My Witness Report:
I witnessed a car accident today on my way home from work.
Around 5pm at 4855 Templeton Street, Los Angeles, California, a red [probably ‘11 or ‘12] Camry was waiting to make a left turn on Templeton from Eastern. an old hispanic lady probably in mid 40s. Short - around 5’0” i’d say.
I was following the car in front of me at a comfortable distance when all of a sudden, the car in front (I think it was a Camry from like ‘95 or so) swerved dramatically to the right. At first I thought we were both going to stop and wait for the Red Camry in front to make her left but his actions lead me to believe he didn’t notice her at all until it was too late and tried to move out of the way.
BAM. >.<
All three of us immediately put our cars in park and turned on the emergency lights [the red triangle] The two cars directly involved left their cars as they were of course. But I pulled over and reparked my car on a minor street. I guess the lady was making the left to pick up her husband because he appeared out of nowhere. The man that collided into the lady was also hispanic, overweight, spoke fluent English, and was probably in his mid 30s. His car looked totalled. Parts of the engine and headlight frames were scattered in pieces all over the ground. I walked over to the couple, the owners of the red car, and gave them my name and phone number after explaining to them how I witnessed the whole sequence - in the broken scraps of Spanish I remembered from high school.
The first thing both the driver in back, and I asked the lady in front was if she was ‘ok’ - to which she replied ‘yes’. But later on. Some independent ambulance/transport car, that just happened to be passing by, came over and checked up on everyone. I’m not blaming the lady of lying or anything because adrenaline and post-accident injuries are a real thing, but she now claimed to have a hurt right shoulder and was being prepped to be taken to the hospital.
Meanwhile, I was standing by my car watching the whole thing and waiting for the Police to arrive so I could do my part as a U.S. Tax-paying Citizen and give my unbiased whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth-so-help-me-God report, when I overheard the conversation the male drive was having on his phone.
He was talking to his mother with tears about how he already had a previous accident he had to deal and how he doesn’t have his insurance and registration papers. IT sounded like he didn’t have insurance anymore.. listening to a grown man’s break down really moved me and started to reconsider my position as a citizen.. Capitolism vs Marxism… do I help the well off stay well off and report his fault? or do I leave them alone and try to let the guy talk his way out of being at 100% fault and lighten the load off his back… since the people of the front car had my number already, I decided to just leave. It really pains me to imagine how much this man in the back car will have to struggle… hard working guy ending up in almost the worst case scenario. If everything goes like it should.. he’ll have to pay for not just for the damage on the front car, but most likely buy a new car for himself and pay for the medical bills of the lady too.. an ambulance lift is at least a grand I believe..
God bless him please..
