My Birthday Suprise in Ocean City, MD with a Bang!

[studebaker-R2-4-me]

Well I finally saw after 4 years, my Girlfriend get PO'ed. Wow am I glad I was not on the receiving end of her taking a strip of this poor guy from Pennsylvania... He was turning around giving his daughter crap coming up to the stopped traffic at a red light and smashed into the rear end of the Lark. The deck lid is bent up pretty good.

Here is a picture of the offending BEAST and the Lark

It's about the adventure not the journey...

[Milaca]

Oh no!! Why do bad things happen to good cars? Did any other parts receive damage? Did anything good come from this incident? Hope things go better for you from now on.

[Anne F. Goodman]

WE can be pretty darn blunt we take no prisoners but we give the facts pretty clearly . We just can't believe that the stupidity of the driver that crashed into us. Just finished the GoldenHawk when a 20 something woman smashed the back of the Hawk. Hubby was upset but I raised holy crap. They had to come get me and ACTUALLY FELT SORRY FOR THE LASS. So I have been there. We take care of Business.
Happy Birthday it is My husband's Birthday too today. If you have good insurance nothing to worry about. Ours was great they took care of everything. Other than giving them her info I never had to deal with the other companies insurance. American Collectors is the Best.

[studebaker-R2-4-me]

Oh no!! Why do bad things happen to good cars? Did any other parts receive damage? Did anything good come from this incident? Hope things go better for you from now on.

I'm going to need a new deck lid and the Stainless on the deck lid I hope is ok. It is slightly bent in the middle. I'll have to check it out when I get home. The rear Valence (?) was pushed in also. I am going to have to bang some of this out so the the Key will turn in the Lock. We were lucky to get the deck lid open. I have the key in the lock and is stuck in the open position, just to be able to use the trunk.

It just amazes me how someone could be turned around while driving in bumper to bumper traffic. The guy was pretty tense and felt really bad. I told him it was an expensive deck lid so expect a big bill... I'm happy that I was not driving my 64 Hawk and drove into the hawk's deck lid. I would have Lost it on the guy. Caroline did really good telling him to pay attention to the road and not what is going on behind him.. She was not taking any excuses for his inattentive driving. I was a little surprised the police did not charge him for hitting me.

Well it was quite the adventure today. Beautiful country! The surf and turf have been very tasty!

Allen

[Bredehoft]

I am pretty sure that SI has new deck lids. A year or so ago, SASCO had plenty and I got one. It was $60 (at that time from SASCO). They also had the back panel, too - that was $30. I don't know about the Stainless trim (I found mine on ebay). I can't say what the SI prices might be. Good luck.

--george

[sbca96]

Typical SUV driver. At least it was a bolt on part. Glad your GF gave him the
well deserved beating. A friend of mine had his '96 Impala SS pushed sideways
in a parking lot by some idiot in a Nissan Armada about 2-3 feet. She was in
the parking spots sideways (too big to park normal?) and was backing up. She
even admitted her backing alarm was going off and she ignored it. Then she
said it wasn't a big deal because his car was "old" anyway, then he lost it. The
mentality of these people is amazing.

Tom

[Lark289]

Sorry to hear about your misfortune. Glad that everyone is OK, the car can be fixed but we humans are far more difficult to fix!

[Carl Purdy]

I am pretty sure that SI has new deck lids. A year or so ago, SASCO had plenty and I got one.

--george[/QUOTE]

Don't bet on it on SI having them. There was alot of things SASCO had that SI don't have.

[DieselJim]

SI has plenty of them, deck lids, that is. Jim

[JRoberts]

I was a little surprised the police did not charge him for hitting me.

Allen

Was there a reason for not charging him? I too am surprised by this. Will this make it more difficult to get his insurance to cover the damage his inattention caused?

[studebaker-R2-4-me]

Was there a reason for not charging him? I too am surprised by this. Will this make it more difficult to get his insurance to cover the damage his inattention caused?

There was a report made by the officer. He told the officer that he was totally at fault. It is the first time I have ever heard of someone rear ending you and not getting charged. Is it because the driver was from out of State? Maybe he was just his lucky day. I will be reporting the accident to our insurance company tomorrow morning. I really don't know what our insurance company will do.

As for us, we are just continuing our vacation, we are just enjoying the North Carolina coast and beach. I had my first southern BBQ tonight and it was fantastic. The corn bread just melted in my mouth.

