My First Car Crash - Epilogue

Have you ever had the moment where you say something, and immediately after you say it, it happens? And someone says you "Spoke too soon"? Well, that happened to me, except it was more like, you "Blogged too soon", because the day I posted my entry 'My First Car Crash', that day I got a letter from AAMI, saying that after reviewing their customer's (short, old man) record of events, they determined that I was the one at fault and should pay for the damages caused to their customer's vehicle, I had to respond within 15 days.

Now, I started to freak out a little, not because I had posted up a blog that day proclaiming everything was fine, but because I had a letter saying I was at fault and I now needed to PAY money for damages. This did not sit well with me, nor with my dad when I told him, and he said he would take care of it, but because he was so busy, this didn't happen. It was my problem anyhow, and I unconsciously forgot about it until I received a telephone call from AAMI asking what I was going to do about it, and I said "I don't think it was my fault" and they told me to "lodge a claim with your insurance company", so the next day we went to see GIO and explained our situation, and being third party, it'd be useless to lodge a claim to begin with unless I wanted to throw money around like I had won the lottery. GIO told us to dispute it with AAMI directly, so that day I went home, called AAMI and told them they were wrong and I was right, well something along those lines. They asked for my version of events and after trying to explain what had happened the guy told me to send/fax a letter with what happened in writing, because he couldn't understand me (it's either an indian/chinese thing, or I just couldn't express myself clearly enough). I opted to email instead, because it makes my life easier, so I got an email for AAMI and then went on to type out my version of events, and because I knew I was not totally at fault, I wanted to now stick it to the old, short man and came up with this as my accident report...


Picture one depicts my car, in red waiting at the red light, I had just left church, the building on the right.
I wanted to change onto the left lane, in order to turn left.
To avoid hitting the car in front of me, I decided to reverse, and checked that there were no cars behind me before doing so.


Picture two shows Mr. XXX’s car, turning into the street at the bottom of the screen. The lights were still red for me, and I was beginning to change lanes, having determined it was safe to do so.


Picture three shows what happened. Mr. XXX, having just turned into the road, went ahead to do a U-Turn. At this time, having seen no cars behind me, I changed gears to Reverse, eased my foot off the accelerator to allow the car to reverse on its own, and just as I began to reverse, Mr. XXX quickly did his U-Turn, running into the back of my vehicle.
The police came and having determined that both cars were drivable and no one was hurt, had us move our vehicles. Mr. XXX went to move his vehicle by attempting to complete the U-turn, which would not have been a full u-turn as his vehicle was too close to mine to begin with, in the initial u-turn and he risked hitting my car again before the police officer told him to stop, and reverse his car to allow ample room to clear my car. This shows that Mr. XXX’s u-turn was done hastily without allowing enough room for himself to do a complete u-turn to begin with, whether or not my car reversed or not.

Impressive and convincing yeah? I'd say so, and thought they would too. But after a week I received no reply, and got impatient so I called them again to ask what was up. Turns out they had gotten the email, but the guy just hasn't checked it yet...well thats great. They said they would check it and call back in an hour. An hour passed and I received no call, a day passed and I received no call, a week passed and while getting changed I received a call, so I wasn't exactly ready for it.
The moment of truth had arrived, AAMI had checked my accident report, and lo and behold they declared the whole accident an EPO! Whats an EPO you ask? That's what I asked! And he said it's when Each Customer Pays For Their Own Vehicle Damage! I couldn't help but crack a smile and do a fist pump as I heard those words, and just to make sure I said,
"So I don't need to pay for your customer's damages at all right?"
"Yes, that is correct"
"Okay then, that's fine" (It was more than fine)
It was more than fine because had they somehow determined that I was at a complete fault I would have needed to pay a total of $1433.54, and where I was going to get those 4 cents, I had no idea so I was very pleased with the result. The old, short man however? He'll have to find his own 4 cents to pay for his damages, and hopefully I won't need to see him again. I'll just leave my car as it is, and wait for the next person to hit me, but next time it'll be their complete fault, and I'll be the one chasing them for money.
But I shouldn't get ahead of myself like this, for all I know, I could've blogged too soon again...