Benthic

Like many in the forum, I think that most of the lawsuits today are ridiculous; this would be an exception. A 40-plus year-old woman, previous DUIs, suspended license, Jack-in-the Box, living in the Bay Area.....not likely she has any assets, and probably deeply in debt.

I'd have the car fixed if it isn't totalled, then SELL it and buy new.

Rob Tomlin

If she didn't have insurance, she probably doesn't have much in the way of assets either. In which case it will be very difficult to even find an attorney who would take the case to begin with.

Hope for criminal prosecution.

AAA is one of the better insurance companies out there.

Woodie

Hey, sorry bout the 8. I agree with PoLaK. I don't like lawsuits, but this is a perfect case for one. Get her off the streets and protect the rest of society. Keep us posted on the outcome.

LiveBlues

I have to disagree with this. Go after her all you want, since she is responsible. The bar is not responsible and should not be included in the lawsuits.

RotaMotion

Thank you to everyone for you condolences and suggestions. Oh, and I could definitely live vicariously thought a few of the more irrational ones.

Yeah, I would love to sue the woman, but I think that would probably be a waste of time and effort. Yes, I’m mad as hell, and want her to feel some pain and hassle from what she’s putting me through. I should be able to get my time, money, and happiness back.

Yes, I want to get even. Yes, her complete lack of responsibility shouldn’t cost me time and money. Yes, I’m probably going to feel like throwing up when I have to make my next payment on the car, and it’s not in my driveway. Yes, the euphoria of owning my fist new car in 12 years, my first “real” car, the car I’ve dreamed about since high school has turned into a nightmare. She has no right to do to me what she did, but she did. Right now I wish I hadn’t bought the car. This is such a nightmare.

Then when reality sets in, I figure she is most likely a career alcoholic and her life is probably a real mess with more debt than assets. The best I can do it to see if my experience with her can be used to take her out of society for a while, and maybe make her think a little harder about recovery. She’s on the “Jails, Institutions, or Death” career path.

Also, I can’t help but think about a horrendous DUI nightmare that happened out here about a year ago. Same situation, but it was two children who were run over and killed. The woman, who I think was in her 40s and had a history of DUIs, took off.

Ironically, if “society” i.e. local government uses my experience with her as a reason for some jail time, that would really limit her income potential J and any assets to go after.

Rupes

Doh, sucks man. Thats an aweful situation to be in and I hope all works out for you. But I got another story that reminds me of yours and one you might not want to hear (Although slightly different)...

My father bought a new BMW 330 convertable, fully loaded for around $50k. Three days after he bought it, an SUV pulled in front of him at an intersection and he crashed the car at about 40MPH. Was 100% the other drivers fault, which she admited to the cop that showed up at the scene. The car had $22k in damage (ouch) and less than 100 miles on the tach. The insurance WOULD NOT give him a new car, even though my dad has a perfect record and has been with the insurance company (AAA) for many many years. It took about 1 1/2 months to fix, and while they did a good job, I feel we got lucky that nothing has gone wrong with it (yet).

My dad was praying that the car would require another 3-4k in repairs so it could be deemed "totaled." Anyway I hope that they are able to compensate you better than him.

-Rupes

RotaMotion

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions, ideas, insight, and support.

The following is a working document. It is a compilation input from this thread and my own ideas. Last Updated 9/6/2004.

It is my hope that the final version will be useful to other Rx8Club member that are unfortunate enough to have their 8 damaged by others. In other words, prevent other 8 owners from getting $crewed and later saying to themselves “if I had only known xxx and did xxx after the SOB hit me.”

Disclaimer: I'm having a hard time with the formatting. It changes when I save it.

1. Visually document the accident. Took five million pictures. (Done)



2. Contact insurance company.3. Find out where she got drunk and if I can trace financial liability back to them under California drunk driving laws.4. My 8 is a lease.5. Get copy of police report.


6. Find out if person who hit me was the owner of the car she was driving. If not, find out if owner has insurance.



7. Find good body shop in San Francisco East Bay near Dublin.8. Find out if my 8’s factory warranty will be reduced due to the accident.9. Identify questions for auto body shop.10. Identify all damage on my 8.

Microdot

Nah, even in California you can shoot em, if you are home when they break in. The key is that you are defending yourself (or your loved ones), not your property. Even us Californians have the right to defend ourselves.

However given the California legal system, you may be better off killing them. If they live to spin the story, they just might find a way to sue you for it.

Rob Tomlin

Gee, definitely some ignorance showing here.

