Home Hacks Photo Job Blog About ________________________________________________________________________________ Random thoughts... ____________________ 2007/06/06 Bike Accident It had to happen one day or another, I was hit by a car coming back from work on 05/17. That particular day has a lot of meaning in the bay area since it was the annual Bike To Work Day ... not a lucky day for me. I have been biking to work for almost 3 years now, and it's the first time I have an encounter with a car. The driver of the car didn't see me, and made a right turn to get into a driveway, too bad I was between him and the driveway... my bike is broken, I have setup a page for the insurance claim: Bike/Bike_Accident . Biking is fun... cars suck. Leave a comment (moderated) ____________________ 2007/05/12 Junking my car... This story has to be told ... back in January, by a cold night, and after a hard day of work ;-), I was getting on my way back home in my old Ford Escort 1988, when the poor car died. AAA's tow truck arrived quickly and about an hour later, the car was parked at a gas station, in Sunnyvale. The next day at the gas station, the mechanic did a diagnostic. The gas pump was broken, it would cost me 500$ to fix the car, which I had bought for 600$ 3 years ago ... needless to say, I decided to junk the poor car. It was my first experience junking a car, and I think I made every mistake I could. The first problem I had was to find a junkyard that would accept my car. A Ford Escort 1988 is not very interesting for them. Fortunately (or not?), I came across junkmycar.com . This website is a big referral engine. You enter your car make and model, your location, and boum ... they give you the address of a junkyard that can come to pick up your car. That worked pretty well. They assigned me a towing company called B in East Palo Alto. I called that company. We scheduled an appointment, they would come to pick up the car the next day from East Palo Alto, not really close, but why not.... They even told me I didn't had to be on the spot by the time they would come. I just had to leave the pink slip in the glove box and they would take care of the rest. Nice, but it seemed rather strange to me, and I wasn't too confident so I looked on junkmycar.com website if this was usual and apparently it is ... the FAQ is pretty clear about this. So that's what I did, I signed the pink slip, filled everything I could and went on with my business. At least that's what I thought I had done. I forgot to remove the release of liability from the pink slip. That's the part of the form you have to send to the DMV to inform them you have transfered liability for the car ... by law, you are required to send this paper in the 5 days following the transfer. Stupid mistake ... I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, B came to the gas station and picked up the car. Approximately one month later, I received a strange ticket from East Palo Alto police. My old Ford had been parked in the street, only 600 yards from B, for more than 72 hours, so it had been towed away at my expense. I had to get the car back ASAP. The police report also mentionned the car had been stripped, several parts were missing. My belief (but I will never know for sure) is that B took whatever had the more value on the car and then just dumped it in the nearby street. The interesting thing is that now the car was stored in another junkyard, called A, right across the street from B (number 1885 for A, 1802 for B). I called A, trying to settle the matter, but it didn't work. They were expecting me to pay 150$ plus 45$ per day of storage. The guy at A also expected me to believe he didn't know his neighbor B... but B told me they knew A and that they would take care of everything ... sure. The next day, I would start investigating... I called the DMV , they told me that the car was still under my liability. At first I didn't understand but then I realized I had completely forgotten to send that stupid paper, so I filed another release of liability on the DMV website. Then I went to the DMV , explained my case, the lady (very helpful) explained me that even one month after the transfer, my release of liability was still valid, so if I had to go to small claim, I should be covered. That was a relief, but not very helpful. I can find stories on the web with towing companies coming after their debitors years after the towing (see this article for example). I gave a few more phone calls to A and B. A was becoming very aggressive, soon he didn't even answer the phone anymore. B was nicer at first, he just told me to wait and then show my release of liability to whoever asked me money ... I didn't want to wait without doing anything. On the web, I found tons of information about small claim court , and what you could do before getting into this. They recommended trying to settle the matter informally. I followed the advice and sent out letters to A and B explaining everything. Just in case we would go to small claim, at least I would have a proof I had tried to do something. I even went back to the gas station where my car had been picked up by B. The mechanic agreed to testify for me, at least in writing. He was technically the only one to have seen B pick up the car (a big red truck he recalled). After doing all this, I went to the East Palo Alto police, asking for advice. I was amazed by what I heard. The police officer told me to pay if I didn't want troubles. He also told me tow truck companies had people to go after people like me that refuse paying (a collection agency, but he never mentioned that term). He also told me that B was going to relocate soon ... weird. I was not very happy about this, the police was supposed to help me. I called back B and told them what I had heard from the cops. B got really nervous when they understood I had been to the cops. They told me to wait, after 30 days, the car would be sold and I should be out of trouble ... right. After almost 45 days, I received a letter from a collection agency ... they were requesting 800$ or they would put a bad record in my credit report. I contested, sending all my letters and documents again. One month later, I received a new letter from the collection agency, telling me that given the circumstances, they were closing my file. Big relief ... I was determined to go to small claim anyway. I hope this story is over now ... I don't know exactly why they closed my file, I think I am lucky. So, next time you junk a car : 1. Transfer the title as soon as you can, have it stamped by a DMV official before sending it to Sacramento if you use standard mail. Keep a copy for your records. 2. Remove the license plates from the car, give them back to the DMV . 3. Take pictures if you can when the tow truck comes to pick up your car. 4. Get a receipt from the towing company, showing the place and date. Hope this helps ... Leave a comment (moderated) ________________________________________________________________________________ 2020/09/17 Debian / W3C / vim / PHP powered |