Car Accident

The other day I got a call from Suzy at about 4:30 in the afternoon. She’d been involved in a small car accident in one of the roundabouts coming out of the city. In this particular roundabout, four or five lines of cars jockey for position as the road narrows to a place that only one car can pass through at a time. This is huge bottleneck that is difficult to navigate. Cars are inches away from each other; motorcycles and bicycles are also trying to squeeze their way through the maze of traffic. It seems like total chaos, but there is actually some order to things that you learn over time as you drive here. Suzy was in line to make it onto the one-lane road when a guy whipped around her on the outside requiring him to drive up onto the curb. Her front bumper touched his rear door and left a surface scratch. These things are fairly common and can usually be dealt with pretty easily. But Suzy was mad and in no mood to compromise (can’t say I blame her). The guy she “hit” was demanding enough money from her to repaint his whole rear door. Suzy only had 4000 shillings on her (about $2). She had tried to negotiate with the guy, but he was not giving in. So she called me. I decided the best strategy might be to wait him out. So I told her to tell him that I was across town and that it would take me an hour at least to get there. After about 30 minutes, I called Suzy back. The guy was still quite content to wait and was showing no signs of giving in. The traffic police had gotten involved and taken both of their driving permits. I asked Suzy to let me talk to the guy. He explained what he was demanding. I again told him I was far away and that it would take some time for me to get there. He explained that his mechanic was coming to give him a quote for re-painting the door. I told him I would come as soon as I could to resolve everything. Then I called a friend to find out what it would cost to repaint a car door. He told me around 40,000 shillings (less than $20). Armed with this piece of information I made my way to the scene on a boda boda. When I got there, I talked with the guy and with his mechanic. His mechanic said it would cost 60,000 to repaint the door. I told him I would give him 40,000. If he didn’t want to accept that, I would take it to my mechanic to have it done for that price. Seeing that my price was firm, he accepted, and then we asked the traffic cop to come back to release their driving permits. He gave back the guy’s permit, but then said he was not releasing Suzy’s because he needed to write her a ticket for “careless driving.” It was all I could do to not burst out laughing, but I kept my cool and reasoned with him reminding him that we had resolved the situation with the person she hit (who was really the one driving carelessly) and that there was no reason to give her a ticket. Even the guy Suzy hit came to her defense asking the cop not to write the ticket. He finally agreed and gave back Suzy’s license. With that drama finished, we headed home for a nice dinner. I drove.