Remaining Neutral

Here's a quote from an article I just found on Yahoo. It's about the Ford Motor Company choosing to continue advertising all their brands (Jaguar, Land Rover, Etc) in gay publications.

"All we wanted was for Ford to refrain from choosing sides in the cultural war, and supporting groups which promote same-sex marriage is not remaining neutral," Wildmon said.

I beg to differ. As long as they also advertise in other publications that cater to heterosexual marriage or couples, then they are remaining neutral. NOT advertising in any groups publications is NOT remaining neutral...it is taking the position of "We disagree with this group and don't support them in any way." That's not remaining neutral...that's definately taking sides, Mr. Wildmon.

From Bad to Worse...

Well, as if having someone destroy your truck wasn't bad enough... it now looks like the guy that hit me lied to the investigating officer. He presented the officer with some proof of insurance that looked like it was from the same insurance I'm with. So it looked like it was going to be easy to get everything worked out.

Unfortunately, the claims office couldn't find his policy number. Now we know why. I just received a call from a claim rep saying they've tracked this guy down and he now admits to having NO insurance...none, nada, zip, zilch. So now it reverts back to my own policy. Thank goodness for the Uninsured and Underinsured portions of my policy. But now that means I'm picking up the tab on the deductable, the rental car payments, etc.

All I have to say is they better make me a good offer on Justin. I'm supposed to hear from them by the end of the week. We'll see what happens.

Totalled

This isn't going to be pretty, but I thought I should put this up while I can still remember it. I'll start with the basics. I was involved in a very bad accident just last Thursday. I was on my way to work when the person behind me rear-ended me. That phrase really doesn't do it justice. I was stopped along with several other cars in front of me at a red light. The person behind me appearantly was not paying attention. I heard squealing tires, looked up in the rear-view mirror and saw a white streak coming toward me. And that's when it hit....hit with such force that the vehicle behind me went underneath my truck bed, torn away the spare tire, bent the rear bumper completely under the truck bed, and slammed the truck bed forward into the cab. This in turn cause the rear window to shatter into the back seat of my club cab (extended cab) truck. Thank goodness it was extended or I could have had glass showering down on me.

The force of the impact cause me to be pushed into the full-sized passenger van in front of me, causing their rear doors to be smashed in and also shattering their glass windows. My truck eventually popped the curb on the right and came to rest in the median against a tree...nearly knocking it over.

I would assume from this description you can guess that the instigating vehicle must have been travelling at a high-rate of speed? My estimates put his speed at 40mph on the low end. Now keep in mind, this is after he had been squealing his tires for a couple seconds...in other words, slowing down. I would estimate his actual speed to be closer to 45-50mph at the time he applied his brakes. The speed limit was only 35 mph through there....so you can guess I'm a little upset.

In any case, Justin is now a total loss. The insurance company isn't bothering to have it towed to a body shop. They are towing it directly to their salvage yard where it will get appraised and an offer will be made on it. I don't know what their offer will be, but I hope it will at least come close to what I still owe on the vehicle. If it doesn't, I'll be without a vehicle for a while. We'll just have to see what happens.