving through a small Alberta city in the curb lane of a downtown street when a kid to my left hit the gas and cut in front of me, hitting the front left of my year-old '69 Cortina as he turned right. He stopped in indecision on the cross-street, then sped off. But he had given me enough time to grab my camera, and the next day the city's police department, along with my insurance company, received a series of 8 X 10 glossies of my car and the kid in his, speeding off into the distance, his licence plate clear as crystal, along with the back of his head. Turned out the hit-and-run genius's old man was the police chief.
5. I was fifth in line at a red light when a drunk going at least 40 mph rammed into my two-year-old '69 Cortina. In astonished disbelief I had seen him coming in the rear-view mirror and was lying across the front seats when he hit (lap belts only). The collision pushed me into the car ahead, which crashed into the car ahead of it, which crashed into the car ahead of it. I don't remember where the chain reaction stopped. The Cortina was totalled, but I was unhurt. The drunk staggered up to my now Cortina Accordion and yelled into my face, "What the [heck's] going on here?"
6. A woman ran a red and smashed into the right side of my '64 Studebaker Lark as I pulled away from the left curb on a one-way street. It was totalled because it was an 11-year-old Studebaker — but [darn] it, it was a top-of-the-line Daytona V8 with a transistorized AM radio, no less. Luxury!
7. A woman slammed into my '72 Pontiac Parisienne when I was stopped at a red light (pre-cell phones, so she wasn't texting). She was so unnerved It took three cups of coffee at a nearby restaurant before her hands steadied.
8. A year or two later, a drunk with no shirt on, being caressed by his girlfriend, drove into the same Pontiac at a red light. Between hiccups he said he'd pay for it himself. Just don't tell the insurance company. R-i-i-g-g-h-h-t.
9. In Winnipeg a couple of years ago a Minnesota woman slammed into my '08 Impala when I was stopped for traffic at a yield sign. That night a man who said he was her father phoned from Minneapolis, saying skip the insurance company; he'd pay for the damage himself. No dice. I could see myself trying to wring cash out of some guy on the basis of an alleged phone call from a foreign country.
I stopped getting hit by idiots running red lights after I put a big sign on the back of the car saying, I Stop for Green Lights!
Just kidding.
1. I was driving my parents' six-week-old '65 Chevelle Malibu when a kid in a '56 Buick and with no insurance and who, the cops said, admitted he had been feeling up his girlfriend, ran a red and T-boned me in the middle of the intersection. No one was hurt. Four years later my dad received a letter from the insurance company saying the kid had finally finished paying.
2. A gravel truck ran a stop sign and ripped the right side off my '56 Austin Westminster. I lay across the seats (no seat belts) and was uninjured.
3. A guy ran a red, smashing into my '60 Falcon wagon. I scored a new right-front fender. The day I got it back from the body shop, I drove into a car-radio store's repair-and-installation garage where a customer in an Oldsmobile, without looking, backed into me. No wheels for another week.
4. I was driving through a small Alberta city in the curb lane of a downtown street when a kid to my left hit the gas and cut in front of me, hitting the front left of my year-old '69 Cortina as he turned right. He stopped in indecision on the cross-street, then sped off. But he had given me enough time to grab my camera, and the next day the city's police department, along with my insurance company, received a series of 8 X 10 glossies of my car and the kid in his, speeding off into the distance, his licence plate clear as crystal, along with the back of his head. Turned out the hit-and-run genius's old man was the police chief.
5. I was fifth in line at a red light when a drunk going at least 40 mph rammed into my two-year-old '69 Cortina. In astonished disbelief I had seen him coming in the rear-view mirror and was lying across the front seats when he hit (lap belts only). The collision pushed me into the car ahead, which crashed into the car ahead of it, which crashed into the car ahead of it. I don't remember where the chain reaction stopped. The Cortina was totalled, but I was unhurt. The drunk staggered up to my now Cortina Accordion and yelled into my face, "What the [heck's] going on here?"
6. A woman ran a red and smashed into the right side of my '64 Studebaker Lark as I pulled away from the left curb on a one-way street. It was totalled because it was an 11-year-old Studebaker — but [darn] it, it was a top-of-the-line Daytona V8 with a transistorized AM radio, no less. Luxury!
7. A woman slammed into my '72 Pontiac Parisienne when I was stopped at a red light (pre-cell phones, so she wasn't texting). She was so unnerved It took three cups of coffee at a nearby restaurant before her hands steadied.
8. A year or two later, a drunk with no shirt on, being caressed by his girlfriend, drove into the same Pontiac at a red light. Between hiccups he said he'd pay for it himself. Just don't tell the insurance company. R-i-i-g-g-h-h-t.
9. In Winnipeg a couple of years ago a Minnesota woman slammed into my '08 Impala when I was stopped for traffic at a yield sign. That night a man who said he was her father phoned from Minneapolis, saying skip the insurance company; he'd pay for the damage himself. No dice. I could see myself trying to wring cash out of some guy on the basis of an alleged phone call from a foreign country.
I stopped getting hit by idiots running red lights after I put a big sign on the back of the car saying, I Stop for Green Lights!
Just kidding.