An accident waiting to happen

The other day I got a Facebook message from a friend who told me the story of how the police dealt with his situation when his driver figured in traffic incident somewhere along San Agustin Drive.

The long and short of his story was that the responding police officer conveniently and lazily ruled both parties were at fault and then refused to release a report that categorically stated who was at fault as well as refused to release the sketch when it was being requested for insurance claim purposes. To do that, they required my friend to get a request from the fiscal when no charges were actually filed, so what happened in the end was that my friend ended up executing an affidavit stating what happened was a hit-and-run so that they could claim their insurance.

Who else was disappointed but not surprised by the way the police handled his case?

First of all, why couldn’t the police do a proper investigation, make a ruling, and then stand by that ruling? Were they late to the scene? Weren’t there enough witnesses? Or did the responding officer lack the training to perform an investigation and come up with an informed conclusion so he resorted to the lazy option and ruled the accident the fault of both parties?

Secondly, if the investigator did the right thing and it was indeed the fault of both parties, why did they make the aggrieved citizen jump through hoops just to release a simple report? Why couldn’t the police release a report so the insurance claim can be processed quickly and painlessly and why did their lack of cooperation force the car owner to lie that it was a hit-and-run just so he can make a rightful insurance claim?

This story of ineptitude makes me cringe because I drive aggressively-defensively (if there is such a thing) because I know I can always defend my position if I get into an accident. I will go when the traffic light turns green and cut into the path of the traffic violator that “forgets” know how to interpret traffic lights when it is convenient. I refuse to yield to counterflowing morons who think others owe it to them to give way and condone their abusive act. I will not give up my right of way just because someone else wants it more. I do these things because I would like to believe that while traffic enforcers and traffic cops are essentially useless in enforcing the rules, they do know those rules and have the training and the balls to uphold those rules when things do go wrong.

I guess I was wrong. If my friend’s experience is par for the course, then it turns out we have traffic investigators who do not have the training, the tools, nor the balls to settle the hotly contested debates between drivers involved in an accident. Maybe they just arrive on the scene, late as usual, and then proceed to sit on the fence and wait for the argument to settle itself or, if they do take sides, they probably pick the driver or the car owner with the more powerful calling card or “maninoy”. And it is that dearth of competent traffic investigators that would probably explain why we have so many of those dangerously-driving-entitled-morons on our roads.

I guess I have the driving gods to thank for protecting me from traffic incidents in the many years that I have been stupidly courting disaster with the false hope that I can always argue that I was in the proper lane, had the right of way, or was just following traffic rules because it turns out that the people who are supposed to take the side of the law and the right, have no idea how to do their jobs.

It turns out that the people who get into traffic accidents and cause even more traffic waiting for an investigator to investigate are just wasting our time because if this is how they work, then the verdict will most likely be that both parties were at fault and anybody who wants to claim insurance will have to lie in an affidavit that it was a hit-and-run because the police that we were counting on to give a professional report are apparently unable to provide the results of their slapdash investigation.

Or I could be wrong and my friend could have been extremely unlucky to get the most incompetent police officer on his case that fateful day.

I’m hoping I’m wrong and he was unlucky, and I would gladly provide space if anybody would like to explain or provide me with a more positive experience on the police response to a traffic incident, but I really think it is time for those of us who want to be able to provide more proof for our traffic cops to base their investigations on to go shopping for a dashboard camera ASAP.*

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