Crash + totaled car + more car issues
On Monday, September 16, 2024, I was involved in a car crash, returning from a photo shoot at one of my employer’s properties nearby, that totaled my car; more on that later; everyone was a little banged up, but otherwise fine, which is the most important thing, cars can be replaced, but people cannot.
It was determined that I was at fault. According to police officers attending the scene, I ran a red light, based on video from a church at the intersection. I thought I had a green light, and maybe I did when I looked, but it changed as the car I hit started accelerating into my path as I was entering the intersection, which would indicate this might be the case. I tried to avoid the vehicle by steering hard left, but they continued into the intersection, leaving me nowhere to go. My actions resulted in a lesser impact than it would have been if I had continued straight, hitting their driver-side front fender instead of T-boning them. Either way, the officer cited me for running the red light, which cost me $177.50.
Of course, the website link on the citation to pay the fine was wrong; I had to Google it to find the correct link. I guess it’s too difficult for the city’s IT department to either update the link on the citation or set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one, or better still, both; maybe they should hire me?
It has been a crazy couple of weeks for fatal car accidents in Wichita, including a woman driving the wrong way on the K-96 highway colliding with a truck, which killed the father and son in the truck; the wrong-way driver also died. Thankfully, neither I nor the people in the other car added to the death toll.
Immediately after the accident, I thought I was fine, but I guess that was because the adrenaline in my body was masking my injuries. In the ensuing days, the pain in the right side of my ribs and lower back, where the seatbelt went across my body was much higher. As this happened during work time, my employer had me talk to the on-call nurse and was told to ice the area and take acetaminophen as needed, but nearly a week on, the pain is not subsiding, so maybe further medical attention is needed.
As you can probably assume based upon the featured image on this post, the car was totaled, not that it mattered, as I was forced to change insurance and downgrade coverage from full coverage to liability + fire + theft as Progressive was going to more than double my monthly insurance premium to almost $500. This was due to my son getting his driver’s license; the insurance company’s logic is that he had access to the cars because he lived under our roof; therefore, we had to add him to our insurance policy.
As the car was not economical to repair and the towing and storage fees were already over $750 in just four days, I just signed over the title to the towing company on Thursday morning to eliminate that bill. I recovered my license plate from the car, and I should be able to get some money back on the remaining registration, maybe $90. It’s not a lot, but it’s better than a kick in the teeth. The next step will be to remove that car from our car insurance; we don’t want to pay to insure a vehicle we no longer own.
Now we have an issue, like most people who live paycheck to paycheck, we cannot just stump up the cash to buy another car. Yes, we could more than likely get a car loan and be able to manage the payments, but the issue is that financial institutions require that borrowers carry full coverage insurance, which is more than we can afford. The net result is that we will be a single car family for the foreseeable future.
This has been compounded by mechanical issues on our second car, which is currently in the shop for evaluation. There is an intermittent check engine light, and ABS, traction control, and stability control lights. But the reason for being in the shop is because the accelerator pedal randomly stops responding and will not work again until we stop, put it in park, turn off the car, and restart. It will typically run for a handful of seconds, minutes, or sometimes 15 minutes; there seems to be no rhyme or reason. We cannot continue like this; it’s dangerous, a sudden power loss at highway speeds could be deadly.
We are waiting to hear back from the shop about the estimate for fixing the car. Due to its high mileage and age, the car is barely worth $3,000, and we have already spent close to the $12,000 purchase cost keeping it on the road. The cost of getting another used car during the pandemic made fixing it cheaper than buying another vehicle. Used car prices are finally starting to normalize in 2024, so depending on the cost to fix, we might scrap it and get another car, which Erin and I would have to share.
We are borrowing my mother-in-law’s SUV, which has its own issues. It has ABS, TC, and handbrake lights on. According to her mechanic, the part they need to resolve these lights is no longer manufactured; thanks, GM. It’s crazy that you can not get parts for a 17-year-old car? Despite the warning lights, everything seems to work fine, but the brakes feel somewhat soft and not confidence-inspiring. However, we appreciate the mother-in-law lending us her second car, bailing us out for the umpteenth time.
UPDATE: $4,000 TO FIX THE WIFE’S CAR
We got the estimate for Erin’s car, and it’s $4,000 to fix. The issue with the throttle pedal not responding is a bad throttle body, which will cost around $500 to replace. The oil leak is considerable; the valve gaskets and front main seal are leaking oil, along with the water pump leaking coolant. The cost for that is $3,300 because of the number of hours it takes to disassemble the engine to replace the gaskets and seals.
This is much more than we really wanted to pay, but it’s more economical than buying a used car, which will cost $8,000—$10,000, and we might have issues with that car. Fixing our current vehicle makes more financial sense, and of course, we won’t need to carry full coverage insurance for the car loan company. We probably could have waited on the leaks, but we wanted to get it fixed while it was in the shop, hoping not to have any more visits to the shop in the near future. We had set aside $1,500 to $2,000 in cash, so we’ll have to put $2,000 on a credit card, which we hope to pay off in about 6 months.