No luck with cars

This is my car after it was hit on the 14th of December

Well we were getting ready to watch the Greenbay game last Sunday when we hear this big CAAA-RASH!!! in the front yard, Chris raised up and sees this white van parked in our front yard, and says "Somebody just hit the truck."

The 20-year old mexican driver slid around the corner (notice the skid marks?)and smashed into the pickup - sending it 10 feet from where it was parked, sent the trash can flying, ruined a perfectly healthy burning bush. I called out to the people in the van and asked if everyone was OK? Yes- we're OK, so I called the sheriff (we live out in the county), and suddenly the driver in the brown sweatshirt starts walking down the street, which I advised the dispatch on the phone about. Chris talked to the people in the van and asked about insurance and license, they refused, saying we'll wait till the police get here. Fine, the sheriff shows up, questions the young man about leaving the scene, the kid said no, he was walking around the van, not walking down the street, but his mother was there (from up the street) demanded he tell the truth, and he said to the sheriff he walked up the street to get his license. Ok, so now he's driving unlicensed, and tried to lie to the sheriff about it. After a bit the sheriff sent me and Chris back into the house, saying they'll take care of it - no reason for us to stand out there in the cold. We went in, saw that we'd missed the ENTIRE FIRST QUARTER of the game over this business... Soon the sheriff came in saying that they have insurance - he has the insurance card in his hand - I asked him if it was Dairyland insurance - and he looked at it and said yes it is. I said, OK, but just because they have an insurance card doesn't mean they have insurance...He opined that it was legitamate looking, so? No reason for an experienced insurance agent to discuss this with a policeman, so I let it go. The sheriff said that the people are going to push the van out of our yard, it got hung up on the railroad ties (thankfully they got hung up, because if we weren't home we'd have never known who hit the truck), so they got their van out of our yard, and we called our insurance company to start the ball rolling having a bad feeling about all this.

A couple hours later the driver, his mother, and sister show up at our door to tell us their insurance isn't going to cover the damage because the under 25 drivers isn't covered under the policy - and YES, the mother knew this. So - they know some auto-body man that they want to take our truck to and get the work done and they'll pay for it. Told them NO WAY you're taking our truck anywhere, our insurance adjustor will be out here and then we'll know what's going on. They asked if they can come talk to him, I said you're free to do what you want, but you're not taking the truck and nobody but a licensed insured body shop is doing anything. They tried the sympathy angle because the driver is in college in Seattle, I told them so what, he shouldn't be driving a vehicle he's not insured on and shouldn't be driving without his license on him. Ok - so a couple days later our adjustor gets out here and the kid's DAD is trying to talk to the adjustor and negotiate some type of deal so they don't get in trouble with their insurance company over it. The adjustor advised the guy that this isn't really ethical and asked him to take off. Finally the dad did, and later I called the sheriff to discuss the harrassement going on, and pretty much demanded that this kid be cited as any other driver on the road would have been.

Now to the end of it - the adjustor from our company says the truck is totalled because the damage will cost more than the truck is worth. Chris doesn't want to total the truck, so he's opting to take a lesser amount and find a body shop to do the work and keep the truck. He's put a LOT of work into it himself and spent quite a bit of money on options and cosmetics like a stereo and bucket seats, etc.

And we're the bad guys because we don't want this kid to get off without a minimum negligent driving ticket and no-license driving and no insurance driving - assholes, huh?? The owner of the van will be sued by our insurance company to recoup whatever they pay us for the damage to the truck. The driver will get points on his driving record - if it were up to me, he'd lose his license completely. Not that that matters considering the very high number of drivers that don't have licenses or insurance, just playing the numbers in the high-stakes game of avoiding an accident. The kid was driving at least 30 miles per hour on solid ice when he careened around the corner and drove into our yard. And we're the assholes....