First unemployment, now a car wreck. Ugh!

[red92s]

Some regulars here may have seen my post at the beginning of August after I was laid off. Unfortunate, but I had my finances in order and was keeping a positive attitude about finding employment again.

Fast forward a couple weeks, and I had decided to move from MA to GA to look for work. All my friends and family are in GA, and my brother just bought a house here so I could avoid paying rent while looking for a new job in the area.

I rented a UHaul and trailer to pull my classic Volvo, and used Uship.com to find a car driving service to transport my "daily driver" Mazda wagon down to GA. The car driving service was several hundred dollars cheaper than shipment on a trailer, and about 10 days faster as well.

The guy picked up my car saturday night, and I was scheduled to pick up the truck and trailer sunday to start driving myself. I got a call at 4 am from the guy driving my car letting me know he had hit a deer somewhere in southern PA. Not a phone call I wanted to get!

So anyways, now I am safely in GA with all my stuff and my classic Volvo . . . but my poor little Mazda is in a repair facility in MD having about $4,500 in repair work done on it. It's covered under my comprehensive policy, but the zinger is my $1,000 deductible. Not what I want to be coughing up while collecting unemployment! To top it all off, I won't have the car for another 2 weeks.

With the way things are going, I'm expecting a health emergency in my near future, because bad things always happen in threes right?!

[kork13]

wait.... so you hire a car-driving service to transport your car, they wreck it, and you're on the hook for all of the repairs?!? call me crazy, but something doesn't seem quite right about that.... are they not liable for damage they cause??

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Oh dear/deer, what a bummer! (But for others, there is another heads up as to short term ways to make money--driving cars between cities.)

I don't believe that misfortunes come in threes. It would be nervous-making to believe so because you'd always be counting your misfortunes and then waiting anxiously for the next bad thing to hurry up and be done with.

Have you got a lie on any work in GA yet? Will you need to wait for the Mazda to be fixed, or will you just use the Volvo in the meantime?

[red92s]

Originally Posted by Joan.of.the.Arch

Have you got a lie on any work in GA yet? Will you need to wait for the Mazda to be fixed, or will you just use the Volvo in the meantime?

Obviously I don't need the Mazda to get to work daily right now. I can (and do) drive the Volvo regularly and it could certainly be pressed into daily duty if necessary. It's not a real practical commuter having only three gears, no power steering, and no power breaks. I have rental coverage, but between my family and my girlfriends their is usually a spare kicking around.

I've had a couple phone screens and am trying to schedule some follow up in-person interviews for those positions. I'm worried what I'll do when the first offer comes in if it's not something I'm in love with. I want to do something that excites me and that I enjoy, but in this economy I'd hesitate to pass on something/anything that gets me back on a payroll quickly.

Originally Posted by kork13

wait.... so you hire a car-driving service to transport your car, they wreck it, and you're on the hook for all of the repairs?!? call me crazy, but something doesn't seem quite right about that.... are they not liable for damage they cause??

It's actually an individual, not a company. But, the guy has 100+ positive reviews on Uship.com from driving cars and equipment for people between locations.

I'm not exactly happy about the situation, but it is what it is and I don't really have much legal recourse. Because a deer strike is covered under comprehensive coverage, and not collision . . . the insurance on the CAR is what kicks in, not the insurance on the DRIVER. If it had been an at-fault accident I think it might have been a difference situation. A tree could have fallen on the car when he stopped for the night, or someone could have backed into it at McDonalds and for insurance purposes not much would be different than a deer strike.

When my girlfriend and I were driving the truck down we saw ~50 dead deer on the stretch of I-81 through PA, MD, and WV.

[wincrasher]

Sorry to hear about your car. You are learning about risk, now aren't you? There is always a trade-off for saving money. Most times it works out, sometimes it doesn't. As they say, c'est la vie, no?

I hope he had the good sense to not expect payment, at least.

[red92s]

Originally Posted by wincrasher

Sorry to hear about your car. You are learning about risk, now aren't you? There is always a trade-off for saving money. Most times it works out, sometimes it doesn't. As they say, c'est la vie, no?

Yeah, certainly.

I've made that drive three times in the same car without incident. I figured the likelihood of damage on a transport truck where you car is in close proximity to others and loaded/unloaded several times, and stored in various yards along the way, was more than on the road. Guess I lost that bet, eh?

[FamilyPapi]

Red,

Sorry about your car. You need to move forward now- this is what you need to do:

1.) Focus on getting a job.
2.) Have a plan though - say yes to an opportunity that is close enough - maybe it's not what you expected, but think of it as temporary to get you back in the swing of things.
3.) Do a kick-ass job. Make every effort to impress once you get in the door.
4.) Learn about what excites you. Become an expert in this area by learning every aspect of it.
5.) Expect great things to happen to you...think long term.

GA will be great for you.

Family Papi