And then there are automobile accidents.
Not that everyone is involved in an accident, or that those who are experience those catastrophic accidents that show up on the evening news or Youtube. No, fortunately most of us have little fender benders that inconvenience us for a time and drive up our insurance rates. Either way it goes we typically don't enjoy it.
I don't intend to imply that I'm making an exception, but a recent encounter on the roads of Doha was slightly less objectionable than most accidents. If nothing else it's given us a good story to tell. I've enjoyed telling it enough that I'm going to tell it again here.
Two days ago we were heading home after work and making our way through a particularly busy roundabout and we got cut off by another driver coming out of the roundabout. He merged partway into our lane and stopped suddenly, meaning that I literally stood up on the brake pedal in an attempt to stop. Now, this wouldn't be a story about a car accident had I actually stopped without a collision, so let's just say that the two vehicles temporarily occupied adjacent spaces. Not a smash-in-the-grill accident, but more of a love tap. The two vehicles exchanged paint and now share a bond that only the body shop can break.
So, why is this such a great story? After all, it's only a small bump that didn't involve serious injury or devastating damage to either vehicle. It's a great story for the part that came afterward. The person in the other vehicle spoke hardly a word of English and my Arabic is less than proficient. So I called a friend who is a native speaker of Arabic who showed up promptly to interpret. The exchanges back and forth involved a serious disagreement on who was responsible for another dent in the other guy's vehicle. Back and forth we went, courtesy of my friend's exceptional mastery of Arabic and English, debating the finer points of the laws of physics and how a vehicle cannot be simultaneously in two different non-contiguous locations at the same time. We hung out for about an hour waiting for the police to arrive when a phone call came to my friend asking why we had not already gone to the police station. Unbeknownst to me the other guy, having claimed that he had not, had called the police and declared the accident to be my fault.
So we made our way to the traffic police and presented our respective cases to the police officer. When the particulars of the incident were explained the officer declared it to be my fault, at which point my friend intervened and told the officer that the other guy was claiming that I had inflicted damage that it wasn't physically possible for me to have done. Out the door we went and the officer looked at the location of impact on my vehicle, then over to the other vehicle to see the damage there. When the other fellow pointed to the pre-existing dent and pleaded his case with the police officer it was made clear to him that there was no paint transfer or signs of impact with my vehicle.
Apparently evidence, laws of nature, and common sense eluded my fellow guest of the traffic police and he swore by Allah that the damage was my fault. Seems this particular officer didn't much care for that as he silenced the fellow and declared him to be at fault for lying. I'm not entirely sure if it was invoking Allah's name or whether the officer thought his intelligence was being insulted, but apparently he wasn't going to stand for dishonesty; and a person who, had he just exercised a little common sense, would have been walking away with me paying for a little touch up paint, now has me filing with his insurance for repairs on my vehicle.
So, boys and girls, the moral of the story is that you don't bite the hand that feed..., I mean, three may keep a secret...er, an apple a day keeps the...um. Hmm. Maybe there isn't a moral to this story, but don't forget that a bird in the hand beats two in the bush.
