Aggravation

Come on, now....

We just did that home equity loan, right?  To get out of debt, so we can start saving toward a trip to the United Kingdom... Right?

Last Sunday night, we had a heavy rain storm, and the rain started to drip through a crack in our living room ceiling, soaking the arm and part of the seat of the couch before we noticed (we were at the dining room table).

Dave called our usual handy man guy, and he came out on Monday.  

They went up into the attic, and onto the roof, and thought they had determined that the awkward area of the roof where two peaks and the chimney all meet was where the difficulty was.

It was probably damaged by the ice dam that formed during the ice storm back in February, when water was running down the interior side of the chimey.

So, they sealed it with three tubes of some kind of roofing caulk.

Then, on Tuesday, we had record breaking rainfall...5.06 inches in just a few hours...and it rained in our living room again.  Heavily...  Fortunately, the couch and electrical stuff was still shoved out of the way, and the towels and big bowl were still in place.

The crew came back out on Thursday, and this time, they tried reinforced hot tar over a larger area.

So far, with last night's storms, it seems to be working.

I'm usually really grateful for a rainy August, but this year, not so much.  The lawn is costing us $160 a month alone....because we can't mow it ourselves.

We don't know how much these repairs are going to cost yet, OR if they are going to work for another really heavy rain.

Then, yesterday, we decided to go out for a walk at Lake Hefner before it got too hot outside. We've both been getting more exercise lately, and this was a good opportunity to get out on a weekend, and to blow off some steam from the stress of the roof issues.

It was lovely.  We got in a good 20 minute, fast-paced walk before it got too hot for me.

Then, we stopped for a low carb lunch, and a new pair of sneakers for Dave, on the way home.

As we were getting closer to home, along 23rd Street, a guy on a motorocycle pulled out of the Arby's lot without looking.  I WATCHED him pull out without turning his helmeted head!!

I THINK someone in the right lane honked at him, but he just crept on.

He came across both lanes of oncoming traffic, and STOPPED directly in front of us, across our lane, appearing to try to make an illegal U/left turn, and we didn't have time to stop.

Dave had slammed on the brakes as he pulled across our lane, and we had slowed substantially, so that we DID stop the moment we hit him.  We were going less than 5 miles per hour, but, none the less, we hit him.  

The impact was just enough to knock him down, and scratch and dent... it was CERTAINLY not enough to deploy air bags.

There was a curbed median to our left, and traffic to our right. Dave could not do anything but slam the brakes.

Crunch......my hands flew up in front of my face at the moment of impact (but NOT before, I saw everything up to that point)....his bike went down, and so did he.

People on either side (and obviously behind us) stopped.  Thankfully, we were not rear ended. 

A couple of guys got out of their cars, one from the oncoming lane, who saw it all, to help him up, and he was fine. Just a scrape on his arm and a cut finger. 

The witnesses did not stick around, though  (we really could have used that kind of help), and Dave didn't think to take pictures of the bike WHERE IT WAS -- on the ground, perpendicular to my bumper, in front of the car.

We only took pictures of both vehicles once they were moved off to safety.

I dialed 9-1-1 before Dave even got all the way out of the car, and dispatch sent EVERYONE...police, fire, and ambulance (that's who I work for).  

Dave was yelling and swearing at the guy while he was still lying on the ground...it was ugly.

The fire station is just two blocks away, so they were there first.  The biker was already up walking around.

The fire crew were the only ones who  saw how the bike was perpendicular to the front end of the car, NOT pointed with traffic.  

They were the ones who picked the bike up to move it off the road, and blocked the traffic so that we could all move to safety.

We all went into the Arby's parking lot, and fire left the scene.  They did not speak to the police, either, that I saw from inside the car.

Police and ambulance arrived next.  The guy told the police that he had been in our lane, in front of us, for half a block, and that we had rear ended him.

THAT was absolutely NOT TRUE.  

I got out of the car, and I told the cop what I had seen. The bike came out of this driveway that we are standing in right now, and went across two lanes of traffic, without turning his head, to stop across our lane.

Dave told him what he had seen, which was exactly the same, and the cop knew that Dave and I had not corroborated to make up a lie, because I had been in the car, and Dave outside of the car, until I got out to talk to the cop.

Dave and the biker screamed at each other.  I am glad that the cop was there, or it would have been bad.

The guy was clearly FINE,  except that he seemed to all of us to be slightly altered--it could have been mild shock, OR he could have been under the influence. 

