Dishonor And DishonestyAssault by lyingEarth Date 2008.08.05 |
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Be warned before reading that this is a true vent. I am allowing a rare dramatic composition to proceed here.
Today I had one of the most frustrating and troubling experiences of my life. I was hit by another car in forward traffic this morning. This car, by the way had just dangerously cut me off during my morning commute. After slowing down and avoiding the accident I switched lanes to the left to get clear of the slowing traffic and was proceeding past the person with my front bumper about to where his front tire is and he swerved left into my lane. Horns blaring and hard braking was not enough to avoid contact and I had traffic to my left so diving out wasn’t an option. At the time I had no idea whether the guy was oblivious to my car or he had a bad blind spot.
Fortunately no one was hurt and body damage was very limited. My right front bumper, fender, and trim were damaged and his bumper got some white paint on it.
Curiously this guy had a buddy walk up the exit ramp with a coffee in his hand while I was talking to the H.E.R.O. guy. He said something like they meet up on this exit from time to time, but not today. It was kinda surreal, but then this is also a small world, maybe his buddy just happened to be at Waffle House or something. I did ask whether the other guy had posed as a witness and the officer indicated he had not, which was good… cause he wasn’t
The dispatch to our incident arrived after a while and when officer J. Williams of the Dekalb County Police Department approached me for my story I told him I had no idea whether the other guy just didn’t see me in the lane or if he was distracted… but he basically drove his car into mine. The officer nodded and based on his acknowledgement I assumed that was the same thing that the other guy had said.
About 30 minutes later officer Williams approached me with a ticket , the reason was… improper lane change! I expressed concern to the officer that while I had control of the lane this individual had not paid attention and hit my car… but I got the ticket. It was at that time that officer Williams looked at me and indicated the other gentleman in a Grey BMW with the Georgia tag# AWR 1873 had indicated that I cut him off and began harrassing him in a racing game on the highway. As would be expected I was appalled and asked the officer if he would please hear out my case and allow me to provide artifacts showing the chain of events because the story he was reporting could not be further from the truth.
I asked the officer to allow me the opportunity to provide an artifact/drawing of my account , but Mr. Williams would not accept anything from me, he indicated my entire story would be in the report. I don’t know officer Williams from Adam… but his argument for my getting the ticket was white paint on the BMW. I asked him what the dislodged front bumper, grey paint, and cracked sidemarker was all about on my car and he gave me that blank stare I get from my daughter when she didn’t think something through very well. Regardless, I’m stuck with a citation for the accident. The officer also stated that the other guy had made the 911 call and stated I had hit him.
As I mentioned earlier, I had originally given Mr. GA AWR 1873 the benefit of the doubt that he was kinda clueless. I mean, I gave him my insurance tag from Travellers, but he failed to give me anything to go on… but then I guess I should have pressed him. I was very frustrated and Mr. GA AWR 1873 came off to me as really quite creepy… I was actually kinda scared of him… anyway I digress. Back to the guy’s intent. I’m going to be very generous here and just say that this guy might really have somewhere in his head been driving in some alternate plane of existence and honestly believed somewhere somehow that I had cut him off instead of his car actually cutting me off… and now that we are in the twighlight zone maybe he really believed that my hard braking to avoid him and then switching lanes to get out of the fray was in some sort of way a challenge or aggressive move toward him. But that’s as far as I can go with that… because I have no idea where his head is or whether he might be on some sort of medication that distorts his outlook on things.
