Cars
March 17, 2023: Cars
About five months after getting hit by a valet driver I was able to pick up my car today. It’s nice to have it back. But what a hassle.
Here are two things I learned/figured out during the process.
1. Stigma. It doesn’t matter if it gets you from point A to point B. We buy vehicles based on how they make us feel when we’re driving. It doesn’t feel good to drive a car with collision damage. This is a big deal when it takes so long to schedule repairs. I posted the idea to our trial lawyers list serve. Some the lawyers thought I was stupid. But last month we received our first check for loss of use stigma damages. It’s now part of the playbook.
2. Inconvenience. The adjuster and I disagreed about diminished value. I said that diminished value was just one of my claims. Another was inconvenience. And having to deal with the insurance company, repair facility, dropping my car off, walking home, etc. was pretty inconvenient. The adjuster said there was no way she was paying for my inconvenience because it wasn’t covered under Washington law.
I don’t think she knew I was a lawyer. I responded by dropping this on her:
In the context of damage to a vehicle it’s been the law in Washington for over 60 years. See, e.g., Holmes v. Raffo, 60 Wn.2d 421 (1962) ("The law cannot condone such a condition. He would be denied compensation for his inconvenience resulting from the defendant's wrongful act.”)
After that the claim settled for a lot more than she was originally going to pay.
(Hopefully I can use all of that to help other people rather than working on any more of my own claims.)
But that’s not the only car update. There’s something more important.
We sent out a newsletter several months ago about the Pinewood derby. The point of the newsletter was that sometimes things that have no value to anyone else are incredibly valuable to us.
The Pinewood derby is no different than any other “competition” between kids. Some parents turn it over to the kids. Some parents take complete ownership. And some parents work out a division of labor. I decided to go with the third option.
Marcellus and I picked up our kit on Sunday. The race was on Tuesday. We didn’t make a lot of progress on Sunday or Monday so I kept him home on Tuesday. #priorities
Together we cut the body out of the pine block, sanded it, sanded the axels, painted the body and then inserted the axels and wheels.
Marcellus and I were both a little bit heavy on the trigger during the painting process. So the final product left a little bit to be desired. (The large section of gloopy paint that came off while the axels were being inserted was hidden with a hurriedly crafted spoiler.)
To make sure we didn’t have any catastrophic failures we epoxied the axels in place. The race was scheduled for 6:00 PM. At 5:00 PM I realized that one of the wheels had been epoxied to the car. Fortunately we had just enough time to fix it.
The “Blackfish” had some tough competition but after four races emerged as best in class.
Both father and son were very happy. On the way home we started brainstorming about next year.