minutia press.

From responses so far, I know I have to be careful going uphill in an RV, and will do so. I went to Mexico when I was a student at Rice, travelling in a friend's VW bus, which could only do 30 mph or so uphill. So I know to pull over. Of course, with the turbo attachment, maybe we can rocket up the hills after all.

I'm sorry to report that my '97 RAV 4, called "Ravvie" by my kids, was just in an accident last night. Nobody got hurt, and the car is mostly drivable, but it sustained some seroius damaage around the passenger's front wheel well.

I was heading down a hill on N. Florissant Road not going very fast, but there was snow/ice at the bottom and I couldn't stop or power out of the lane in time to avoid hitting a Suburban that was at the red light. I slowed to some 5 MPH by impact, but it took its toll on my car (the Suburban was only mildly bruised).

The guy I hit was in a rental car with insurance coverage -- nice -- though if the assessor finds me more than 50% to blame it looks like my insurance has to pay and then my rates will probably go up.

I remember the last accident I was in. It was a very memorable five or six car collision after the Blink-182 concert two summers ago. The accident was memorable, and chris can back me up on this, not because of the actual accident, but because of the people in all the cars.

We were in the last car. Fortunately, I wasn't really at fault. Two cars in front of us was a middle-aged lady in a sports car. She'd been weaving in and out of the slow-moving, post-concert trafic for a couple of blocks before she cut the car in front of us off, and basically caused the accident. Speaking of the car in front of us, it was occupied by two girls a couple years older than us. One of them, the owner of the junky car, had just been released from "the lockup" the day before the accident. She didn't have a licence, so her friend was driving. (Or so she told the cops. I think the skanky owner of the car was actually driving.) Neither of them was wearing seatbelts, and one of them had a cut head, but both refused treatment on the scene. (At least while we were there. I learned afterward that they drove part-way home and then stopped at an emergency room) I gather that they refused treatment because the one who had just gotten out of jail wanted to get home to see her son, who she hadn't seen since going into jail. That's right, after getting out of jail, she went straight to the Blink concert four hours from home rather than going to see her son. Anyway, she and her friend refused a tow and tried to drive their car home. I don't know if they managed to make it all the way to Springfield, because their radiator had been destroyed in the accident, and there was radiator fluid all over the place.

The other interesting group were the guys in the front two cars. They were a group of high school students and the foreign exchange students they were hosting. They spent the whole time we were pulled over at the side of the road asking people if it would be alright if they relieved themselves in the bushes next to the road. The cops finally told them to walk across the street to the convenience station to go to the bathroom.

I'm happy to say that my insurance didn't go up after this, even though the girls in the car in front of me tried to claim extensive damage to the rear of their car. Since my car was undamaged in the accident, and there seemed to be a lot of questionable behavior on the part of the girls, I think my insurance company settled $50 on each of them.

Anyway, it was a very interesting experience. And since there didn't seem to be any downside to it beyond lost time -- no injuries or monetary loss -- I have to admit that I kind of enjoyed it.