Death of a Volvo, birth of a hearse

Well my friend Sarah who is on here, had an accident with her 98 Volvo V70XC. She was sitting blinker on waiting to make a left turn and gets rammed in the rearend. It was rainy and foggy on a stretch of road that is posted 50mph but the guy was clearly in excess of that. Despite all that no sitations were written. She was very lucky in alot of ways. The guy pushed her into oncoming traffic and her quick thinking saved her butt. She saw a car coming and hit the gas. The Volvo is trashed. It has yet to be looked at by an adjuster some 7 days later. We think the guy is playing games with the insurance company. But we are sure it is totalled. So despite being sore and not quite well Sarah seized on an opprotunity to by a 1988 Buick Hearse. It is quite the deal. I have yet to see it in person but I will Friday. I have to drive up to get her as she can't load her car because of the accident and shouldn't drive that long a distance home. She says it rides great and appears to get great gas mileage. Here are some pics.

 

I can confirm just by looking at the pictures Stick - no one's going to be fixing that Volvo.... That would be a total loss if it was a brand new Volvo.

Amazing that Sarah had the presence of mind to hit the gas after she was rear-ended.

 

HOLY$H!T!!! I'm glad she is OK. I sorry to see a good wagon gone. It did its job and kept her safe. I hope that this all gets settled quickly... but then again, we are discussing insurance companies and they like to delay things more often than not. Great job getting that hearse. It looks great. A faithful friend indeed. Good luck through all of this.

 

Quite surprised it didn't pop the side window ..crumple zone i guess.

 

Bummer.
No citations were written!!????
Unless no cops showed up how can you rearend another car like that and not get a ticket?
A black one of those hearses goes by my house every day, has a white skull and crossbones painted on the hood, I don't think it's used by a funeral home anymore.
Unless it's a funeral home for pirates that is.

 

No citations written. Around here standard procedure is to only issue them in cases of DUI, street racing, stuff like that. Simply not knowing what you're doing/not paying attention isn't considered serious enough. The whole "everybody makes mistakes" blah blah blah.

His insurance company [Allstate] is flat out refusing to cooperate. They keep saying that they haven't talked to him, and that they need to talk to him before they'll commit to anything regardless what the police report [the police did respond, had to since we both went out on backboards] or pictures show. Finally I got them to say that if he keeps ignoring them, after 2-3 more weeks they'll have to proceed anyway whether they like it or not.

The problem? The investigating officer has talked to the guy and claims he has been in touch with his insurance, and that they've already sent an adjuster to look at HIS car, and have already totalled it out!

It took me an entire day after the accident to find his real insurance company. The police officer wrote down code 013 which in NY means 21st century, who had never heard of the driver or his address. According to my insurance & my friends who work in insurance code 013 does mean 21st century in this state but the police officer left a voice mail on my message last night saying that 013 means allstate & that the report is accurate so I don't know what the deal is there. Maybe there have been multiple issues to the code-translator guide. 21st century btw uses an automated system that will not allow you to talk to a real human being unless your phone can make correct dial tones. Which means if your phone gets busted from your accident you're out of luck like mine was [it will make calls but the dial tones aren't what they should be so systems get confused] and will spend hours trying to find a way to contact anyone there.

I was actually making the last trip moving my grandmother to a condo so that she can sell her house. I came up here something like three and a half months ago expecting to be here for five-ish days so I could be with her when she had an unexpected hip replacement done @ 88 years old. But a great many other unexpected family emergencies came up at once soon after including; her not being able to use stairs anymore & having to sell the house she has lived in since 1960; my grandfather with severe dementia having to go in a home because he had deteoriated beyond what we can care for; my grandfather having to have dozens of skin cancer tumors cut off of his neck, hands, back, feet, heel, and arms; my grandfather having to undergo a hernia operation; and that's just the medical stuff [there is much, much more]. After this car load i would have been able to finally come home.

But instead this guy who was going way to fast slammed right into me. I had been waiting for quite a while for on coming traffic to break so I could make a left onto a side street. I had my window partially down. There was no break squeal. He never tried to brake. I went back to the scene after they cleaned it up. There are no skidmarks. The lawyer I had a consultation with yesterday said that he agrees with me that the guy might have kept his foot on the gas after he hit me. Which explains why he rear ended me twice in quick succession and then drove off into a row of trees near by. He was found in the grass near those trees in pain, but IDK if he crawled out or was ejected. It was the day after his birthday so I suspect he was coming home from being out with friends all night and was probably sleep deprived. No investigation was done towards what he was doing before the accident. I have tried contacting the police & DA, no one cares about this part of the case.

