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I Go To Court and Get Effed by My Insurance Company

lake-city-way-traffic-accident-7Now a year later, I get a mail from my insurance company claiming I was at fault and my insurance is being cancelled!

I was involved in a serious car accident.

Without going through the details there was a lot of damage and with a few changes someone might have been killed. No one was killed or seriously injured – so, fortunately, we didn’t have to get in contact with someone like this Denver car accident lawyer – but the other driver, a Russian speaker with no English, became insanely angry.

When the King County Sheriffs came, they asked me to park on the side in a parking lot 300 feet or so away from the other driver. He was yelling and screaming in Russian and his wife, with limited English, made it worse. The cops kept us separate and I could only get the usual information about the other driver from the officers. The cops did ask questions like, were we drunk and then wanted us to get tested. If at all, we were driving under the influence of alcohol, then we might have had to call one of the reputed DUI Lawyers, to our assistance. But, that was not the case with us.

Anyhow this went to the insurance companies who are handling the guilt and money issues.

To my surprise, days later in the mail I got a ticket from the Seattle cops.
I say “surprise” because the cops had not been present at the accident and both cars had been moved off the street before they came (at the behest of a sheriff officer who got to the scene before the Seattle cops).
I was also surprised because with the screaming and Russian the cops’ major job was preventing a fight. They made this very clear. The officers were very good but spent little time with me so they really did not get much in the way of details.

The infraction listed on the ticket, my going through a stop sign, not only never happened, given the nature of that intersection and where the accident occurred, it is very hard to imagine my having done that without being hit by other carts in this very busy intersection.

So, knowing me, you can imagine the rest of the story. I contested the ticket. I prepared elegant maps of the site and an accurate series of images on the map of what did happen. I created 4 copies of these 7 pages.

My wife and I showed up in court. We waited through an hour and a half of technical legalese about folks who have avoided paying parking tickets. Then the judge left the room and there was whispering from the prosecutor desk .. I could hear “Schwartz.”

The prosecutor came over and said, “Mr. Schwartz. You can go home. The case is going to be dismissed.” The officer and the witnesses (the Russian, his wife and their English peaking son to translate) had not shown up.

Then we waited for the judge to reappear. He smiled at me.

Now a year later, I get a mail from my insurance company claiming I was at fault and my insurance is being cancelled!


0 Comments Add Yours ↓

  1. Roger Rabbit #
    1

    Complain to the state insurance commissioner.