Saga of Cell Phone Accident...
Well, on our way from Nevada to Oregon we recently got into an accident. A woman driving a borrowed car while on a cell phone rammed into my Ram’s drivers side alloy dually, then sheared off the driverside camper jack…The forged alloy aluminum wheel was twisted like a pretzel ( but no crscks!) and all of her airbags deployed…Her car was an absolute beater and was totaled…
With our ‘loaded for bear’ camper weighing nearly 5k# and the rear jack now missing, there was no way to raise the camper to jack the truck wheel up using the flimsy OEM jack, so we had to wait three tow trucks and 5hrs later to finally get a bottle jack of sufficient capacity (20T) to lift one side of the rear axle…This cost $317 bucks!!…The two 3T floor jacks the two previous tow guys had tried were 100% useless…Know now that I carry a $45 12 ton bottle jack from HD !!
Getting the spare out with the camper aboard was another ordeal due to the camper’s rear overhang, but I finally managed to do this by inserting only one length of the multi-piece OEM crank-rod, then stuck a 13 mm 12pt socket over the square drive male end of the rod and turned it using a ratchet – this worked out well!!
Tire now changed (but now without a spare) we continued on with our trip to Oregon only to later discover that now the steering wheel was a 11 o’clock to go straight, so it apoears that the rear axle has shifted a degree or two… Ugg!…To be determined…
Sacramento cops won’t write an accident report UNLESS there us a injury (or ‘possible injury’ - hint, hint…), so unless there is a witness, EVEN WITH a cop present, your pretty much on your own…Luckly we had two cooperating witnesses – one was the car behind me that got lucky and dodged the calamity, and the other was the next car after that which got sideswiped…
Turns out that the offending driver is pretty much off the hook because the insurance company policy that kicks in is the one belonging to the owner who loaned her the car – but as of yet we don’t know who the owner is or whether the car even has insurance!!…The answer to this question may only be found out at the DMV…
IF it turns out that there is an insurance policy for the offending auto’s actual owner (??), then standard practice is that, that will be the primary policy for reimbursement and their policy and company will be our primary point of contact, meaning that our insurance company will be in the secondary position, and IF coverage is sufficient, their insurance company will pay.
Determining fault is important – since there were cooperating witnesses, it was established that I was not at fault, so my company says that I won’t get a rate increase even if they end-up having to pay…Since the minimum legal PPD insurance in CA is only $5k (lol - apportioned over however many damaged vehicles – and $10k for personal injury – WTFO!!), my insurer pretty much already knows that they’ll be on the hook for covering the damage…
So for curiosity sake I googled ‘cell phone while driving accident stats’ and learned that there are thousands of accidents and injuries per year along with about 3,400 deaths…It seems as though driving while on a cell phone has become a secure make work project for Undertakers…
3 tons
With our ‘loaded for bear’ camper weighing nearly 5k# and the rear jack now missing, there was no way to raise the camper to jack the truck wheel up using the flimsy OEM jack, so we had to wait three tow trucks and 5hrs later to finally get a bottle jack of sufficient capacity (20T) to lift one side of the rear axle…This cost $317 bucks!!…The two 3T floor jacks the two previous tow guys had tried were 100% useless…Know now that I carry a $45 12 ton bottle jack from HD !!
Getting the spare out with the camper aboard was another ordeal due to the camper’s rear overhang, but I finally managed to do this by inserting only one length of the multi-piece OEM crank-rod, then stuck a 13 mm 12pt socket over the square drive male end of the rod and turned it using a ratchet – this worked out well!!
Tire now changed (but now without a spare) we continued on with our trip to Oregon only to later discover that now the steering wheel was a 11 o’clock to go straight, so it apoears that the rear axle has shifted a degree or two… Ugg!…To be determined…
Sacramento cops won’t write an accident report UNLESS there us a injury (or ‘possible injury’ - hint, hint…), so unless there is a witness, EVEN WITH a cop present, your pretty much on your own…Luckly we had two cooperating witnesses – one was the car behind me that got lucky and dodged the calamity, and the other was the next car after that which got sideswiped…
Turns out that the offending driver is pretty much off the hook because the insurance company policy that kicks in is the one belonging to the owner who loaned her the car – but as of yet we don’t know who the owner is or whether the car even has insurance!!…The answer to this question may only be found out at the DMV…
IF it turns out that there is an insurance policy for the offending auto’s actual owner (??), then standard practice is that, that will be the primary policy for reimbursement and their policy and company will be our primary point of contact, meaning that our insurance company will be in the secondary position, and IF coverage is sufficient, their insurance company will pay.
Determining fault is important – since there were cooperating witnesses, it was established that I was not at fault, so my company says that I won’t get a rate increase even if they end-up having to pay…Since the minimum legal PPD insurance in CA is only $5k (lol - apportioned over however many damaged vehicles – and $10k for personal injury – WTFO!!), my insurer pretty much already knows that they’ll be on the hook for covering the damage…
So for curiosity sake I googled ‘cell phone while driving accident stats’ and learned that there are thousands of accidents and injuries per year along with about 3,400 deaths…It seems as though driving while on a cell phone has become a secure make work project for Undertakers…
3 tons
