No Comments July 16, 2009 – 3:05 am popping..

My brother-in-law in the UK was driving home late at night in rural Lanchester as he always does. The countryside road is dark; pitch black with no street lights. Everything’s quiet. Barely no other cars in sight. This was his normal route.

The ride didn’t turn out normal that eventful night over a week ago, he had a quick encounter with a herd of cattle who seemed to have come out of nowhere! A minor automobile accident followed. He hit at least 3 of the darned bovine animals and after slamming the brakes, was facing the other direction at the other side of the road.

My brother-in-law wasn’t hurt (thank heavens!) but still slightly bruised and stunned and couldn’t get to work for days. Their Toyota Rav 4 (with a personalized plate, my sister’s name: WENA!) was more or less done. This was the result:

The irony of it all, they had two cars and three days prior to the fender bender, they sold the other car. So when the Toyota Rav4 was towed away they were left with no car for days and my sis was forced to miss a day’s work and do car pooling for some days before finally getting a quick car replacement.

They had to pay the 500 pounds insurance deductible and after being told that it might get repaired, the insurance company ended up writing off the car as totaled. They got paid the full value of the car less the car loan. They now have extra money but my sis’ ‘dream car’ is gone forever…

The insurance company is going after the farmer who owns the cattle to claim for damages. My bro-in-law was diagnosed with a whiplash but looks like they’re nowhere near getting anything because the farmer is still unidentified.

I don’t know if there’s a lesson to be learned here other than accidents do happen. So what do we do? just take and expect it?? for in the end, no matter how careful we are- most often it’s not our own doing that gets us into trouble but other people’s or other forces such as these cows.

After all that, things are getting back to normal for the both of them in the UK. I have never been in an accident before and hope will never be in a situation like that minor or otherwise… (knock on wood!)