I have had two highway car accidents, one on October 15, 2019 with a rented hybrid car from Lyft and another on February 27, 2020 with my own car of Honda Insight 2019 EX. My experiences point to the differences people with different preferences handle accidents differently. One thing interesting is that both my accidents involved someone hitting me from the behind, with the first one ended up smashing my driver side mirror and the second one displaced my rear bumper and made a big dent on the trunk cover. The other interesting feature is that both occurred in early evening, one around 7PM and another 5PM. Among other things, this made the two incidents somewhat comparable.
The incidence from last year was unpleasant because the other party was a young, short girl from Vietnam, the country with similar culture as China. I was driving on I-880 North with a speed of 62 MPH on the section of the highway with speed limit of 55 MPH. Suddenly from nowhere this Vietnamese girl came from behind with a speed at least 75. She hit my mirror from the lane on my left, and smashed it instantly. Funny thing is that she stopped near the exit and walked to me accusing me did not signal, which is not true as I have been a “signal freak” and even use it when there is nobody else around. She then called police and while waiting for the CHP guy to show up she apparently called her friends to help her defending herself, despite that the friends were not at the scene and would not possibly provide valid eyewitness.
Afterwards when her insurance agent called me for info, I found out that she has claimed that I hit her. This is unbelieable considering that she was behind me so it is impossible for me to hit her.
In the accident yesterday, the three of us — a truck driver, a Ford Focus driver and me — all pulled over to the shoulder and we exchanged info. Interestingly, nobody lost temper and the other two parties did not even ask for my insurance info. Because this was a chain accident in which the truck hit the back of the Focus, which then hit me, i asked the truck driver what happened, he simply said, I believe honestly, that he could not stop in time.
So what is the point here? If all you care is money or money related things, you will frequently run into trouble of zero-sum game. One reason is that money issues tend to be “You win, I lose” and there is little space for compromise in between, especially when two parties felt equally strong about money. They will do everything as long as it leads to monetary victory, and avoid everything that expose them to the risk of losing money.
From the second accident, it is clear that involved agents were willing to take truth as the top priority and show respect for truth, they will not do things in violation of telling the truth and this makes the law enforcement much easier. The Vietnamese girl on the other hand has demonstrated that she do not mind lying even when the evidence is obvious! This creates much chaos and the only way to get out is to rely on an external authority, most naturally the state or police, to settle down the matter. However, there is a string attached: If agents do not respect truth, truth will come with a price to all of them: The state or police can also walk away from the truth and put their own interests above truth. In the end truth becomes rare and expensive, with terrible consequences if most citizens act the same irresponsible way. Most likely it will be a totalitarian state or dictatorship. Every time citizens chose to walk away from truth, the social trust will deteriorate and the society becomes disintegrated.
More will come when I have learned from filing the third party claim.