The Car Accident

A few weeks ago, I was involved in a car accident. Everyone was okay. Now that we established this, I'll try to set the scene of the accident. On a sunny afternoon, I was driving on a two-way, two-lane street in my neighborhood. At an intersection, a guy decided to turn into the side street apparently thinking he needed to do so quickly. Although I honked my horn and slammed on the brakes, only resulting in him stopping his car in the middle of road, I wasn't able to stop in time and hit the front right side portion of his car.

After making sure everyone was okay, he accused me of going too fast. I didn't respond because I couldn't believe this idiotic thought. Plus, another driver stopped by to check out the situation around this time and called the police for us. There were no witnesses to the accident, meaning he could have waited 4 seconds to turn after I passed through the intersection.

Meanwhile, the guy then ran, by foot, to his home to get insurance information. As I found out later, the guy has a Venezuelan license and is on his mother's insurance policy. Unfortunately, he was not Andres Galarraga. A police officer talked with both of us, had us complete the Police Department Accident Exchange of Information form, and ended up giving the other guy two citations, one for being at fault for the accident and I'm not sure what the other was for since I haven't seen the police report yet. (It could be related to the Venezuelan license.)

Now the real fun begins. Since the other driver was at fault, I went through his insurance company. After nearly two weeks (and me calling and emailing his insurance company multiple times), they told me that they were unable to get in touch with their client, and I would have to go through my insurance company. Lovely. I'm not going to identify his company, but Flo should either drop them or have their name their price tool equal about $30,000.

Anyway, my insurance company has been terrific. Unfortunately, they determined that my 2003 Honda with nearly 127,000 miles wasn't salvageable. While I'll get a settlement, I now need to find a new (to me) car rather quickly. We're probably looking at a bigger car like a Honda Pilot or Honda Odyssey, Toyota Highlander, Chrysler Town and Country or something similar. I don't want to use the word "minivan," but that could be in the discussion. Any suggestions?