Need to rant ...

On May 2 I was rear-ended on the LA freeway. Mine was the middle car in a 5 car collision. Traffic had come to a standstill and some idiot wasn't paying attention, etc., etc. The car that hit me was a BMW and it pushed me into a BMW in front of me. Thus began a chain of events that have caused us no end of frustration, anger, and bitterness. Fortunately nobody was injured. I was also fortunate that my car's engine seemed fine and I was able to get home safely, despite my state of shock. The back was all banged up and it was so disheartening to see our beautiful black Honda Civic in that state.

So ... the first step was to contact the insurance company of the driver who caused the accident (AAA). They asked us to take the car to a car body shop (they specified the place) and get a quote. After several phone calls AAA sent us a check for the amount quoted ($5,100) about two weeks later. That could have been the end of the saga, but in fact it was the beginning. When the shop started work on the car they realized the damage was worse than they had thought. They contacted AAA and told them the bill was going to be an additional $1,500! AAA called us (Daryl, since he is the legal owner) and informed us that since the car's value was less than the bill from the shop they were going to write off the car. Daryl was seized by a paroxysm of fits. He informed the agent that this Honda Civic was an HX, a model that couldn't be replaced, and assigning a value was ridiculous. Anyway, it was all out of our hands at that point. We had to make a decision. Either kiss our beloved car goodbye and get a new one, or fork out the extra money to get it repaired. I wanted to look into getting a new car. I felt bitter about paying $1500 to get our car back to the state it was before an accident caused by an idiot. Daryl managed to persuade me that we should get the car repaired and so we asked the shop to complete the work. While this was happening we received a packet of stuff from AAA. Turned out that once they wrote the car off we were no longer the owners of the car. We had to "buy" back the car from AAA for $750. We had to send the license plates and registration to DMV. We had to then register the car at DMV as if we were new owners. But before we could do that we had to take the car for a brakes and light inspection which cost $100. Can you believe this outrage???

The car is back. It looks beautiful again and drives very smoothly. It's a pretty unique car with a gas mileage about the same as hybrids. Daryl didn't think it was ecologically responsible to scrap a car which has more "green" features than just about any other car out there. But, OMG, doing the right thing can be a gigantic challenge!