The Accident
Saturday morning I was at UCI Medical Center visiting a friend. I parked my car at about 9:30am, went inside and visited with my buddy for about 90 minutes, then walked back to my car. When I arrived, I found this:
(License plates have been redacted, but my car is on the left)
My initial thought was that this joker had just done a particularly bad job at parking his car, or maybe he arrived at the hospital in a big hurry and needed to get inside *stat* (rimshot). Upon further inspection I realized that I had walked by a van that had plowed into a parked car a few spaces behind me. I looked at the van and realized that there was a teenage girl (around 13 or so, I'm guessing) sitting in the passenger seat, but no driver.
I approached the van and asked the girl what happened. She started talking about how her mom had pushed the gas instead of the break, etc. She didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I didn't find that surprising given her age. She told me that her mom had gone to speak to the garage attendant fellow, whom I could see in the distance. I waited for Mom to return so we could sort this out.
Upon Mom's return to the scene, I learned that she didn't speak even a speck of English. Needless to say, this complicated matters a bit. I phoned the police to have them come and take a report of the incident. About 30 minutes later, a OC Sheriff showed up and we gave him all of the information. I waited for awhile while he played Su Doku in his car or something, then I got the lady's insurance info and was on my way.
It appears as though the lady ran into the car parked next to mine, then started driving again and hit the other car. Not sure if she was trying to flee the scene or anything, but I can't imagine my first instinct being to try to drive some more if I'd just hit a parked car.
I filed a claim with my insurance company that afternoon, so I'll probably be getting my car fixed soon. The damage is entirely cosmetic since neither the wheel nor the frame appear to have suffered damage during the accident. I'm just glad that there's pretty much no way I'd be found responsible for it. Oh, and the lady had insurance and everything, so it'll become more of an inconvenience than anything else as the process continues.
Posted from Orange, CA
