Hit and run in Newcastle!

Friday is garbage day for my street so I proceeded to take out the garbage last Friday when I noticed that there were some pieces of brake light lens on the road at the end of my driveway. It took a second or two for the amount of debris to register in my mind so after turning back towards the house to go and get the second garbage can I did a double take and realized that it was a lot of debris. I looked over at my car (which had spent the night on the road) and had a short-lived feeling of relief as it looked okay which quickly came to an end as I walked around to the road side of the vehicle where I was confronted with the sight of my rear rim being bent, the rear quarter panel crumpled and the rear bumper cover hanging low like a battle weary soldier.

Oh my friggin' God!

Well, I finished putting the garbage out (prolly in a little shock from the sight) and then put the call out to the police. While I was waiting for them to come put, I decided to see if there was anything that would help identify the vehicle that hit me. I ended up finding a part with the "PONT" of "Pontiac" and a part number. I immediately called the dealership that we leased our van from and they said that it was off a 2005 Montana.

wow.

No wonder my car had been shifted 2 feet from the impact. That's a fair sized vehicle. I then started to ask a few neighbours that were out if they had heard anything... no one heard anything. Eventually I did hear from one neighbour that they heard something between 3 and 4 in the morning.

After the police had taken the report I called the insurance company and filed the claim and arrange a tow out to a body shop just east of us. I have since spent a few hours calling around to all the towing companies and body shop east, west and north of town asking if they had seen a montana with damage to the passenger side front. I also asked them if they would let me know if they did see something in the next little while and they all agreed to call me so I can get the police out to look at the vehicle. I figure that since it's a minivan, the person can't sit on it too long since it most likely the main people mover for the family that owns it. We'll see what happens.

And your total comes too...

The body shop has estimated the repairs to be just south of $4000 which puts me in a precarious position since my car is 9 years old with 378,000km on it. It's worth more to me as a working vehicle than the cash settlement is bound to be from the insurance company so I hope they don't write it off. I'll have to see what my options are if they do write it off.

Well, it's just a waiting game right now so I'll get some of the pics up for you to see and once I hear what they're gonna do, I'll update my blog.

Have a good day everyone.

g.