The accident with an "officer"...

The other day we had a visit with one of our insurance agents. If anyone else is like us you feel like you get hit coming and going. Between Health, Car, Workers Comp, Commercial, Disability and Home Owners Insurance (which we were again informed doesn't include flood or earthquake damage.) we feel tapped out. So when we noticed that Shane's truck coverage had almost doubled this year we were curious. Our agent looked up his record and we were reminded of a little accident he was in last year. (Well actually two, but we will only speak of one here - the other involved a church parking lot and a good friend - GRRRR Shane! :) )

Some of you may recall the accident with a female police officer. A sad, but somewhat humerous story (because no one was hurt of course.) This story really needs pictures - and we actually had some amazing ones - but we must have given them to the insurance company (and I don't want to call and ask for them back!)

The story goes like this... Shane was on main street (mid saturday morning) pulling into the left hand turn lane (heading South ). When out of nowhere a cop car in pursuit (doing approx. 80) comes flying up on him. He was almost in the turn lane so he decided to continue into the lane, thinking he could never make it to the right without cutting the officer off. Well apparently cop cars are supposed to always pass on the left, so this cop went to his left (into on-coming traffic) and caught her car on a 2" tie down bar on the side of his 16' flat bed trailer he was pulling. This of course caught Shane by surprise, but left very little damage to Shane's truck, (and none to the sturdy trailer or tie down bar), and leaving her car split open on the passenger side from front to back like a tin can. (At this point the pictures that we had would have come in real handy - "a picture is worth a thousand words" - the only way I can describe it is through the movie "Grease". At one point Danny and the leader of the other group are in a street race - out of the bad guys car shoots some metal thing that eats up the side of Danny's car - it looked just like that!)

The officer who happened to be female - jumps out of her car and immediately begins apologizing and saying that until today she had a perfect record. (We later learned from a quite reliable source that a fellow officer told him this was her SECOND accident of the DAY!) Within moments the street was filled with police cars - all male of course. (I'm sure wanting to see if this was really true - and to prove that males are better drivers! Questionable!) Being a police car the action was all caught on the "dashcam". After an officer reviewed it, he told Shane that he understood both perspectives and said that it could have been SOO much worse. He decided not to issue a citation. The eaten up car was pulled into a parking lot and Shane's truck (with his name and logo plastered on the window) was pulled over to the side of the road, where approx. 8 police cars and the officers driving them "shot the breeze for a while". Can you imagine the site!!

Shane's phone then begins ringing. The first call said that the same officer had flown by him moments before the accident almost pushing another guy off the road, and he would be happy to testify that she was out of control. Then random friends called to see what "the heck" he was doing on the side of the road with all those cops!

When he arrived home we figured it was over - so 5 months later we were surprised to receive a letter from the "Utah Police Pool" asking us to write a check for the $6000 in damages.... what? We referred it to our insurance agent and told him to fight it. Apparently they did for a few months and then THEY PAID IT! Hence our insurance rate hike! I guess the moral to the story is don't get into an accident with a police officer - they always win!

Our favorite story of the accident came from some of our neighbors They told us that as they were driving down main they noticed the whole areas force of police cars surrounding a vehicle. The father said to his four boys, "Man, somebody must have done something REALLY REALLY bad!" As they passed the commotion they noticed Shane (and his name plastered on the outside of the truck) and he quickly changed his story. "Well boys, sometimes bad things happen to good people..." We had a good chuckle about that! (The boys still look at him a little funny though!) Shane had calls for weeks from curious friends who had seen or "heard" that he might not be the guy they thought he was! (I'm sure there are still some out there that wonder when they see his truck driving around town... )