Today is Friday, August 26th, 2011; Karen's Korner #2140

For a couple of weeks the end of March, Jim and I spent some time traveling in North Carolina and Virginia. On our way home, we were driving the Interstate through West Virginia when a car parked along the side of the road, turned into our van causing an accident.
 
The other driver had minor damage to his vehicle. Our van was hit behind the back door on the passenger side. Both his car and our van were still drivable. Jim and the 48-year-old driver of the other car began to exchange driving information and recount why the accident had occurred.
 
It seems that his GPS had started to tell him to turn around, that he had missed his turn off. Since he spotted one of the turn around lanes and even though it was an illegal turn, he would start back the other direction. He looked too far down the roadway behind him and didn't see us at closer range.
 
As they continued, a West Virginia highway patrolman came upon the three of us and asked if he could help. After a few minutes delay, the officer called Jim back to his state vehicle to let Jim know that the other driver with Missouri license plates had neither a valid driver's license nor current insurance.
 
After filling out our necessary paperwork and having a tow truck pick up the other driver's car, we continued on our journey west toward home.
 
As we drove, I told Jim, "This guy has to be made of good stuff. He knew he didn't have either insurance nor a license, but he chose not to drive off." He could have made his turn away from us, as we were pulling to the side of the road after the accident. We would never have had any information about him and he would have been off 'scott free'.
 
Upon arrival at home, we learned from our insurance company that the damage was about $1,800. They would pay $800; our obligation was $1,000 for uninsured motorist, which they would work to recoup from this other driver.
 
A couple of weeks after we had returned home, I decided to write to this guy. I wanted him to know that we appreciated having his name and address to turn into our insurance company. While he was currently down on his luck (he had told us he was in West Virginia looking for work), he had to be made of the 'right stuff' or he wouldn't have stopped. And that we hoped that things were work out better for him in the future. I tossed into the envelope a couple of the Christian devotional booklets that I had published and given to numerous people over the past few years.
 
In the mail yesterday came an envelope from our insurance company, it had a check for $1,000 with the notation in the left-hand corner: "refund deductibility".
 
Wish we would have kept the name and address of the other driver.
 
Hope that things are working out better for him now than six months ago.
 
One thing we know for sure: We were right.......he is someone 'made out of the right stuff'.
 
 
 

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