The New Car

 

        Coming home after the end of a 12 hour shift on Friday the 13th, C and I were sideswiped on the interstate. Our car spun into the oncoming traffic before C was able to guide the car onto the side of the road. Stunned and in shock we sat there for several minutes before we were able to call a tow truck and highway patrol. The driver of another car had seen the accident and called highway patrol too, but wasn't able to get the license plate number of the car that hit us and then sped away. Thankfully we were not hit during the spin or as we sat at the side of the road. We are pretty sure the car that hit us was speeding and most likely didn't have it's headlights on.

        It wasn't safe for us to get out of the car to see how badly it was damaged. When the tow truck arrived we were able to get out. I went to look at the car. It was better than I expected. The back fender was damaged along with a side panel and a bit of the drivers side back door. The back left wheel was completely gone. We climbed into the tow truck and had our car taken to the the garage we get our car serviced at. Our neighbors met us there and took us home.

        The next day C contacted the insurance to file a claim. While he navigated through all the paperwork that entailed, I was burning with anger toward the driver of the car that hit us. We could have been seriously injured and C was definitely traumatized. He had not been in an accident this bad in decades. The fact that the driver didn't bother to stop to see if he'd (I assumed it was a man as women don't so such things.) badly injured anyone infuriated me. I hoped his vehicle had significant damage. I hoped his insurance would deny any claims he made. I hoped he'd have nightmares about what happened over and over again. He caused a lot of stress to two people who really don't need more stress in their lives.

        Eventually I got over my rage and moved on the the next challenge. Insurance had totaled our car. We were going to have to buy a new one. We had planned to replace the car we had, but wanted to save more money before doing so. C and I looked at a few sources for  good used (preowned is a stupid euphemism) cars. We wanted to get something that was safe, had good gas mileage, lower mileage and comfortable. One of the sources had newer model Jettas for sale. C loved the Jetta we used to have. It was a good car and we were familiar with the brand. C asked some mechanics and friends who know a lot about cars and they thought a Toyota or a Honda would be better. Online research supported this. The challenge was there are not a lot of cars like this out there. We needed to find something fairly soon as insurance was only going to cover a rental vehicle for another week. 

        We checked dealer used car inventories online. Twice the car we were interested in was sold before we could look at it. C finally just went to the dealership. There was a used Honda Civic for sale. It was higher mileage than we would have wanted but C arranged for us to take a test drive. It was clean but small. C had a hard time fitting his legs in the driver's seat even with the seat pulled all the way back. It seemed ok until we got onto the highway. Right away both of us knew that this was not a car we wanted. It shook like my hands after too much caffeine. We drove it back to the dealership. 

        Before we left on the test drive C asked our salesman to have any other options ready. When got back from out test drive C handed the keys back. The salesman had another car ready. We looked at it. At first glance it seemed to be exactly what we were looking for. C took the keys and we got in. It was roomy without being too large and felt really good.  C pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. The car moved smoothly without any shaking. C drove onto the highway and the car performed well.  C took it back to the dealership. We sat in the car for a minute. Given how fast cars of this type were selling we knew that we didn't have time to think about it. We'd have to jump at the chance now.  We walked into the dealership and told the salesman we would buy the car.

        It was well within our price range so we would not need to finance and that moved things along quickly. In a few hours we had a new (to us) car. In the few days that we have owned it we have found many more things we like about it. I was so worried that we would not be able to find something and am so grateful we have found what we needed. In many ways it is a better car than we had before. We look forward to many years of driving it.