Guess what? Even in Texas you can't just "shoot a burglar dead" just because he is in your house. If he is no threat and you can detain him by holding a gun in his face for example, until the police arrive, you can't simply blow him away! It's a matter of common sense here.

Then again, if someone breaks into your home and you are afraid for your life, or your family's lives, you are obviously entitled to protect them, even with deadly force. The very fact someone is inside your house can give rise to this fear, and it will be considered a reasonable fear.

It all comes down to how a reasonable person would react under the same circumstances.

Back on topic: as long as you have uninsured motorist coverage, you should be ok. A lawsuit under these circumstances would not be worth the time or effort, especially since no bodily injuries are involved. An attorney will take at least 1/3 of the recovery or will charge by the hour, which would be at the rate of at least $150.00 per hour.

grinch2k

Definatly check with you lease company, they will automatically be notified of any accident you car gets into and most lease companys include gap insurance in your lease payments. This is very common, at least here in NJ, but if you leased through MAZDA, it should be the same.

Rotor_Newbie

they are right.. no lawyers in their right mind will take your case.

I have AAA, and they paid 5800 on a 91 mr2 (none turbo) after my accident. The car isn't worth that much on bluebook, so they did me a favor back then. I hope they would do the same for you. Good luck and hope that 40 something freak will learn something and turn herself into a nun or something..

zmarko

If you want the car to be totalled (which I would suggest), find the lowest possible value (KBB, NADA, Edunds, etc) for resale. I don't know the current mileage of your car, or options, so I'll get a generic number you can work off of.

This is for PA, where I live, so you might have to adjust it for your location.

KBB: (listed 10K miles, in excellent condition, didn't click any options that weren't checked already).

Trade-in: $22,975
Private Party Sale: $25,480
Blue Book Retail Value: $27,985

That was the only pricing site I could get to work today. (Nada and Edmunds weren't working for me today for some reason). But it gives you an idea at least of what you'll be looking at.

What insurance company are you running through? I've had excellent experience with State Farm in regards to paying for a damaged car. However I've been with them for 17 years now.


Good luck, and sorry to hear about the accident. Glad you weren't in the car though.

Chrisbert

Sorry to hear it. At least you were not standing by it when it got hit. An aquaintence in high school died while leaning against his car while his drunk friend was throwing up on the passenger side. Driver / Friend was sober and was doing the passenger a favour by driving him home. He got sideswiped by another drunk driver.

Raevik

I'm sorry...am I the only one disturbed about the lynch mob here?

It sounds like this lady's life absolutely sucks already. She's wasted at 9pm, works at a fast food sh*thole, has no insurance, is driving illegally (probably due to necessity), has a bad record, etc.

She accidentally hits your car, is freaking out, and is probably going to lose her job and perhaps go to jail. Meanwhile, you're in a fury because of your car? Your inanimate, soul-less object which is just a collection of parts...

I love my car as much as anyone here (though I don't sit in my driveway with a toothbrush like some). However, this is somebody's life. Is she responsible, hell yes. Should she be accountable for her actions? YES. Should you JUDGE her and demean her and threaten to sue her for nothing just for vengeance? Uh...no.

I'm sorry about your car, I'm sorry this messed up lady hit it. I'm sure everyone involved is sad that it happened (except for a potential lawyer, but that tells you something about them by nature, doesn't it?). The reality is, it's just an object that can be replaced or fixed. You have been inconvenienced. She might go to jail, lose her already crappy job, and end up dead in a gutter in 2 years as a spiraled result of all this. Who knows?

You know the sad thing? I'm the republican. All you CA guys are supposed to be the bleeding hearts...

bowman

The lady made her choice and she must live with the consequences.

You can't get blood from a stone, but maybe a short jail term will knock some sense into her.

I can understand why he's upset. His car that he worked for was pissed away by a woman with no respect for herself or anyone else.

MTCD01

I can see your POV but I have a really hard time developing any sympathy/empathy for this lady.

My reasoning:
1. This woman is an Alcoholic (.20 at 9PM driving alone)
2. This woman has no right to own or operate a motor vehicle (probably due to her past DUIs)
3. The car could just as easily been a person.
4. I don't care where she works or lives. This woman is as big a threat to everyone around her as a violent criminal with a gun.
5. To blow a .20 she must have had about 10 drinks in a one hour period (not hard for an alcoholic). Someone fed her these drinks, took her money, and sent her out into the world to drive.

