Accident

A dubious first for me this week. My first car accident. It was basically incidental and there was no injury to me and the car runs without any major repair work. But as it was my first accident, and I had to deal with the accident process in a foreign country with a still weak command of Japanese, it was still pretty stressful.

I was lucky in the fact that the guy was young and really nice. He was so extremely helpful when we had the accident, he not only called in and reported it, but he also didn't take advantage of my language handicap and he honestly reported the accident and seems to have accepted full responsibility.

Basically, we were driving on a steep winding hill and as I entered into a sharp turn, I saw a large truck that I thought was stopping. Feeling safe I entered into the curve, but I saw the truck was merely slowing down to enter the curve so I had to hit my breaks to allow for the trucks' wide turn. I hit it pretty quick, but I did ease up enough to allow for the person behind me to break as well. 2 seconds later, I was jolted by the impact as the other driver rear ended me. We drove out of the hill so we wouldn't be in the way and we waited for the police.

I guess I was a bit shocked because I really had no reaction at all. I actually was a bit amused that the nice guy worked for the same company (but different office) that I had just come from teaching. In the end the cop came and was not only very helpful but, thankfully, very patient with helping me understand the questions and situation. In the end I exchanged info with the man that hit me.

I thought I had heard the last of him, but was surprised that today he called me and wanted to come by and apologize to me. This is purely the Japanese way of thinking, in Canada if you came to the house to apologize you would be exposing yourself to liability because you are basically admitting your guilt. But this nice guy came by and gave me an assortment of cakes as a gift. I consulted with Ritsy and she told me this is quite traditional for Japan but I ended up feeling bad because he felt that he needed to go so far to apologize to me (when I had told him already a number of times- "Dai jo bu"---- It's alright...).

I am lucky, 4 days later I don't have whiplash symptoms and it seems that his insurance company will be accepting full responsibility. So in the end a negative situation was really not so negative.