Prius got hit today.

Long story short a lady was at a stop sign, I was behind her, and she inched forward into the street of a 50mph road. Sort of a hesitation of go/don't-go but she poked onto the road. Well, the newer-looking Dodge Ram 3500 with a trailer saw her from a mile away and was slowing down and honking.

She of course puts it in reverse!

I see everything all in slow motion.

All she had to do was reverse about 6 inches...maybe a foot.

But no! She keeps coming. I see this too from a mile away. Not even concerned at this point because how bad of a driver do you have to be to just keep reversing!?!?!

I see she is still coming towards me so I begin to think, hmmmm...could be an accident coming...I lay on the horn.....BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.....Held it down for a good 5-6 seconds before my demise!

It was funny because in that slow-motion moment I had my right hand glued to the horn. And I knew if I quickly cocked it into reverse I'd have been fine. But in those brief few seconds my hand remained perma-stuck to the horn instead of moving it to go in reverse. I was thinking surely she would hear the horn and stop. Looking back I picked the wrong method of accident prevention (picked horn instead of taking the situation into my own hands and reversing away from the car backing towards me). And of course it all happened within maybe 15 or 20 seconds at the most so not much time to think, pause, and react!

It was pretty minor imo. Looks to be just the fender but the door does "pop" because it gets caught on fender and pops free.

I found a matching color one at the junkyard for $75 and a friend will slap it on for basically nothing. Sucks but it is getting up there in age, and I've had good luck over the last few years as far as tickets/accidents go.

 

I think she was shaken up. She had 2 encounters. 1 she was successful at avoiding (with the ram coming at her at 50mph). And the other slowly but surely reversing into me which she wasn't expecting. When we went across the street to gas station her hands were trembling when I asked her to write some of her information down. I honestly felt bad for her. Her bumper was cracked and practically hanging off on the rear right.

Now ordinarily this would really piss me off but for some reason I am in a decent mood despite the circumstances. Probably because it could have been much worse.

 

We both have no fault. She said she will contact her insurance and get back to me. I have her license, insurance, some video via cellphone, and I had her sign a dated piece of paper kinda admitting to being at fault for damage to my door/fender (although it is vague).

Doubt her insurance will cover anything. I'll prob just fix it for $100 and chalk it up as a loss. If she wants to reimburse me fine, if not, I'm not going to cause an uproar.

I texted the number she gave me telling her I believe I can repair for "pretty cheap" if she wants to leave insurance out....She never responded. It happened about 12 hours ago.

 

We were at a turnaround. I was stopped diagonal at an angle to her car. They call them Michigan u-turns here. Very lucky I was in that position so I don't have to deal with replacing bumpers and headlights.

 

Here is google streetview at actual site. You'll have to excuse my drawing but she is in red and I'm in black.