This Country

A couple weeks ago I was on my way to a skating sesh and never made it there because this happened:

I was on the far right lane stopped in traffic near the Capitol building. It's always backed up around that time (5:25 PM) since state workers are all leaving to go home.  A girl was in a parallel metered parking spot on my right, ahead of me. I was already stopped so when traffic started moving, I paused to see if she would make a move and get in. She didn't move the car or indicate to me that she was going (a wave or hand gesture) so I started moving. She eventually did come out but only after I was almost past her.

I wasn't happy about it but at the same time I wasn't notably upset or angry. I've been through worse incidents than this so these things don't faze me anymore. My Acura has been through a lot.  So we both pull over and get out of the car. I simply ask to trade insurance info, you know, standard operating procedure. 

Well, this girl, about my age, maybe younger, tells me that she doesn't know where the insurance info is. I'm like, okay that's a problem. She says it's her brother's Subaru Outback and he's currently in Beirut. She suggests we just trade contact info and be on our merry little way because she has to get to work. I firmly state that I NEED her insurance info because there is thousands of dollars worth of damage to my car.   She's like, "it's barely even dented!" And I didn't come out and say it was her fault, nor did I place blame on anyone, but she kept saying it was an "accident" and it was "arbitrary." When I called Roy and explained what happened, she's like, "stop trying to make it sound like it was my fault!" All I said was that she hit me. I was keeping a calm tone but this girl was downright irate. When I insisted that she get the insurance info, she sneered to herself, "THIS COUNTRY." I was like, whoa. I took a picture of her license plate so I didn't have to write it down, and she's like, "Stop taking pictures of my car!!"  Eventually Roy came out to the scene because it was less than 2 miles away from our house. She wanted to leave and without insurance info, I didn't know what to do. I eventually called the police.

They were taking forever, so Roy called up his Harrisburg Police acquaintance and he had someone send over a car. Two cops came and just looked at our cars and one of them asked me what happened. I don't know if they asked her. They said that the only reason I would need to call the police is if there were any injuries or if there were obstructions on the roadway. So they didn't write up a report or anything. They did call the girl's insurance company and verified the insurance for me so I got the policy # and owner's information.

The next day I called Geico and filed a claim and gave my statement. The girl had already called State Farm and had given hers.  She refused to give Geico one. After Geico obtained her statement through State Farm,  they concluded that I was not at fault. State Farm has not yet decided and they are waiting until they obtain the police report (good luck with that).

So, tomorrow I'm taking the Acura in to get an estimate. My guess is $2,500-3,000 to repair the car. The metallic white pearl is a hard color to match apparently and that's why it costs so darn much. Hopefully State Farm comes through.  To be continued...

*UPDATE: Estimate came in at $3,311. Ugh. Looking forward to riding the bus to work - said no one ever.
**UPDATE #2:  State Farm is only willing to pay 25% of the damages. GEICO is going to go after 100% through arbitration but it could take months.  In the meantime, I'm not going to fix anything until this is resolved.