Screw this lady. I have no problem with people doing drugs but when they endanger other people with their drug use they become a problem for everyone. Uninsured, unlicensed, and 2x+ (in VA) beyond the legal limit of alcohol. This woman does not care about herself or anyone else. So why should anyone care about her?

She is a drain and a danger to society...nothing more.

Edit: Forgot to mention that had her car been drivable we'd be looking at another hit n' run thread. If she had hit something soft (like a person) the car would most likely still have been drivable and she would have fled the scene because she "can't get another DUI". Feeling sorry for this lady is impossible IMO.

Sykyll

Normally I don't agree with extreme punishment when someone makes a mistake, but this was not an accident from necessity. From her blood level it does not appear she was making a quick trip to the grocery store for food or she was returning from work. It does not apperar she accidently lost control of her vehicle because a dog or a child caused her to swerve to miss them.

She was obiviously intoxicated. She obviously has a past problem, that she tried to run from. Her decission making skills were obviously not coherent when she tried to flee a hit and run by leaving her car behind.

This woman has an illness that she can not control. My father recently died from the same illness; but, fortunately he did not take some one with him. Jail time will allow her some time to detox and reflect about her problems, but it may or may not fix her issue. If she returns to her familar environment when she is released, the illness will probably return. We tried many ways to get my dad to quit, but it just couldn't be done. You can't be with these people 24 hours a day and still live your life in some normal manner. Hopefully for her, she gets jail time and some counselor works on her self confidence.

I truely hope you get your vehicle fixed. You can sue this woman, but alot of people in this condition don't have anything left in value. I know you love your car, but it is a lifeless object that can be repaired. I would be crushed if someone wrecked mine, but I have had 2 dream cars rear ended by drivers. They were fixed, and life went on. Be happy you or someone else were not in the car when she hit it. It always seems the ones they hit die in the accident and not them.

The only pity I have for this woman is she can't see life beyond the end of the bottle. She made her choices, so I have no pity for the punishment that comes with them.

MTCD01

There are some interesting theories/studies on this subject that basically say that because a drunk person is more relaxed (limp probably due to intoxication and/or the fact that they didn't see the accident coming) during the actual collision they are far less likely to incur injury. The natural reaction for everyone else is to tense up (brace for impact) which actually can result in more/more serious injuries.

Aratinga

My insurance company waived my $500 collision deductible because the party who hit me was 100% at fault, and they knew they could collect the deductible from that party. You might ask to have your deductible waived. Since the woman who hit you is uninsured, however, they may choose not to waive it; in that case you'll have to pay it to bail your car out of the body shop when/if it's repaired.

I went through trying to ascertain what the value of my car was. I have a Red Touring package MT with 9,000 miles. I ended up going to a dealer who had sold a used 8 similar to mine and asked him what he sold it for; it was $24,800. So for my car to be totalled the repair bill would have to be 80% of that, or nearly $20,000, in order to be totalled.

Eventually, yes it will -- assuming you did what you were supposed to and file a DMV Form SR-1. By law, you must report any accident resulting in more than $750 damage to DMV within 10 days of the accident. If you need the form, download it here. Depending on how long the backlog is at DMV getting these forms into their database, Carfax will eventually know that your VIN has been in an accident.

YES. My car was financed through Mazda Credit (purchase, not lease). When I found out that repairs would take two months or more, I contacted them and asked to have my payments for those months postponed. They were happy to do that for me for a $25 "processing fee". The payments just got tagged onto the end of the loan, making my payoff date two months later. Perhaps the same is possible with your lease; it wouldn't hurt to ask since you have to contact them anyway.

You're only screwed out of your deductible if the car's repaired. If it is totalled, you could be screwed out of much more -- the difference between your payoff and the market value of the car.

Good idea. If the owner isn't the driver, but gave the driver (with her history of DUI and no license) permission to drive the car, they've got to be liable for something. The information on the car's owner will be in the police report.

Actually, my car is at a dealership-affiliated bodyshop and so far, they're doing excellent work. They do have access to the dealership's parts department, so they will order parts directly from Mazda. There aren't too many sources of non-Mazda RX-8 body panels out there yet, as far as I know, so you're pretty well assured of having only Mazda parts used if you're at a dealership shop. They will also have access to Mazda's official body repair manual and shop manuals; this is especially important since most body shops haven't worked on RX-8s much, if at all, so you don't want some bozo screwing up the job because he's never done an RX-8 before. I say you're overall better off at the dealer's shop unless they have a really bad rep with other Mazda owners who've used them.

