The answer was obvious before I
ever started, but I had to take the waste-of-time route.
In
late January, I was scheduled to work in North Carolina. In the winter,
mountain weather can be temperamental. I checked the reports. Sure enough, snow
and ice were predicted. I reversed field with my plans, driving south rather
than north.
Smart
thinking, I thought.
Well,
it was. Until, I got atop the I-20 bridge outside Thomson. Midway, across the
overpass of the Atlanta-to-Augusta interstate, I was assaulted.
Well,
my truck was assaulted.
A
Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) truck was slinging salt and what
seemed to be gravel on the bridge. The yellow truck was going north. I was
going south.
Pow! Pow! Ping! Pow! Pow!
We’ve
all seen the signs warning us that bridges ice before roads, so the highway
folks were trying to make the I-20 bridge safe for travel. As a frequent
traveler, I am grateful for Georgia’s good, safe roads.
One
of the “pows” was about ear-level on the driver’s-side window. I flinched but
kept driving. Stopping at a traffic light on the Swainsboro bypass, I noticed a
hairline crack in the window. When I got to Jesup, I noticed dings in the driver’s-side
door. By that time, the window crack was crawling across the glass.
The
door-panel dings were one thing, but I knew the window had to be replaced—pronto. What if it fell out while I was
driving? Or what if it came apart while I was going through the car wash? The
thought of getting a face full of soapy water did make me laugh, but I got
busy.
After I
compared two estimates, the verdict came to $721.72. And that didn’t include
the body damage.
Ouch!
Since I didn’t
think the mishap was my fault, maybe I could file a claim. I knew the probable
answer, but $721.72 is $721.72.
I emailed my
information, with photographs.
A nice person
responded: “Please send better photos.”
I did.
My claim was
passed to another person.
That nice
person asked for more information.
I sent it and
waited and waited.
A form letter
arrived, with blah, blah, blah,
including: “Finally, the impending
weather conditions were broadcast on television to the public, with warnings
not to pass the spreader trucks.”
“This is horse pooh,”
I told myself. “I was trapped in the middle of a bridge. What was I supposed to
do?”
I called the
nice person and further elaborated how I could not avoid the truck. After she
went blah, blah, blah, I asked for
her supervisor. A week later, I talked to the nice person’s boss. He was
polite, too, but insistent that the state was immune from any damages the GDOT
truck caused to my vehicle. He was not a state employee. He was a third-party
administrator contracted to handle such matters.
Because I have
dealt with my share of jerks, I was determined to not be one myself. In a
friendly, non-profane way, I said that I thought this bureaucratic blah, blah, blah was a pile of horse pooh.
I thanked him and hung up.
I knew better.
But sometimes, you
just have to take the waste-of-time route to feel better.
After all,
$721.72 is $721.72.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
