Wednesday, October 17, 2012.
Just had an unfortunate back-to-back set of days for the E46.
After a nice, relaxed day at school on Tuesday (October 16, 2012), I was welcomed to a flat front driver’s side tire just as I was pulling out of the school parking garage thanks to a lovely nail on the road that I must’ve driven over on the way to school. I had to pull over switch that wheel out for my spare in the trunk. Thank goodness the area I did the swap at was pretty leveled or else things could have gotten ugly real fast. I was able to do it in about 15-20 minutes or so. Had to sacrifice my clean clothes for the day, but it’s better than going through the trouble of having the car towed. Good thing the stock jack can get really low, too, given that my car sits at a pretty low ride height - albeit, lower than most (if not all) low-profile jacks can go. Got the tire fixed in the evening, everything’s good to go.
Today (October 17, 2012), on the other hand, I was involved in a car accident on my commute to school. It took place at the intersection of Fulton and Arguello, where I was among many other cars yielding to incoming traffic as we all had to make left turns. I was behind the furthermost car, so we had already creeped up a bit passed the pedestrian crosswalk, and then the traffic light goes to yellow. The car ahead of me just finishes making their left turn, and I proceed to making mine after making sure the coast was clear and since I couldn’t stop anyways given that I had the right to complete my turn. Turns out some lady in an ‘03 Civic was trying to beat the yellow and ended up hitting me. As soon as I saw her speeding downhill from Fulton street (I was driving nothing but uphill), I hit my brakes and prayed that an accident could be avoided. She was going way too fast (and the fact that she was going downhill didn’t make it any better) and ended up hitting my car while I was at a stop. Head-on. We then pulled over and exchanged information. The damage was relatively minimal for my car, with my DIY tow hook license plate bracket literally taking one for the team. No scratches or anything, aside from a little puncture from the screws that attached my license plate to my bracket. Oh, and let’s not forget that by the end of all of this I’ll be in need of a new front license plate. Hopefully the tow hook area isn’t damaged, either. Her civic had a little hole on the front bumper from where my tow hook bracket was sticking out. After taking pictures and whatnot, we drove off to our respective destinations. I’m going to call my insurance company first thing in the morning (I was extremely busy today and literally had no time…) and file a claim. Since it was head-on, even though I’m confident that I’m not the one at fault, it’s going to be a toughie since there we weren’t able to get any witnesses or police reports. That said, regardless of anything, I’m just glad that no one was hurt and that the car did it’s job in keeping my well-being safe. You live and you learn, can’t do anything about it but keep my head up and stay positive.
www.eluisphoto.com
