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Wrecked II: The Useless Wichita Police Chronicles!

Ford Fusion Accident Damage 2/21/2018

A little over 2 months ago, I wrote about the negative experience we had with the Wichita Police Department after a wreck my wife was involved in. This morning at roughly 7:40am, my wife, this time driving my car, got involved in another wreck, unlike, last time I don’t believe the car is safe to drive.

While driving my son to school on E 27th St N, a red Buick Regal came sliding out from N Estelle St, which is a side street terminating in a T-intersection, directly in front as my wife as she was approaching the side road. Icy conditions meant my wife, son and car were heading directly to the scene of the accident.

The driver of the Buick called 911 and was told that they would not dispatch an officer to the scene as it was a non-injury accident. Instead we were directed to the Wichita Police website to file a report online. I go to the website, only to find that I can only submit a report if the damage is less than $1,000.

I can see the damage will be closer to $3,000 in my estimation, so I called the Wichita North Police Patrol. They tell me the same thing, before insisting that I visit the North patrol station, I tell them that is not possible as I don’t consider the car safe to drive and I did not want to get a citation for having an unsafe vehicle on the road, so the woman at North patrol refers me back to 911 to dispatch an officer.

So, I call 911, the dispatcher tells me to call my local patrol station, I explain to the dispatcher, several times that I have already done this. So, the dispatcher then gets the North patrol on a conference call, the person at the North patrol explains that I could not report the accident over the phone or online due to the value of the damage. The dispatcher then finally puts out a call for an officer to attend the scene.

Meanwhile, I get my car back to my home, as the wreck happened 500 feet down the road. This is how I knew the car wasn’t safe to drive. I then get a call from an officer, who point blank tells me that he was not going to attend, what would now be my home, as both cars had been moved from the accident location. At this time, I am fuming as clearly 911 and Wichita police have no clue of each other’s policies.

I had already wasted several hours with the chocolate teapots at Wichita Police and 911 dispatch. I, now move onto calling the Buick driver’s insurance company, as our perception is that it was his fault, and on the scene, he verbally accepted liability. So, I’m thinking it will be nice and simple, but of course, that is not the case, his insurance company, American Family are claiming that my wife should have yielded.

Unfortunately, Kansas law is vague on right of way at intersections, it states “When two vehicles enter an intersection from different roadways at approximately the same time the driver on the left shall yield the right-of-way to the vehicle on the right.“, so they might have a case for claiming we are liable. This rule is clearly designed for a four-way intersection, not a T-intersection, I will go to court to argue this if needed.

I talked to Progressive and their adjuster believes that we had the right of way as we had the thru road and the Buick driver’s road was terminating. To expedite the repair, I am going to claim on my insurance, so my car is not sitting idle for weeks on end while insurance companies argue back and forth. If we can prove the Buick driver is liable, Progressive will get reimbursed and I will get my $500 deductible back.

I had my car towed to Rusty Eck Ford at midday, thankfully, I have AAA, so the tow was free, for an estimate on the damage, and my insurance, Progressive have preliminarily agreed to pay for the repair, if the damage does not exceed the value of the car, minus the $500 deductible that I will have to pay.

And the final insult from Wichita Police, when my wife finally managed to get to the Wichita North patrol station, after picking up and dropping off my kids, the community station was f**king closed.

To say, that I am not happy is an understatement, I have calmed down a lot since this morning. But this is costing us money as my wife had to leave work 3 1/2 hours early as we were down to one car and someone had to pick up the kids from school. You want to know the irony of this situation, tomorrow, because of the weather, school has been canceled, I wish it was canceled today instead.

The morale of the story, instead of trying to avoid a collision, keep your foot in and make sure it’s an injury accident as Wichita police will not attend the scene unless someone is injured, GREAT MESSAGE WICHITA POLICE! Just like our legislature, the Wichita police are as do nothing as state and national politicians, unless it’s shooting an unarmed man on his doorstep in response to a fake ‘swatting’ call.

UPDATE [Feb, 22 2018, 18:45]: I just got a call from Progressive and the news is that the repair cost will be $6,100, they have to replace the majority of the front end of my car. Just as well the airbags didn’t deploy, that would have been game over. I will have to pay $500 for the deductible, which hopefully I will get back once the other driver is deemed to be at fault, my insurance company, Progressive will be fighting corner, and theirs, as they’d obviously like to get American Family Insurance to reimburse them.

UPDATE [Mar, 5 2018, 10:27]: I received my car back from Rusty Eck Ford Collision Center today and it’s back to being good as new, they did an excellent job of putting my car back together again. There was one issue, the passenger side marker bulb had burnt out, so I dropped by Rusty Eck on my way home and they had the issue resolved in five minutes, great service, quality work and approachable friendly people, I would definitely recommend using Rusty Eck Collision Center if you need some body work done.

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