Most of the stuff that was in the back of the car was completely destroyed. Some of that stuff is mine, some of it is my grandmother's. The impact of the force was so great it actually tore apart the lining of my winter coat. One of the things I had saved for the last trip was a giant wall display that I had intentionally wanted to save so that it would not be damaged in transit [go figure]. Its a 1944 display on radiowaves that came out of a university that was given to my grandfather while he was working as an electrical & nuclear engineer doing NASA & general DOD contracts during the peak of the cold war. It was roughly 5ft by 4ft. Since it was so long it was resting between the back of the front seats & the rear tail gate. It was completely shredded and since it's a one of a kind irreplaceable piece I have no idea how I am going to even try to give the insurance company a value for it. Also in the car was a carved stone stamp that the korean government gave my grandfather as a gift when he was sent there by the US Gov't after the war to set up their baeru of standards [my spelling has been tedious & atrocious because of the mild brain injury]. I was actually able to find it intact amongst the rubble yesterday. But also destroyed was a ~18 inch tall 19th century Japanese Mannequin doll that he had brought back from the Japanese theatre during WW2 [his unit was hand picked to be the first wave ashore in the D-day of the mainland that never happened, the bomb is the only reason why I was allowed to come to exist]. There was also some framed, signed original artwork that my grandmother owns back there. I was covered in glass from both the rear window & the paintings and had to pull glass out of my right hand at home the night after the accident because the ER didn't look me over carefully enough to find any of my cuts or abrassions [they were only concerned with the possibility of fractures and when they didn't find any they let me go].

So in addition to getting an excuse to get a hearse, the experience has been informative in teaching me what car insurance companies I'll never ever do any business with if I can help it. I am really surprised how much of a PITA allstate is being considering they're one of the more expensive insurance companies out there. When I got my last policy they & statefarm were 4 times what everyone else was.

And it's gotta be biting them in the ass, because they're now out not just all the medical & property damages in this case but all these lot storage fees. We're on day 8 as of today and they want to wait a couple more weeks? They'll owe as much in lot fees as they'll owe for the car!

 

Wait...she's sitting at the intersection with her blinker on and a guy runs into her from the rear and he didn't get a TICKET??? Who is he...the governor of the state??? Something fishy going on there...I don't care how foggy it was.
Glad Sarah is ok. The Volvo is history. Looked like a nice one, too! I like the Buick.
EDIT:
oops....I was writing as you were posting, I guess, Sarah.

 

Insurance companies are the devil! I feel for you as I was beating my head against the wall :banghead3: in 2006 dealing with the schmucks at Nationwide when my first Grand National was stolen. They practically accused me of setting up the theft. Pure idiots! And I had left Allstate years before that because they loved to jack up their premiums constantly and I had never filed a single home or auto claim.

Best of luck with the hearse.

 

Sarah - you're going to be on your own with the person property items inside the Volvo. Common auto insurance policies only cover personal property as a result of a fire, and then only a small limit. You'll have to make a claim directly on that stuff with the other guy's carrier. As to the Volvo, since Allstate is dragging their feet, I'd just let your own carrier handle it at this point - less aggrevation. Let me know if I can be of assistance - 30+ years in auto insurance claims (did 22 years with 21st, BTW...)

 

Wow! That's a rough one. We don't have commercial auto insurers here, in our Province. Instead its called No-Fault insurance - AKA they pay both parties, according to each one's policy options, fix or write it off, and then hit the driver responsible with the total costs, and they mean it. Meanwhile, you get patched up, the car gets fixed or paid out and life goes on.

The best part is, that any claims surplus gets paid back to all the drivers, and good driver discounts even include driver license fees. Makes it hard for commercial companies to argue that they can do a better job, eh?

 

I don't have anything but liability on my car. I am a safe driver [no tickets or accidents until this idiot- and he's 100% at fault for it] and simply can't afford any more insurance. No home owners, renters, dental, eye etc. I have basic liability and a ppo health insurance policy through another company and that's it.

His insurance is on the hook for the property. They know about it, they have an itemized list, some receipts, and some photographs of what was broken. If they don't take care of it I'll be filing a lawsuit against the driver himself directly and HE will be responsible for it [though between what he was driving & what I have found on his family through googling him I suspect he is relatively poor and at best I'll only be able to garnish his wages for the rest of his life].

Where the accident happened is a no-fault state, but that is only in terms of your medical bills. My insurance pays my medical bills, his has to cover the car, property, and any pain & suffering [however since the insurance industry has bought out all the politicians here the list of what qualifies for pain and suffering is a precious few specific types of injuries].

 

oh, regarding the hearse:

Anyone know anything about those 80s pillar lights on the outside of certain luxury cars? The driver's side is out but the passenger side's still works. In my state any exterior light "present" must work properly [unless its a type of light they consider illegal like neons, non-dot etc] so I'll need to take care of it to be street legal.

 

OK, Sarah....Guess you're on your own with Allstate. Knowing them a bit, you'll have to document everything. They'll be happy to pay your claim, but the burden of proof is on you. I would suggest innundating them with inquirys and information. Make yourself a pest. They will be more inclined to pay you what you deserve and close your property damage claim.

(Not addressing your injury claim here...)

 

Yea I don't expect that to be easy for the stuff that is so one of a kind that I can't easily give a "value" for. Like that display I mentioned earlier.

 

Volvo: Bummer. Hearse: Very cool - I've got one ('90 Buick Estate Wagon Hearse) too. There aren't many of us here with hearses. Also, there is limited info on the net about them - especially how to dismantle the interior trim, electrical troubleshooting, changes made to the drive train, etc.

Most of what people know about these things is by trial and error! Anyway, welcome to the very select section of wagon owners in this club!

bob