Bad drivers in the neighborhood

I've lived here for a long time and over the past several years it has become readily apparent that people driving in our neighborhood are less and less courteous and more and more dangerous. Speeding, ignoring stop signs, passing on GPB, etc are common occurrences.

This morning, my mother in law (80) was driving south on GPB. A woman driving another car pulled out from Thurston, turned left and ran right into my mother in law's vehicle - she essentially side swiped the side of the car, hitting the rear driver's side door! THankfully, nobody was physically hurt but we will be dealing with the hassle of insurance companies and collision shop repairs.

Immediately after the accident, the other woman's response was to get out of her car, accuse my mother law of hitting her, claiming she had 3 witnesses (her passengers), etc. Her explanation was that she did not SEE the car and therefore it was obvious (to her) that the car appeared out of nowhere and hit her. (i.e. somehow drove sideways into the front of her car). even as the police attempted to explain that this was impossible, she persisted in laying blame elsewhere!

The police arrived (after an hour), investigated and clearly stated that the other driver was at fault for failing to yield the right of way, etc. The police did NOT issue a ticket - per my discussion with the officer, he didn't do this as he knew it would raise the insurance rates of the other driver. Perhaps part of the reason we have so many bad drivers in the neighborhood is because there are no consequences for their behavior..... perhaps the police could help with this by issuing traffic citations when obvious infractions occur....

I know that I would feel differently about this situation if the woman involved had gotten out of her car and apologized. Accidents happen and the sun was bright this morning - perhaps she really didn't see the car. Instead, she used a situation where she was clearly at fault and blamed an innocent victim. My mother in law has never had a car accident before. She has also never been subject to the level of disrespect that she received this morning!!

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Permalink Reply by Laura Suda on March 31, 2011 at 10:13am

Margy, I'm sorry to hear about your mother-in-law's accident and the lack of consequences to the other driver. If the police don't respond lawfully and with consistency, how are we expected to show them respect?

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Permalink Reply by Marian Boutet on March 31, 2011 at 1:57pm

A similar thing happened to me years ago when a young man tried to pass me while I was turning left into my driveway. I guess I was going to too slowly, but we were on Penhurst Street and I did have a turn signal on! He practically T-boned me in the rear driver's side door. He and the other passengers in his car swore that it was my fault.

I'm glad your mother in law is OK physically, but there's no excuse for treating her that way. And that's an outrageous excuse for not ticketing the driver at fault. If it were me I'd pursue it with RPD.

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Permalink Reply by Margy Meath on March 31, 2011 at 2:20pm

Thanks Marian and Laura.

I did speak (last night) with someone from RPD about this. He confirmed that officers are sometimes reluctant to write tickets if they did not actually witness the accident because they don't want to get dragged into court, etc...... I understand that but my sense is that there are a LOT of local traffic violations that are simply ignored. A ride down Thurston on any given day shows evidence of illegally parked cars as just one example.

THe good news is that the other driver's insurance company has already claimed responsibility for the accident so we will have a bit less hassle with getting repairs done.

Still, the worst part of all of this is the horrendous manner that my mother in law was treated and she endured this for over an hour while waiting for the police to arrive. It is this type of complete DISRESPECT that gives this neighborhood a really bad name. (yes, it can happen anywhere, but it happens a lot here!)

by the way (and quite coincidentally!), i ended up driving behind the other driver today during my travels here in the 19th ward. She stopped in front of a house (on a narrow street) to pick up another passenger. She blocked the street for several minutes with no obvious concern for the vehicles behind her or for those coming from the other direction that needed to pass. Apparently she must OWN the streets of the 19th!!

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Permalink Reply by Marian Boutet on March 31, 2011 at 2:43pm

That brings to mind another incident that happened to me last summer on Thurston Road. I was parallel parking on Thurston Road - you know parallel parking where you pull into a space backwards? A young woman (I'm being nice here) tried to pull forward into the same space from behind me and when we bumped into each other, she started screaming, "Didn't you see me?"

I got the heck out of there because I'm way too old to argue with somebody like that. And also because I had absentmindedly left my 9mm at home that day.