Fender Bender

The small Mexican man who lives down the block drives a huge pick-up truck, behind which he has a very large metal mesh trailer that he uses in his landscaping business. To park his rig, he pulls up across the street, then backs the trailer/truck into his long driveway. In the process, he blocks the street in both directions and concentrates solely on getting through his driveway gates and all the way to the backside of his property.

He pays scant attention to the traffic on the street, perhaps because he believes that other drivers will see what he’s doing and allow him to pull forward, back up, pull forward again, and then back up again. And that’s a good assumption on his part, but faulty logic while operating a motor vehicle.

Y went to his volunteer job at the mini-mall down the street and was returning home when the gardener arrived at his house. Y saw that the rig was stopped in front of the man’s home, so Y continued up the street. Unfortunately, that was when the man decided to pull forward again, at an up-the-street angle, prior to resuming backing into his driveway. He hit Y’s car door and shoved Y’s car to the side of the road. Y called me, clearly upset, and I went to the scene.

Yes, Y had the right-of-way technically, but when there’s a potential traffic hazard blocking the road, each driver has to be aware and take defensive steps to stay safe. Y didn’t do that: he just swung his car a bit to the right and decided to go around the truck, unaware that the man would be pulling forward again as he straightened out his rig for backing. The small Mexican man pulled forward without checking the road conditions because he assumed that other drivers would stop and wait for him. He also admitted that he was using his mirrors to assist him in backing, not for checking the road he was blocking. Assuming anything is bad driving, but both drivers made assumptions about the other, which resulted in a collision.

Y’s car was slightly damaged, but it’ll have to be professionally fixed as it’s a gouge, not a dent that can be straightened. The small Mexican man’s big pick-up had no damage, which seems to be the way these things go. I played the role of referee and told each man he was incorrect in his assumption – and it’s both their faults, so move on. Y is going to take his car to a guy he knows up the hill for damage estimates and we’ll pay to have it fixed. Not the way we intended to spend an income tax refund, but there’s no use in spending any time at all in whose fault it was and who has to pay whom.