I was coming home from the monthly Southeastern Idaho Information Technology Syndicate breakfast on a drizzly, dreary morning yesterday. I was stopped behind a pickup in the right lane on a one-way street and watching a line of traffic make a left turn onto the one-way cross street. Suddenly, BAM! I had been rear-ended. It wasn’t a hard hit, so I didn’t lurch forward and hit the pickup in front of me. I unbuckled (a rare event, unfortunately), got out of the car, to find I was the front end of a three-car collision. The young lady driving the car in the middle really got the brunt of the accident as her car was crunched front and rear.

The young lady driving the pickup truck that caused the accident wanted to just give us her phone number and leave. But by that time I’d already called 911 and the police were on their way.

The whole process took a bit over a half an hour from the time of the collision until I could leave. The Pocatello policeman was very courteous, efficient, and pleasant. He collected everyone’s information and gave each of us a paper with everyone’s information on it. The accident report will be available in about a week. I’ll probably go by and pick up a copy just for the fun of it. The perpetrator was cited for failure to maintain safe clear distance and for attempting to leave the scene of an accident. Don’t think that last one will hold up, though, because as she was trying to drive away, I told her that the police were on their way and she should probably stick around, which she did. However, the driver of the crunched car had quite a talk with the policeman about that.

No damage at all to my car. The perp’s pickup was also undamaged. A thousand dollars or more damage was done to the car in the middle. She was singularly unhappy! It was a new (to her) car, and already it was in an accident and it wasn’t her fault. I think the pickup driver girl was seeing the left lane moving and didn’t realize our lane still had a red light. Or else, she was somewhere out in LaLaLand … or maybe both. When I drove away the policeman was in a pretty intense conversation with her. The insurance card she gave us did not have her name on it. She said she was insured on someone else’s insurance… I’m glad I don’t have a claim to make!