The Drive In

Weeks ago, I had a dilemma: do I pack all my earthly belongings into a truck and drive it out to New York? Or do I ship some cherished items and replace mostly everything else out once I'm out there? Based on the fact that I love my bed and mattress and that I got a good deal on a truck from Budget, I chose to haul ass through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Ugh.

If you are ever driving across three states, you would be hard pressed to find worse ones than Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The only worse drive I've done is through Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma, but that's just boring; Illinois has the added benefit of having horrific Chicago traffic at almost any time during daylight hours. I had my Mom to accompany me, so I was able to not go completely insane listening to the same NPR shows throughout the drive (all stations play the same shows, but at different times. I think I listened to an episode of The Writers Almanac with Garrison Keillor three times). At least Pennsylvania and the westernmost part of New Jersey were pretty, though most of the trip was entirely uneventful. 

Trying to enjoy gridlock

That is, until we got to New York. Numerous sources suggested going to Brooklyn through Manhattan, over the Brooklyn Bridge. I liked the idea of that, so we went into the Holland tunnel and came out to bustling Manhattan. With a GPS unit that didn't really work. At 3:30 on a Friday. In total gridlock. First, the GPS failed to inform us of a right hand turn onto Canal Street, which would have taken us to Lafayette Street, which would have pretty much gotten us right to the bridge. Not a problem, I'll just make a couple right turns and it'll bring me right on to Lafayette. It turns out that the GPS's omission had brought us right into the heart of SoHo, a trendy shopping neighborhood with quaint boutiques, quaint restaurants, and quaint cobblestone streets - in which, when filled with rush hour traffic, it was nearly impossible to easily maneuver a 16' moving truck.  We trudged along for 30 minutes, maybe going five blocks. 

Busted headlight and a dinged up fender

Finally we reached Lafayette St. Just as the light turned green with no cars blocking the turn, the truck was rocked by a collision. HOLY SHIT THAT TAXI JUST HIT THE SIDE OF MY TRUCK. What happened, as far as I can tell, is that a truck - parked on the curb and just starting to pull out into the street - hit a cab that was trying to shoot the gap in between our two trucks, driving it into my truck. Good ol' Mom had insisted on buying me the total damage waiver when I rented the truck, so initially I wasn't so much worried as pissed that someone had hit the truck and inconvenienced me, when I had just completed a long trip and was on a deadline to meet my roommate to-be. When I got out of the vehicle to inspect the damage though, I was surprised to find that there really wasn't any. Somehow the taxi had only hit the wheel, and not the bumper, door, fender or anything else. The only evidence of a collision was some yellow paint on the wall of the tire. Of course, while trying to survey the damage, I had a cabbie and two teamsters yelling various things in my ear. I pulled the truck around  to the curb to hash it out with the other parties involved. 

The "damage" to my truck, which is to say, none

The incident suddenly turned out to be a predicament for me, and me alone. The other truck only had some scratches on the bumper. The taxi had a dinged up rear bumper and a busted headlight, which he said was not an issue for him. They both pointed out that there wasn't really any damage to the truck and just wanted to drive off. Meanwhile, I had a truck that wasn't mine, someone to meet, all my possessions to unload and a mother - whose Midwestern tendencies to play things by the book - had suddenly become a problem for me. My mother fully expected me to phone in the incident to the police so that they could file an accident report, something she fully believe Budget truck company had a right to. Not only that they had a right to, but an obligation I owed them. I however, was with the other drivers - I could see there wasn't any real damage and didn't really care to get the police involved. I knew this would upset my mom, and when I told her I was inclined to call off the police, whom she had already insisted the cab driver call, her mouth tightened and brow furrowed. She was very upset. Though nothing in any of the documentation I had been provided mentioned how to address an accident when covered by the total damage waiver, she insisted that there need be a police report. Though I tried to explain that 1) the Mother's Guilt was not helping me and 2) the relief to get on with the move and leave might be worth the Guilt, she continued to insist that we wait for the NYPD. I was in a bad place - leave and make the rest of the evening bearable, or risk ruining my entire weekend with a sour mother. I had planned to go out with her to dinner that night, plus a morning and lunch in Manhattan before her flight the next afternoon. A predicament indeed. 

Meanwhile, I felt bad for the cabbie and the teamsters. They obviously had places to be on a Friday and this whole mess was unnecessarily going to cause them problems. Once the initial frenzy had subsided and they realized that I had literally just come into the city, the three were actually all fairly helpful in explaining to me the realities of the situation: there was no damage to my truck, they didn't care and wanted to leave, and that the NYPD was on a shift change and could take hours to get there. I did not want to wait long for the police to arrive, much past an hour and I was sure the grief I would get from my mom could not be worse than the stress of being stuck there and unable to get on with my trip. Luckily for me (and likely unluckily for the teamsters) a squad car arrive less than an hour after the accident.

As I expected, the wait was futile. The police took a look at the wheel and instantly declared "there's no damage here, I'm not writing up a report for that." Though initially dismissive, seeing that I was brand new to New York, the officer offered up his contact info in case Budget Truck had any issues. This solved my issue with my mother, however, I still had gridlocked traffic to deal with.

A welcome unlike any I expected, the event seems so ridiculous now, just a day later, I can barely believe it happened. I was actually surprised by the helpfulness of the people involved - the other drivers, the officers - although that helpfulness only came after they realized I was not one of them ... yet.