prang!

I've done it again - I went and drove our beautiful car into some nob who decided he had the sacred right to force his way through the traffic in front of us. Naturally, becuase the front of our car connected with the back of his, the insurance companies will probably find us at fault. Maybe we could have avoided it if instead of giving him the horn in anticipation of him perpetuating his nobishness, we had just stopped abruptly. But stopping suddenly is exactly what he did before even completing his turn through the traffic because as could be expected, he didn't actually check to see if the road he was turning into was clear. It wasn't, he had no where to go, and he expected me to hold back and allow his royal self to wave the rules of right-of-way. Well, we were only traveling at a brisk walking speed, so his car isn't really damaged. The front of ours has definitely looked better though. Took it in for a quote yesterday, and it was highway robbery! I guess he based it on the assumption that the insurance would be covering it, so he estimated a price which would cover replacing pretty much the entire front half of the car, for about $AU4K. The bonnet's bent, the front grill's pushed in a bit, and the support bar across the front's sitting at a bit of an angle, but the radiator fortunately wasn't damaged, and nor was it's mount. There's a small dent in the top of it's outer casing though, so he suggested replacing the entire thing. Also the compressor for the air-conditioner is conveniently located between the radiator and the front grill, but fortunately it also appears to me not to have been damaged. He feels that an alluminium pipe connected to it is bent, and so, guess what? Yep, better replace half the air-conditioning system too. Having the replacement bonnet painted to match the car is also quite expensive, but I'm ok with that. What I can't abide is the fact that almost half the total cost of the quote was labour! It's all neatly itemised on a nice printout, like 'removing front grill - $50, looking at car and scratching chin - 1 left testicle'.
Well, live and learn. People driving like that has been one of my pet hates for a long time now, but I've allowed myself to become a victim of it. Should have just stopped as soon as I saw him start trying to push through, but it happens so often here that you never expect any grief from it. At least we're fairly well cashed up at the moment, so it's not going to be a problem for us, but it just had to happen right at the same time as I was thinking of finally upgrading our poor old pc. Bugger.