mini got t-boned...

For those of you that are not my "friends" on Facebook, I will share with you on this forum.

Saturday afternoon, Jerome and I were in an accident with our precious MINI.  boo.

We're fine, everyone involved is fine...except for our cars.

We were on 23 Mile Road (yes, that's 15 miles north of the famed 8 Mile Road) heading east just past Gratiot. A car was leaving a Starbucks on the south side of 23 Mile and was going to make a left, crossing two east bound lanes and the left turn lane. The rightmost lane (closest to the Starbucks) was stopped because the cars are in line to either enter the highway or a million other shops on the south side of the street, but our lane was pretty clear.  The guy didn't see us and as we came up to where he was shooting through, either because he was looking at oncoming traffic coming from the east or because there was a taller vehicle blocking his view of us.  Jerome saw him and tried to veer into the left turn lane, but he wasn't quick enough. I could hear the guys car accelerating as he slammed into us. His airbags went off and his car (Chrysler 200) was not drivable and had to be flatbedded...our passenger side door was crushed along with the rear quarter panel.  The passenger door could not open.

We pulled into an Arby's restaurant parking lot and the cops pulled in behind us; blocking us in.

The other driver and his passenger were concerned because I was still sitting in the car.  I had tried to get out the door, but it wouldn't budge, so I just stayed in the car.  I didn't want to crawl over the stick shift and the emergency brake.  I finally decided it would be the right thing to do so that they could see I was OK.

After waiting some time and Jerome taking some pictures of the damage, the officer came to give us our papers back.  He came to the passenger side and I rolled down the window...all the way...dumb move! So, now the window doesn't go back up!  The officer said that he would help us pull it back up once he was done with his explanation.  He tried and couldn't move it up but maybe 2 inches.  Then we heard it break within the door.  BTW, it's cold outside, so we had to go to Lowe's and get some plastic to cover the window.  We really looked like a hooptie.  Well, at least our car is drivable.  The police officer told us that he gave the other driver a ticket.

Sunday we went to the Insurance Adjuster.  Monday I took her into the Collision Shop and we also heard from our insurance stating that they found that we were not at fault so we will not be charged our deductible.  The estimator called on Tuesday and said that they would be replacing the door and the quarter panel, the trim at the bottom of the door and the trim around the wheel well.  He is at this point giving an estimate of around $2,300 and we'll have it back by February 8.  Not too bad.  We'll see when it's all said and done.  They still have to take a look at the sunroof since we noticed a loud rattling sound coming from it when we drove it home from the accident.  Also we have a rust spot on the drivers side rear that we want them to estimate fixing as well.