OUCH! GRRRRR!!!!

>:XX

Coming home from the zoo, pulling out into traffic, a GMC truck/trailer hauling asphalt changed lanes (merged) and smashed into our right front bumper tearing it off.

Everyone was fine, though my back was sore almost immediately.

But my poor car. This was her first accident ever at almost 10 years old…and with one fell swoop she lost her $10k resale value. It was drivable to get home, but not again until it gets fixed.

And the topper? Our fault. Failure to yield, since we were the ones at the stop sign. The cop said he didn’t want to write Tom the ticket but he had to. It was just a matter of bad timing—the guy merged over right after Tom looked and saw that it was clear.

We were at the bottom arrow at a U-turn/turn-around stop sign needing to turn directly onto the 696 on-ramp.

There are three lanes of traffic at that point, and the guy that hit us was NOT in the closest merging lane—but moved over at the last minute, after we had started to pull out (he said his blinker was on). I saw the truck go by, heard the screeching of the brakes, and just as I thought HOLY SHIT HE JUST MISSED US—his huge work trailer (filled with asphalt) slammed into the front right bumper and tore the whole thing off. Luckily it was just the bumper and it doesn’t seem to be anything more internal.

And what actually hit us (and had no damage, of course):

>:XX

The guys in the truck were really nice and were only worried about Owen, who was just fine and didn’t even realize anything had happened (though when he saw the front of the car, he said “broken”). And he did notice the police car there. 🙂 The cop was going to let him come sit in the car, but he got a call right as we were headed over so we didn’t get to do that. 🙁