I can only tell my story for anyone who cares, and here it is:
On August 5, 2008 approximately 8:40AM EST I was in the center lane of 285 in Atlanta. I had moved to the center lane to avoid all of the merging madness that takes place between Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and N. Peachtree Road. Traffic was pretty bunched up in that area and as we moved forward I found myself needing to slam on my brakes to avoid nailing a Gray BMW that had basically been haphazardly injected into the 10 foot gap between the car I was following and myself. Once the BMW was injected into the line of traffic I travelled in it was forced to stop, nearly hitting the other car. At that point I felt that getting out of there would be in my best interest. Looking to the left the lane was clear and I really anticipated (due to the aggressive precursor to my needing to move) the BMW would move over with me… but he didn’t. I had switched lanes to the left and was proceeding forward, I was interested in seeing who was driving that BMW… was it grey hair, maybe glued to the phone? (I lose count on how many people on the phone become moving machines of death) I had just gotten far enough up to begin seeing the driver when the car abruptly swerved into my lane, apparently never seeing me from what I could tell.
I smashed the brake and the horn at the same time… but nothing could be done… we made contact.
It was really that simple. I’m just wondering whether that other guy was so prideful and ashamed of making a reckless traffic mistake that he reacted with a lie… or does he function under some evil intent to bully and victimize other people on the road. My buddies say that there are people out there that do this every day to get the insurance money… I don’t know… I wouldn’t be using a brand new BMW to do my dirty work.
I’d like to think that he’s a good willed person who has screwed up really bad, but I have my doubts… how about you?
I guess all I can do is go to court on October 1st and plea my case. The rest is in the court’s hands.
EDITED 2008.08.08
So… I went to the North Dekalb precinct to see where to get my police report and they said I must not have read my card, that I needed to call the number on the card. When I showed them the little piece of paper J. Williamson gave me with the case number and his name the two officers looked at each other and chuckled, one muttering “Williamson” under his breath. The officer in the precinct wrote me a card with the accident information and viola! On the back was all of the information I needed to find out how to get my report. Was the officer out of cards… or just making my life tougher? Based on the poor investigation, wrong ticket, and no official card with the accident information… Mr. Williamson is not exactly an officer who is terribly organized, thus the lack of attention to detail. I’m starting to see a pattern here.
Rich
EDITED 2008.08.13
Okay, I got the police report, all 3 sentences of it!
BASED ON THE STATEMENTS OF THE DRIVERS, AND TEH EVIDENCE OF THE VEHICLES, THE FOLLOWING WAS DETERMINED: VEHICLE #1 AND VEHICLE #2 WAS TRAVELLING WESTBOUND ON I-285. VEHICLE #1 CHANGED LANES IMPROPER WHICH IN-TURN CHANGED LANDED IMPROPERLY CAUSING VEHICLE #1 TO STRIKE VEHICLE #2 IN THE DRIVER SIDE REAR. THERE WERE NO INJURIES OR WITNESS.
I would have scanned the drawing, but it is more worthless than the text of the report. (sigh)
EDITED 2009.10.05
Following up a bit behind here. For those who might be stumbling across this post, the resolution to the encounter was dismissed charges. After approximately 21 months (due to the fact I missed my first court date… duh!) this case came to trial before the judge.
Mr. Gregory (or Jefferey) Wasserman came before the judge exclaiming that I had swerved into his lane and ran into the rear of his car. His story revealed to the judge that I had actually been in the lane to his left and had swung my car into his while he was stopped in traffic.
Pictures were exchanged, Wasserman took a verbal pot-shot at how beat up my car was before the accident. (Whatever he was trying to bring to light there is a vast unknown) And ultimately all of the pictures ended up being useless to the judge.
I offered my case to the Judge and ultimately he shared that since there were no witnesses and neither party had compelling evidence he had no choice but to dismiss all charges.
Wasserman argued that if he didn’t find me guilty then insurance would not be paid on his car. I would recommend that no one try to tell this type of a lie to the judge… because not only is it untrue… but in the case of Wasserman the claim had been paid and his car was “fixed”.
So, my car is still banged up from a selfish and untruthful driver on I-285 in Atlanta Georgia. But I was respectfully judged in court and Mr. Wasserman didn’t have opportunity to inflict the damage on my name and record that he had hoped to.
They come in all shapes and sizes I guess.