Another advantage to having repairs done at a dealership-affiliated body shop -- your original warranty should be unaffected. And even though Mazda was having real problems with parts delays earlier this year, my parts (entire rear end of car, including both rear quarter panels and driveshaft) all arrived very quickly. Also, my bodyshop offered a lifetime warranty on their repairs; so if their paint job starts to peel in 6 years, I can take it back and have it repainted.

I was very concerned about this as well, since to repair these body panels they must actually cut through the car in places it's never been cut before. However, if the repair technician follows Mazda's body repair manual, the structural integrity and future crashworthiness of the car SHOULD be the same as before. I've attached a scan of one page of that Mazda repair manual and a picture of my car with the cuts to the quarter panel below.

I hope this helps. Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions. I'm hoping to be able to pick my car up next week (maybe even in time for SevenStock!).

RotaMotion

Hi Aratinga
Thanks for the marathon post. I appreciate all the time you put into answering my questions. So here’s some of the data I got today. Note: way too much time on the phone at work
You’re right! Talked to my insurance company today. They will waive the deductible since it is not my fault. That’s a relief.

Now that the shock is starting to subside, I really doubt it will be a total. I mean, if your 8 weren’t a total, then I don’t see how mine could be.

My insurance co said the SR-1 is being handled since there is a police report, so I don’t have to worry about that. Cr@p on the CarFax, that will cost me $$ during resale time.

I theoretically went through Mazda, but it ended up with Wells Fargo. Don’t know exactly what that means? Anyway, I contacted them today. Oh, I used to be in banking, so be very careful of those guys. If they are just moving out your payments two months and the $$ amount stays the same—great. However, if they are just deferring two payments and your are still being charged interest on the money borrowed, you could have a significant amount of additional interest at the end of your loan in addition to two additional payments.

Also, the leasing company (Wells Fargo) verified that I have Gap insurance and if the car is totaled there won’t be any “early termination’ fees.

As for who does the repairs, that’s such a tough one. there are so many different ways to look at it. I’m going to have my car sent to Cooks in Walnut Creek on a flatbed. The do a lot of high end cars and have a very good rep with the fussy enthusiast high-end car types. From what I can tell, it’s sort of like whenever someone asks what sort of wax to put on their car, a blizzard of Zymol replies pop up all over the place. Well, Cooks is, theoretically, like that for collisions.

My insurance (AAA) company said they will guarantee the work for the life of the car—whew. Also, I'm realizing so much of who does the work comes down to reputation. So if both of the places we are going to have good reps, we should, hopefully, be good

Grabitquick

RotaMotion, the previous post appeared to provide some very good advice. As a Mazda guy who's MX-6 spent more time in the body shop than Cher, I'd take the advice and move forward. Sounds like you're on the way already. Good luck, dude!

Atacdad

Aratinga

That has to be one of the more useful posts I've seen in recent memory.

Excellent!

Scazda 4

Rota Motion:
I realize that this post is a month old, but I have a question for you. I too was involved in an accident with an uninsured driver. My accident occurred on 9/7/04. I still do not have my car back from the repair shop. I chose to use the dealer where I purchased the car because I figured parts would be easy to get and they were a preferred shop for my insurance company (I am using my un-insured motorist policy). The newest word on my car is that it "should" be ready "early" next week. Tomorrow marks 1 month without my car. I have, however, continued to make my car and insurance payments. The dealership is saying they are having a "difficult" time getting parts. Sheesh.....they are a Mazda dealer. If they can not get the parts something is wrong. Did Cook finish the repairs on your car to your satisfaction?

Deslock

Drunk drivers should be severely punished. First offense = madatory jail time. Second offense = executed. Yes, executed. The kinetic energy of a moving car qualifies it as a lethal weapon and anyone who is ignorant or apathetic to that doesn't deserve to live.

RotaMotion, I hope this all worked out for you. Keeping things in perspective, while this was an significant inconvenience, no one was hurt and cars can be fixed. That's all that matters.

I'm a libertarian-leaning independent, but I'm from Massachusetts so doesn't that make me a liberal?

Hard 8

I have to agree with you in general. But here's an interesting fact: In California, years ago the state legislature overrode some court decisions, and thus reinstated the traditional rule here, to the effect that, under most circumstances, there is no legal claim against a social host who "allows" his guests to get drunk (and, for example, go out and kill someone on the road), nor is there any claim against a bar for the same thing. There is an exception (serving an already drunk minor), but otherwise, there is civil immunity for serving drinks in California.

Here are some details: