On December 27th, 1990, I was driving from Artesia back to Denver. I had to stop in Portales, NM, where my father and his side of the family were celebrating the holidays at Grandma Ogolon's. While I was there, Dad told me he had gotten a message on his answering machine from a detective in Golden, CO with regards to the accident I had been involved in. He gave me the detective's name and phone number and told me to get in contact with him. I told him I would.
After I got back to Denver, I contacted my ex-girlfriend Bez' father, Mr. T. He told me to call the detective and arrange a meeting with him and he would go with me. He also said he would send me a rate sheet for how much he was going to charge me. He said he would give me a discounted rate. When I got the letter in the mail, it stated that he would be charging me $50 an hour, plus expenses. If we were to be in trial, he would charge $150 an hour. On top of that, I needed to pay him a $200 retainer for him to start representing me when meeting with the officer in Golden. I signed the agreement and paid the retainer. I hoped the whole thing would take just four hours of his time. WRONG!
I called and made the appointment with the detective. Because there was a chance I might get arrested, Mr. T agreed to drive me to the meeting. This meant that I would be paying for the mileage he put on his car, as per the agreement.
We met with the detective. He said it was a good thing I called, because he was about to send New Mexico State Troopers out to my father's house. (They wouldn't have found him at his apartment. He had moved in with the woman he was going to marry at that point.) The first thing Mr. T asked was if he had a warrant for my arrest. He said he wasn't going to arrest me. Mr. T said I could answer his questions. I told him about trying to turn left and waiting for the traffic to clear after the light turned red. I said I saw the other vehicle whiz right by me and crash into a metal pole on the side of the road. I said I didn't think I hit him and continued on my way. (I was not going to admit to hitting the other car.) The detective asked me if I had pulled over. I said no (even though that wasn't true). The detective said that the person in the car behind me said that the light was red, but that the other driver said his light was green and the left turn lane on that side had a protected turn signal.
Since I didn't bring the car, the detective said he would have to come to my house to look at the car at some point in the future. He would be calling me beforehand. Mr. T and I went out to the intersection to observe how the light work. We went to the side where the other driver came from. Sure enough, the left turn arrow came on after our side had been green for a while. Like I said yesterday, my side did not get that protected left turn, even though there was a seemingly never-ceasing flow of traffic coming from the other direction. When was I supposed to get across? And how was I going to know when their light had turned red? We were surprised there weren't more accidents in that area.
A week later, the detective called me to come out to look at the car. He arrived and saw the damage to my car. He issued me a ticket. I was charged with making an illegal turn, leaving the scene of an accident and not having insurance. All together, the charges came out to 20 points. In Colorado, if you got 12 points, your license got suspended. I was about to be in big trouble.
But then I got in even more trouble later that week when I got pulled over with Knod and Sheld in the car and got a ticket for not having insurance, which would mean another 4 points. When I first told Mr. T, he said he wasn't going to represent me on that one, because I should have already learned my lesson and gotten insurance. However, I was able to convince him that the officer should have left us alone once he determined that my temporary tag was valid.
(One of the things I found out during that traffic stop was that the police did not need my driver's license to determine my identity. My main reason for running from the accident was completely unfounded. I knew then that I wouldn't have been arrested on the spot. This knowledge would have kept me from getting into so much trouble.)
The only bad thing about this case was Mr. T had a meeting to attend on the day I was supposed to be arraigned for the single proof of insurance charge. He told me to just take a plea deal if I liked what they offered. I went in to the courthouse and the first thing I had to do was meet with THREE PROSECUTORS. WHAT? This was just a simple lack of insurance charge. I could see this on the hit and run, but I guess they really wanted you to feel ganged-up on. I had bought insurance (ironically enough, from the same company that insured the other driver in the accident) and brought that proof with me. They said it was good that I had that, but there wouldn't be any plea deal for the charge. It was pretty straightforward. I didn't have insurance at the time, so the charge was going to have to stick. I told them I shouldn't have gotten the ticket in the first place. I would bring my attorney next time and we were going to fight this. They told me I wasn't going to win.
I went into the courtroom and waited my turn for arraignment. I pleaded not guilty and got a court date. It was going to take place in about a month. This time, Mr. T was able to come with me. Before the trial, he got to meet with the prosecutor and interview the officer. I was out of the room while this was going on. Somehow, he was able to get the prosecutor to dismiss the charges without us going to trial. We made a brief appearance before the judge, who validated the dismissal. MAN, AM I GLAD I HAD A LAWYER!
As we were leaving, I told him that if I had money at the time, I would have bought him lunch. He said he would just buy the lunch and put it on my bill. I said that would be acceptable.
He would send me periodic statements for the amount I owed. I kept paying him what I could afford and he even had me come to his house to do some work to pay off some of the debt. However, when I got the statement after the no insurance case, I noticed he had charged me the trial rate for that time. But we didn't actually go to trial. I contested it. He justified it by saying he used his trial skills to get that dismissed. I told him if he truly felt he deserved that, I would pay it, but that wasn't the contract I signed. He relented and charged his regular rate for that time. Even with him, those jokes about attorneys padding their billing hours turned out to be true.
Next came the arraignment for the hit and run. We drove out to Golden and met with the prosecutor. They already had a plea deal waiting for me. The would drop all the charges, including the lack of insurance, if I pleaded guilty to reckless driving, which was an 8-point violation. I would pay $1,000 fine, $500 in restitution to the other driver for the damage to his vehicle (covering his deductible) and 40 hours of community service. Mr. T and conferred briefly. He told me he could probably beat it. However, I knew I needed to take responsibility for my actions and this was the price I was going to have to pay. I realized we were lucky with the earlier case. If I accepted the deal, I would get to keep my driver's license.
I got a quick look at the paperwork the prosecutor had. One of the main things I noticed was my driving record. It still had that "UR" (unpaid referee) on it. I'm surprised the prosecutor didn't see that and have me arrested on the spot. With everything else going on, I didn't have much room to worry about that. I also saw a statement from the other driver. He stated that the accident affected his ability to work overtime, so he wasn't making as much money. He also said that the doctor appointments were taking time away from his family. I was genuinely sorry that I did something that caused this guy to get injured, but that didn't stop me from thinking that if he was working overtime before, he was already spending less time with his family. He also wrote that he thought that a suitable punishment would be for me to go to traffic school and learn how to drive. But I couldn't really blame the guy for wanting to hurl insults my way.
I was able to get a loan from my credit union in Artesia to pay the fine, the retribution and Mr. T. He was probably expecting that I wasn't going to be able to pay the full amount, but I'm certain he was surprised when he got the cashier's check. It seemed like after that, he actually treated me with a lot more respect.
But it wasn't 100% behind me. The insurance company was coming after me because they reached a settlement with the other driver for $60,000 and expected me to pay. There were consequences that arose from that and I will get to them in a future post.
The accident happened 25 years ago next month. The fact that I caused injury to another person, someone I'd never even met, has caused me distress every single day since it happened. Sometimes, I feel like the other driver is going to show up at my front door one day and ask me if I know who he is. I will respond by calling him by his name (which I still remember). If this happens, he will hear my side of the story for the first time ever, including my car having been stolen. He's still not going to like me because of the pain I inflicted on him, but he'll probably be a little understanding about my (unfounded) reason for leaving the scene. I believe we will be able to have a civil discussion.
No comments:
Post a Comment