Saturday, January 16, 2010

a tale of danger!

Imagine this:

You're riding in the passenger seat as your husband drives down the highway on a DC evening. He merges onto another highway, and the driver already in the right lane on that highway takes issue with the fact that your car is now in her lane.


Aaaaand pretty soon she's so close behind you that you can't even see her headlights when you turn around and look. Don'tcha love a tailgater?

a PSA from Florida! woohoo!

Unfortunately, you soon learn the reason tailgating is illegal. A second car pulls in front of you, and proceeds to suddenly decrease in speed. Your husband slams on his brakes and manages to avoid hitting the car in front of you. However, the driver behind you (being approximately two inches from your rear bumper) is not so successful.

(In case you haven't figured it out, this story is not so much a hypothetical "imagine this" as something that actually happened to Jack and me a few days ago. Had you figured it out, smart ones that you are, hmm?)

Miraculously, despite being involved in an accident ON THE FREEWAY, we weren't hurt, didn't lose control of the car, and (it turns out) escaped with only a slight displacement of one bumper panel.

But! The story is not over!

Now, seeing as we were in a not-so-good part of a large and unfamiliar city, at night, we didn't feel particularly safe pulling over. We were only a mile or two from the navy base where we were staying, so we decided to just head there, figuring that the driver behind us would cut her losses, flee the scene, and never be heard from again.

However, incredibly, she followed us onto the base. To make a long story short, it turned out she apparently had some idea that she could:
  • show up on a military base after rear-ending another vehicle (belonging to an officer in said military, no less) on the highway
  • have no proof of insurance to show the police who showed up
  • have no plausible story other than "I just know something hit me, I don't know what"
  • point out only front-end damage on her car
  • and think she could get some money out of us to repair what actually seemed to be previous damage.
Needless to say, it did not work out well for her, and she not only received several tickets, but will no doubt be a major character in humorous anecdotes told by the gate guards for weeks to come.

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