Allen

[kurtruk]

Allen,

I commend you on your great attitude. You have not let this spoil your vacation. Thumbs up!

[JeffDeWitt]

Then she
said it wasn't a big deal because his car was "old" anyway...

Some woman did the same stunt with one of the air cooled VW guys when she put a nasty dent in a fender of his Bug. She said it didn't really matter because the car was old and ugly. He replied that so was she but that didn't mean people could go around hitting her. The woman was not amused <G>.

[Bob Andrews]

At least in my area, they won't necessarily ticket someone unless there's x-amount of dollars lost in damage (x being a guess and variable, and a guess) or if there's a personal injury.

The important thing is that the report shows fault in writing. I doubt you will have any trouble at all.

About 4 years back I had 9 of our family in Disney World. We were in a rented Econoline window van. We merged onto World Drive one afternoon behind a Disney bus, which proceeded into the left lane. We were at about 50 MPH when a Saturn Vue SUV approaced from the rear at a high rate of speed. Seeing it coming I stayed in the right lane. It whizzed by us and at the last minute realized how much slower the bus was going and jammed the brakes. It had just rained, and the SUV started fishtailing ahead of us. I had no escape and knew it was going to come back into our lane, so I hoped to get by while it was headed left. I braced myself as it came back hard right and clobbered us right on the LR tire. I had braced myself and kept it straight in spite of the shredded tire and stopped safely.

The driver of the SUV was a young girl, 9 months pregnant. I ran back to check on her, and she had already called her husband and parents. In 15 minutes her husband, his parents, her parents, and her brother were all there, before security. As the family was calming her down I went back to the van, followed by the husband. The wife had said the bus cut her off and caused everything; and the now irate husband wanted to know if I had gotten the bus number; which I hadn't. I got him calmed down, telling him he needed to be calm for his very pregnant wife.

When security arrived they got her story, then mine. She said that I was not in any way at fault, but she lost control based on the bus. They came to me, and I told them my story. They called police, but said it would be a couple-hour wait. I asked for all the girl's info and a copy of their report; called the rental company and reported what happened; put the spare on and off we went. When I returned the van I told them what had happened; we filled out a form, they copied the info I had, said I was all set, and we went home.

A few weeks later, the rental company called me. The damage was about $2200. They asked for my own insurance info. I told them they didn't need that since I was zero percent at fault. They said, "We know, it's just procedure for our records". I said no, since again, I had no liability, so there was no need to involve my insurance company! They said, well we're having trouble contacting the other driver since we don't have their info. I said, well I've got everything right here on my desk, will that help? She said YES, that would be ideal. So I gave her the info; never heard another word.

The lesson: I have no idea about yoor area, but in NY they have 'comparative negligence'. That means they will decide what percentage of fault they think each party should bear. I felt that was what the company in the above incident was trying to pull. As long as you keep all the details and the other driver's info, you should be fine.

Hope the rest of your trip is incident-free! (Except for the desirable kind!)

[barnlark]

Really sorry about the accident, Allen. Hopefully you can get it fixed soon and better than new. At least it wasn't a deadbeat without insurance. That would be my luck! That's why they call them accidents, though. I understand Caroline's need to lay into the guy after your semi-frustrating trip so far, but that can escalate to the point of getting ugly quickly. I'm glad it didn't. People carry guns these days in their cars and you never know who you're going off on. I've seen it happen. I try to think of every person in the other car as a possible convict. Just a thought, not a personal condemnation of what happened here, or by other members.

However, whether it's inattention, the weather, or something else, I think it's important to remember that regardless of how much we have love for our cars and passion for the endless work to keep them running and in good condition it's not worth it to seriously lose our tempers at the other drivers in public when an accident happens. It's always better to keep a cool head, even when a driver does something that stupid. Police will be more likely to arrest someone for some form of perceived assault these days than the actual accident unless there's alcohol involved. I'd be seriously ticked off, too, but it's never a good idea to go off too much.

If it were my daughter that had been at fault, I'd be upset, but if someone was overly verbally abusive and physically intimidating to her over a damaged car, I'd have to deal with that even more so. It's the job of the police to reprimand the one at fault, not the victim. This one sure doesn't sound fair, but if it's paid for and everyone is okay physically, that's all that matters and let's face it, after it's over it's out of our control anyway. It might feel better to give them our piece of mind, but it's really not worth it if they are a nut and it isn't a good idea when representing our marque. We're supposed to be a peaceful bunch of kooks. Well, except for that whole stock versus modified thing!