A Seattle Statistic

OK, I'll admit it from the start. This is a rant. This is a vent. I am angry and disillusioned.

When we first moved to Seattle, I remember being surprised by the number of hit-and-run accidents that were reported on the local news. It seemed like several times a month there would be a report of someone being hurt by a hit-and-run driver. After a while the frequency of the reports seemed to slow down, and for a long time I didn't think much about it. Until yesterday.

Kaycie, Isabelle and I had gone to downtown Seattle to have lunch with Bill. After lunch, while Bill went back to trying to remain gainfully employed, the rest of us went to the Pike Place Market to buy some fruit and do some people watching. When we finally decided to head home, we got on the freeway and were trying to merge into some very congested traffic. (If any of you have ever done what is less-than-affectionately known as the Mercer Street Shuffle on I-5, you know what I mean!!)

Before I could even make a lane change, a car came barelling up behind me and apparently tried to pass me on the left (even though I was in the far left lane.) As he tried, he hit my car in the rear driver's side. Fortunately Isabelle's car-seat is on the passenger side of the rear seat, or she may have been hurt.

But rather than stop, the driver raced ahead and merged with traffic farther down the road. Since things were so congested, I was able to catch up with him and yell across at him that he had hit my car. He answered with some lame excuse that a truck had hit him and forced him into me...and oh, by the way, didn't I have insurance? I told him we needed to pull off and exchange insurance information and call the police, and he insisted that he follow me. But by the time I got safely out of traffic, he was nowhere to be seen. I had become a Seattle statistic. It's now up to the Washington State Patrol to track him down. Fortunately because of the traffic jam, I was able to get a license plate and description of the car and driver. The State Trooper said that was rare, and he hoped he would be able to find the guy. He also said that if the guy denied everything, Kaycie and I might need to pick him out of a line-up. (Yes Ravyn, a real-life "Law and Order, C.I."!!)

I am grateful that no one was physically hurt, although Isabelle seems to be quite shaken up by the whole thing. Even today she keeps taking about "Mom's car" and describes the accident in her own way.

I'm not naive enough to think that we live in a society full of "stand-up" people who always take responsibility for their actions. But it saddens me when I have to experience that reality up-close and personally.