Wham! Bam! Pow!

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. I was trying to get to work early to set up for the forum we were having, but it didn't work out. The offramp from the highway to my office park is a little bit difficult in that it is a fast offramp with a blind curve and a yield sign at the end feeding into a two-lane road that merges into one very quickly. So yesterday, I yield at the yield sign, and see that there are 2 cars in the first lane and a steady stream in the 2nd lane. I wait for the two cars to go by and am getting ready to join traffic. I take my foot off the brake and WHAM! whack right into the guy in front of me, who decided not to move. He then decided to continue not to move. He just sits in his car, and I think shakes his fist at me. Then his head slumps a bit, and I have no idea what's going on. Meanwhile, cars have to move all around us because he refuses to pull over. And I can't pull over because I'm against his bumper. Eventually (after maybe 5 minutes) I get out of the car, and he starts talking on his cell phone, but gets out and asks "Didn't you see me stopped?" We look and see there is no damage at all to either of us (that's why our cars have bumpers) Then I say I want to pull over farther, so he gets in his car and pulls up 5 feet and sits in his car on his cell. Meanwhile, two cars come around the blind offramp and nearly smash into each other to avoid us, brakes and tires smoking. I have no idea what's going on, so I meander for another 5 minutes waiting for him to get off his cell. Finally, I call the police business number, and tell them I had a fender bender and explain where, and the operator tells me that someone is already on the way. I'm about to tell her I can't hear her because a fire truck is going by when I realize that the fire truck is for us, along with an ambulance. The fire truck pulls up behind us and blocks the offramp, and guys get out and start lighting flares. Then the ambulance guys get out and are putting on "emergency" vests. The guy I hit gets out of his car and asks if I called them, and I say no. He says he was on his phone with his sister, telling her he'd be late, which of course takes 15 minutes and makes him later. The EMTs ask if we are ok and see that we are, so they pack up and pull out just as a squad car pulls up. The police officer gets out and asks us to pull up farther (THANK YOU!) and pulls in behind us as the fire truck packs up. She then asks me what happened (because our friend is back on the cell) and asks us if we are injured (no) and if there is damage (no). She then says "Let's call it a day, gentlemen" and sends us on our way. I'm now late for the forum. Long story short, it was a pretty ridiculous situation, but pretty hilarious.

This is how they respond to a fender bender with no bent fenders

I've never been in a real car accident, but I've had a few "incidents". Like when I almost killed Liz in High School (I was following her and we both couldn't see a stoplight in the sun until pretty late, and I whacked her hard but with no damage. Sorry Liz). Or when I hit a parked car and broke my turn signal (it makes more sense how it happened. They were parked in the middle of a busy street). I also took a fun 5am spin on the highway in new jersey, though I don't think Victor (who woke up to us looking backwards down the highway), Kat and Chris appreciated it. By the grace of God, didn't hit a thing, and had nothing but burnt rubber as ill effects.