Dave asked the cop to do a sobriety test on the biker, and the cop said no, because he couldn't smell anything.

REALLY?  Can you smell drugs?

Anyway, so when the medic crew approached the biker, all he let them do was dress his arm. 

I pointedly listened to that whole exchange (and introduced myself to the crew as they left).  

They asked him awareness questions and stuff, and he was perfectly fine.  He had, after all, just dropped his bike, basically.

It's lucky that he was at about a 15 degree angle, or his left leg might have been hurt.

Anyway, here's the kicker....OF COURSE, he had NO INSURANCE.  

His story was that the bike had been in storage, and he just took it out to replace a tire, and hadn't gotten insurance on it yet.

Um, if you have an uninsured, not street legal vehicle that needs a new tire, you go get the tire in your insured vehicle, OR you put the fucking thing in a trailer and drag it there..... god damned idiot.

The licence tag was folded up over itself, too (which did NOT happen during the accident, because we hit his side, not his rear), and was illegible.

I noticed that the bike also had NO MIRRORS.  I don't think anyone else noticed that.

He kept insisting that we were at fault, but we were not cited for anything, because we were just driving down the street, going with the flow of traffic,  when he pulled out across our lane.

He got a ticket for not having insurance, and his bike was impounded for not being insured, and, possibly, for not being street legal, but we don't know that part.

Unfortunately, the cop said that he couldn't cite the biker with anything else, and that we could possibly still be cited eventually, because there was no proof that our story was true yet.

We left as the tow truck was loading the bike onto the bed.

Dave called it in to our insurance immediately when we got home.

Now, an investigation has to be done, because we had no witnesses, and it's our word against the biker's.

I think the fact that the bike was not legal is going to work in our favor, and our insurance company will pursue traffic camera footage, and security camera footage from the surrounding business parking lots.  Dave will send them all of the pictures, and point out that the bike had no mirrors.

They are also possibly going to seek out fire crew statements, and possibly if they have camera footage. We know the cops wear "go pro" cameras, but we aren't sure about fire crews.

Anyway, we weren't hurt, the idiot only had minor scrapes, but he has no insurance to pay for MY car, or his bike, and he fucking lied about what happened to try to save his own ass.

The fact is, we are probably going to be stuck with the repair bills for my car.  AGAIN.  

For the third time, my car has been hit by some fucking okie without insurance.

Friends are asking why repair it?  

Well, because it's ugly, and Dave is very particular about maintaining cars impeccably in order to retain their value.  

If I try to trade this car in some day with a fucked up hood and front bumper, I will get far less value for it.

So, between the as-yet-unknown cost of the roof repair (and the unknown effectiveness of said repair), and the unknown outcome of the car situation, we probably will be going immediately back into credit card debt.

Haven't we been through enough?  

There was drinking yesterday.  Dammit.  One step forward, four steps back.

Oh, by the way, Oklahoma is the state with the most uninsured motorists.  

The last time, we got rear ended at a stop light, and we learned about one of the tactics they use, CONSCIOUSLY, to beat the legal requirement that they have insurance in order to operate a motor vehicle.

They sign up for "month to month" insurance in order to renew their tag, or their drivers license...they get their card that says they are insured (which they ARE...for ONE MONTH), and then they stop paying.

Their coverage disappears, but they still have a card that appears to be valid.

They present their apparently valid insurance card at the DMV, or at accident scenes, and they drive off with a smile on their faces.

Our insurance company went after the guy who rear ended us, and  uses this particular modus operandi, but they got nowhere, and we were stuck paying for the repairs, which were, conveniently, exactly the same amount as my deductible.

YES, of course I have uninsured/under-insured coverage on my policy, but that doesn't mean I don't have to pay a huge deductible EVERY FUCKING TIME this happens.

My Toyota was hit while parked ONCE in Illinois (the person who did it came to the door, and their insurance paid my repairs and car rental), but was hit two times in Oklahoma.  

The two times in Oklahoma were hit and runs, OF COURSE, so repairs were on us.

My Mazda, which I bought here in Oklahoma in 2014, has been hit once while parked (hit and run, of course), and twice while we were driving, both times by ass holes with no insurance, of course.

What the HELL is it with people running into my cars?  ESPECIALLY the Mazda... It's ELECTRIC GREEN...its color is so bright it glows!

I sure as shit hope you, gentle reader, had a better week than we did, and that your karma is more in your favor than ours is in ours.