So the run down on the car crash: I was hit on Church Street in Nashville driving in the west-bound lane at about 11:05pm on October 7th near Printer's Alley. I had no stop signs or stop lights, I was driving straight. A guy in a 69 Chevelle Malibu pulled out really fast and t-boned my car.
I walked away just fine, no injuries but we exchanged information. My Uber riders were uninjured, so was the other driver. We left, since it would be about 3 hours before the police could get to our accident. I called Uber and filed a claim that night.
The next day, I checked with my insurance (Progressive) and they said that they had never added the rideshare addition to my policy, so they had to let Allstate/Uber handle it (I know for a fact I advised Progressive that I drove rideshare to make ends meet, they are full of crap, but I have no recourse). Flo, you and your gang let me down!
I get a text from Allstate that I need to give them my address and phone number on Sunday, and they will come to take my vehicle to a "Free and Safe Storage location" to evaluate it for a total loss. I called the Allstate agent and he tells me that they will not cover a rental, but if I am found at fault, they will make me pay a $2500 deductible and that the Free and Safe location is legit for evaluation.
I filed the police report, and I called the other driver's insurance who knows nothing about the accident and I file a claim with them. Trying to cooperate to get things processed as quickly as possible, I sent them send to the text message so that I can get back on the road. The next day, Tuesday, the 11th of October, they sent a tow truck driver to transport my car. I keep in contact with my Allstate agent, and he tells me that the other driver claims that he wasn't at fault when they spoke. The other drive claims that I had the ability to avoid him as he was turning left against traffic. The adjuster doesn't contact me for several days. My agent gives me the adjustor's number.
I call the adjustor and the voicemail isn't set up. There's no other way to contact him, so I keep contacting my agent at Allstate/Uber. Finally, on Friday the 14th, after complaining to the Allstate agent all week, I get an email from the adjustor asking for interior and special angle pictures of the car THAT IS NOT IN MY POSSESSION AND I HAVE BEEN WITHOUT A CAR ALL WEEK LONG!! I write a very Karen "per my last email" email about how I don't have the vehicle in my possession, Allstate does. Absolutely no response since.
All the while, I'm trying to locate the dashcam footage of my crash, and the company Uber partnered with to provide me the Dashcam (Drivescape) dawdles at uploading the footage but has no problem uploading to Uber. I call Uber to get the footage since there's no phone number to contact the dashcam company, and they act completely oblivious like they've never heard of Drivescape and don't know what I'm talking about, they have no footage of the crash. The footage finally uploads on Saturday, the 15th, and it's only the 1st 5 minutes of the footage they sent to Uber, not including footage of the crash. I send them an email about it (since they don't do phone calls), and they don't respond until today, Monday the 17th. Drivescape has conveniently erased it by now and they're super sorry and all that fun stuff.
I contact Uber about the footage and they tell me to contact claims again.
At this point, I still have no car or rental car and the status of my if my car is totaled or not is still up in the air because the adjuster can't be bothered by anything other than email, emails that he responds to when he wants to, he's in no rush.
So far, I've lost two weekends of Uber work so far, my means of transporation, and I will now have to take out a car loan if my car is totalled (it was paid off, damnit!!).
I don't think I'll be able to get pain and suffering compensation when this case is closed (and my agent says that I'm probably going to be found not at fault over this accident, but it will probably have to go to court, who knows how long that's going to take), so I'll have to go after this dude in small claims court for lost wages and possible pain and suffering. I don't know if I can obtain a lawyer for this, since most lawyers won't take car accident claims without any kind of injury, which I did not have.
My GERD symptoms are peeking through despite the prescription I'm already taking for it, and I'm back to that helpless, unloved feeling that I can't get a ride, like I used to have in high school when my rides would abandon me and I had to ask around, and people would tell me no because it looked like I was taking advantage when I really wasn't. I remember how unloved I really felt and how I just wanted to be independent and not need anybody or anything. I want this nightmare to be over soon.
My mother let me borrow her car on Tuesday the 18th, and I made it to work. I called Allstate and sent in my police report copy, and I called about the footage. They escalated it to a special department to locate the footage Drivescape uploaded to them. Allstate's adjuster called me back finally and said that my was not totalled, and they found repair shops for me to get the work done at, THANK GOODNESS!! I called Essentia to give them the police report and I included pictures of my vehicle and the damage as well as the damage to the other vehicle that I snapped. I also added all the claim info for Allstate and my contacts for them as well. I'm hoping the pictures of the impact will prove to them that I wasn't at fault, and the dashcam footage will cement it. I'm finally starting to feel a little better.
As of October 20th, I got a phone call from my agent at Allstate that their investigation did not find me liable for the accident. They were ready to transport my vehicle to a body shop in their network, so that's being done. Right now, they are moving forward with presenting the evidence to Essential Insurance whose driver is insisting he's not at fault, and Essentia will do their own investigation, and if they still disgree, they will go to court, since Essentia doesn't do arbitration. Since I haven't had any guarantee of rental car coverage from Allstate or Progressive, I am going to see if the opposing driver's insurance will cover a rental for me in the case that he's found liable, and hopefully, I won't have to borrow cars and bum rides for much longer!
I had my car sent to Gerber Auto Collision and that was a process. I told the adjuster at All State to send it, and I called Gerber the two days later to find out my car wasn't there. OMG. I started to get annoyed, so I called my agent, who wasn't there, but another one was, and he said I needed to sign off on it before they could tow it,
Gerber Auto Collision stripped down the car after noticing problems with the steering column after four weeks in storage, being unused. They requested to send another adjustor's evaluation to my agent, and they stripped down the car's engine and steering column. On Novemebr 15th, I was contacted to be advised that my car was indeed a total loss. I was heartbroken, because my late father helped me find this car. It felt like I was saying goodbye to a part of him. I knew one day I'd be parting ways with the gar, and it was emotional to have it taken from me so soon. But after a few days, I understood that it's just a thing. It's not my dad. My dad was so conservative, he wouldn't have liked the Prius I wanted to get anyway and tried to talk me out of it.
On November 19th, after going by the dealership a few times to see two different Priuses, I chose the 2018 Prius Echo which had more features. There was a 2021 Prius, but it had a lot of damage and very few features I wanted asides from the Apple Carplay and red exterior. The Prius I chose was a different color and did not have Apple Carplay (which I wish I had regardless) but the other features are worth it. I looked like crap after a dance class when I went with my mother to the dealership to buy the car, but I got it. The salesman insisted on taking pictures of me in it, unfortunately, lol. The next day, Mom and I went back and took pictures with me all made up and cute instead. Unfortunately, my mother did not want to take my new car to Knoxville for Thanksgiving. I took my mother to the airport the next weekend and she went to stay with my sister to watch my niece for the Christmas break. I spent a few weeks driving my new car before it was my turn to to Costa Rica for Christmas with my mom and sister's family.
After I came back before New Year's, on Friday, January 6th, 2023 I got my subrogation demands paid. Maybe it wasn't as much as I hoped for, but I was just ready for this to be over. I'm paying off the bills I wanted to pay off with rideshare driving last fall can be paid now. It's closing of a chapter. I feel better that this all over now.
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