Crash!

Well, what a difference a day makes. Woke up to a cold and overcast day. Went for a walk and it started raining. Soaking wet feet. Then our couchsurfing host Christina offered to take us for a drive to show us some sights. Then someone crashed into us. Hard. Let me tell you all about our day...

We did enjoy walking around the neighborhood. Christina lives in a nice part of Cincinnati, about 10 miles from downtown. She gave us a route to follow where there are some really nice houses and old trees.

Christina had lent us some umbrellas. Good thing!

Lots of houses decorated for Halloween.

A rainy fall day.

We kept walking even though it was raining. Ended up getting soaking wet feet. Not the nicest walk, but we were glad we went. Christina works from home and had a conference call that ended around 2:00pm. It was still raining, so it wasn't a great day to see the sights, but we figured we had to see some of Cincinnati.

We offered to take our car, but Christina has a company car and said no, we'll take hers. So Ruth got in the front passenger seat and I hopped in the right rear. We got onto the main road where the speed limit is about 30mph (50 kmh). 

We were stopped at a red light, with several cars ahead of us, and one guy behind us. We heard a crash and  a split second later we REALLY heard a crash...because we got hit!

I mean, hit hard. Like the back of your head slams into the headrest type of hard. Then, we hit the car in front of us.

I got out right away and started taking pictures. I guess because I had the camera in my hand in anticipation of doing some touring, and it was really kind of irrelevant. The old lady who ran into the guy behind us was still driving her car and it almost looked like she was driving away. So I took a pic of her car and licence plate. Turns out she was trying to get out of the way of the traffic. It's funny how your system reacts in a situation like this. The guy who ran into us was out of his car and  seemed really unsteady on his feet. I went and helped him back into his car and got it shut off because the engine compartment was starting to smoke. I used to own a collision repair shop, and I'd say his car is likely a write off. He was complaining that his head hurt so I'm not sure if he was wearing his seat belt. 

While I was helping the guy behind us, Christina had called 911 and so had a few bystanders. My first picture had been taken at 2:29pm.

This was only seconds after it happened. This is the guy behind us who had got out to inspect the damage to his car. We had been in the red car. You can see Ruth on the right side kind of the picture checking her neck. It was a pretty hard hit.

And then we waited.

The guy behind us was a little disoriented, and it didn't help that it was raining. We all sat in our cars, but the old lady who ran into him was trying to tell everybody how sorry she was. We also had run into the lady in front of us, but only a few scratches on her bumper.

And we waited.

It took 25 minutes for a cop to show up from the time of the first picture. No ambulance. No emergency vehicle. There could have been someone bleeding to death, and nobody showed up. Strange.

Finally, a cop shows up. She says, okay, lets move all the vehicles out of the way. Now, this guy behind us who got hit harder than us, his car should be towed. No way should it have been driven. Even Christina's rear bumper was rubbing hard on our tire. Really, it shouldn't have been driven either. This was the strangest cop I have ever met. We ended up sitting about an hour while the cop took the reports and info from everybody.

Poor Christina, it's her first time hosting through couchsurfing and it pours with rain and her car gets ran in to! Not her fault at all of course, but we never did get to see Cincinnati! As we explained, at least it wasn't boring!

So, this cop then says follow me to the bodyshop. Huh? That would never happen in Ottawa. But we did. Then, the cop says "that guy in the black car must have had drugs in it because the guy only wanted to have it towed to his home". Huh? What kind of talk is that coming from a cop to someone who just had an accident. Very strange.

I figure the cop was getting a payoff from the bodyshop. It's the only explanation.

Christina's car. Given the hit, I'm surprised it's not worse. But I'd say there's some frame damage.

By this time, it was about 4:30pm and so we ended up driving back from the bodyshop to home, where Christina called her company and reported the damage and called the insurance company. 

Anyhow, life is never boring and everybody seems okay. Not sure about the guy in the black car, but the cop sure wasn't sympathetic. She seemed annoyed that the old lady (who shouldn't have been driving!) had caused all this problem to begin with. 

So, we don't have anything to report on Cincinnati. I guess we'll have to come back some day. Tomorrow, we're on to see Sam and Donna in St. Louis!