cellio: (mandelbrot)
Monica ([personal profile] cellio) wrote2002-11-27 09:43 am
Entry tags:

short takes

Attention Pittsburgh drivers: It's snow. You saw it last year. You dealt with it last year. Remember?

It took almost three times as long as usual for me to get home yesterday, and that was before the snow started sticking to the roads. I also passed three minor accidents. Whee.

I don't object to cautious drivers. I do object to the ones who do stupid things like block intersections (making it worse for everyone) or occupy two lanes or -- I am not making this up -- try to back up the length of a block on a one-way street instead of going around.


Friday on the way home from work Dani's car was grazed by a bus. It took out the driver-side mirror but did no other apparent damage. Saturn wouldn't talk to Dani until Monday, so he's been driving around with the thing taped together so he won't lose any pieces (some of which are connected by wires).

On Monday he called and they asked him if the plastic casing is black or the same color as his car (which is, technically, blackberry -- it looks black except in sunlight, when it shows as dark purple). It's painted, so he has to wait for them to order the part. Black he could have had right away. Now usually guys complain that it's a "girl thing" to insist that such things match, but you know, I would have taken the black. We don't get that many sunny days in Pittsburgh anyway; who'd notice? :-)

Apparently bus drivers get into enough accidents that this is down to a routine. Dani said the driver got out, took out a shrink-wrapped camera, broke the seal, took two pictures (one of the mirror and one of Dani's license plate), handed over a sheet of paper with the driver's basic information, and left. This was a tour bus, not PAT, by the way, so there's no way Dani is ever going to collect anything from these guys.


We got a weird series of wrong-number calls last night. The first one went something like this:

Me: Hello?
Him: slurred mumble
Me: Hello?
Him: mumble whozis?
Me: Whom are you trying to call?
Him: click

Two minutes later the phone rang. We repeated "hello?" and the slurred mumbling before he hung up. (The guy sounded either drunk or sleepy.)

Two minutes later the phone rang. I decided the machine could get this one.

And it was a different caller with a wrong number, this one not at all slurred but speaking with a heavy Russian accent. He did not identify the person he was trying to reach in his message.

That second guy called back twice more (an hour later, and two minutes after that). Finally he seemed to get the message that he had a wrong number, because he stopped calling. But it was strange, especially as there were two apparently-independent callers in such a short timespan.

[identity profile] lrstrobel.livejournal.com 2002-11-27 07:44 am (UTC)(link)
Drivers here, while seemingly not as insane as those in Atlanta, Boston, Houston, or other places where I've heard horror stories, are still idiots. I also had to trudge through traffic three times as bad *before* it started snowing, and deal with twice the moronic behaviors on the road.

And it's not just drivers. At the intersection of Craig and Centre, I had to actively not hit a guy who was crossing against the light in a heavy flurry. Like it's not difficult enough when visibility is limited by white stuff falling from the sky. Moron.

People just don't care. It sucks.

[identity profile] fiannaharpar.livejournal.com 2002-11-27 08:06 am (UTC)(link)
This was a tour bus, not PAT, by the way, so there's no way Dani is ever going to collect anything from these guys.

I'm going to refute this as my step father owns a bus company, and most of the companies run on the same principles. You have a better chance to settle with a tourbus than you do with PAT. Really. Just submit the claim to the tourbus companies insurance, and go from there.

I will happily eat my words if you don't get a quick settlement.

[identity profile] dagonell.livejournal.com 2002-11-27 01:13 pm (UTC)(link)
"Apparently bus drivers get into enough accidents that this is down to a routine."

Also 18-wheelers. When my panel van got 'tapped' by one while trying to manuever in a tight space I managed to get his attention and told him he hit my van. He picked a pad up off the seat next to him, filled in the date, tore off the top sheet, handed it to me and continued on. It was all the insurance info I needed.