Milking it

I wish I could write more about some of the cases I encounter working as a JAG. There are usually some pretty entertaining tid-bits. But I can't. So I won't. I do have a little legal saga of my own going on though.

Yesterday morning, I was on my way to work, and had made it almost all the way. I was probably about 100 yeards from the gate. The last part of the drive involves merging from one road onto another one, that is pretty busy. The guy in front of me starts to go. I assume he will complete the act and merge. I was wrong. He hits the brakes. I cannot react quite fast enough and I end up hitting him. No joke, I was probably doing 2 mph.

It was pretty routine, there was almost no damage to either vehicle. No dents, no scrapes. There was a bit of white stuff showing on his bumper, but that was it. We exchanged information, realized that we both worked on base and had the same insurer. I considered the matter to be just an annoyance.

About 4 hours later, this guy, who is a civilian that works on base gives me a call letting me know that he apparently suffered whiplash and had to get an MRI and a CAT Scan done. He further provided that his boss was recommending that he get a police report to document the event. Alarm bells immediately started going off. When we exchanged information, he was totally fine. He was moving his head around just fine like a damned horned owl. But now, a few hours later, when our cars had gently kissed at a speed similar to that of a glacier, he had gotten whiplash. If this guy could get whiplash from this impact he could die of blood loss from a papercut.

I agreed to meet him at the police station after work. We met in the parking lot and he is now wearing a neckbrace and has someone else driving him. We walk into the police station together and one of the sergeants on duty asks what is going on. He explains that there was a car accident this morning and that we wanted to file a police report. Interesting that he used the word "we" there. I had no desire to file a police report. The officer takes a look at him and asks why we didn't call the police at the time. I explain that it should be clear once he sees the vehicles.

So we head out to the parking lot. In the rain. The officer takes one look and asks where the damage is. He points to his bumper, but because of the rain, there is even less to see. The officer wipes the bumper with his hand and now there is almost nothing. The officer explains that we did the right thing exchanging information and there would have been no point in calling the police. Still, this guy insists that he needs a report for his work. The officer explains that he cannot simply issue a report for the hell of it and there needs to be at least $500 worth of damage for him to issue a report.

At this point, it is raining even harder, but this guy won't drop the issue. Instead of just walking away, the officer then launches into a spiel about how insurance works and that he does not recommend making a claim because it is likely that our insurers will raise our rates and drop us. I found this kind of interesting because he just decided to give us this little speech and I am pretty sure he was in no way qualified to give this advice. However, I just nod along because it is always good to let someone think their unsolicited incorrect advice is very valuable. Also, I wanted to get out of the rain. Once he finished with Auto Insurance 101, the officer bid us adieu and we went out separate ways.

I did call my insurer to let them know about this. One, because I don't like scammers in general. Two, because we are covered by the same insurer I don't want my insurance to have to pay out anything unnecessary. So this morning one of the insurance adjustors calls me to do a recorded interview about what happened. It was all uneventful until the end when he asks me "Are the Questions and Answers you provided true and accurate in the recording" I didn't intend to be difficult, but I told him that I hadn't had a chance to review the recording so I couldn't state whether it was accurate or not. He then rephrased and asked me in the Questions and Answers were accurate and true. I then told him that I couldn't comment on whether the questions were true or not because I didn't write them. Further, I didn't believe that there was such a thing as true or false question. I then started to go on a tangent that a question isn't really something that is accurate or not. I told him that I thought the questions were straightforward and not ambiguous. I wasn't trying to annoy the guy, but I probably did. Finally, he just asked, "is everything you said true?" Of course, I had to answer, "you mean in the recording?" and finally we were done.