accidents happen.

I was on my way to running some errands after work last night. As I saw a traffic light turn red, I made a fairly hard stop. A couple seconds later, I heard screeching tires behind me and was rear-ended hard. My scooter thrusted forward, but I managed to get my footing to keep the scooter from falling down. I turned around and saw a guy lying on his side with his scooter on its side about a meter behind him. After I moved my scooter off to the side of the road, I called 119 (the ambulance number), and asked them to send a police car and ambulance. He (name: Yi Shong) kept saying his leg was hurting a lot. My only apparent injury was a bruised spot on and next to my left shin.

My coworker Nathan happened to be driving by, and he stopped to help. My other coworker Melissa came scootering around a few minutes later and stopped too.

Ambulance came and took the injured guy away. Police came and took some photos, some measurements, and asked a few questions. I went to the police station to describe the accident, and was back on the road about an hour and some after the accident took place (at 8:45pm).

I quickly stopped by a scooter shop to see how much repairs would cost. 2 out of 3 parts I needed to fix were quoted at $800 and $1500nt.

I visited Yi Shong at the hospital. My bruise didn't seem nearly as bad as his fractured leg, and apparently not a clean fracture, but a shattering fracture. He would have his operation today (the next day), but seemed rather well-humoured and upbeat in spite of his situation. Anyway, he offered to pay for any damages on my scooter. And I will take him up on that offer.

This morning, I stopped by another scooter shop because my usual one was closed. This shop quoted me $550 and $1100 for the same parts. Hmm. I don't think I'm going to go to my "usual" scooter shop anymore. So I got 4 things changed/replaced on my scooter and took a courtesy scooter in the meantime. Courtesy scooters are generally really for the dumpster. I was lucky and got one with one of two sideview mirrors. The brakes are weak enough that I feel like I'm about to get into another accident at any time.

So that's my scooter accident story for Jan 16, 2007.

I'm glad my injury wasn't worse with a business trip/vacation in Japan at the end of this week.