R.I.P. Jesse Duke

Long story short, my brother-in-law Jay owned his own auto shop where he often acquires vehicles. He asked me one time if there was a car I was looking for. I told him a sweet truck, but not too big, not like Jesse Duke's truck, a big white ford or something.


So he calls me up and tells me he has acquired a truck for me. He drives it out in the dead of winter from California to Kansas and gives it to me. A 1977 Ford F-150 with a 460 HUGE engine in it. The truck is great! Only it gets like 5 miles to the gallon...ah, the days when gas was only $2....and my sister made sure that it had a custom toy licensce plate in the back window that read "Jesse Duke."


After consuming a ton of gas and repairing the radiator and some other stuff, I sold the giant truck. My buddy Pat was upgrading from a 1991 Nissan that he actually drove off the factory. It was truly his baby. And he gave me a GREAT price of what I paid for the other truck.


Anyway it was a great truck!!!


And today, it lies in my driveway, with a twisted metal hood.


I got into my first real accident. I've had a few fender benders before but nothing like this.


It was surreal.


Here's what happenned:


In this pic you'll see on the right side a big white building...Walgreens. There is a driveway in and out of the Walgreens parking lot.


Directly south of that driveway is another driveway for a strip mall.

I'm trying to exit from the Walgreens parking lot. I'm going to turn left and proceed south on the street.

I look left...it's clear for a while.

I look right...two vehicles...the first one is White truck. Both vehicles are heading southbound, the same direction I'm trying to go.

I look left again...still clear.

I accelerate...and hit the white truck.

I didn't see a blinker, but the white truck moved from the left lane (Five lanes with a turning lane) to the turning lane and was turning left into the driveway just south of me.

I didn't even see it. And it was all so surreal. It all happenned and I didn't even hit the brakes. I just hit him. As you can see...very little damage.

Cop gets there and reads both of our reports. He says that in his opinion it's a clear case of in attentive driving.

He asked me lots of questions about whether I was trying to dart out between cars. He didn't understand how I could cause so much damage with my little nissan just by pulling out.

I didn't have an answer at the time, but I did tell him later that I didn't even hit the brakes. It was all happening so slowly...so quickly...the only thought was that I was going to really hit this truck, this is my first real accident, I can't believe it's happening, I should hit the brakes, CRASH!

The police officer was SO great. Again, he said that I was at fault but that he wasn't going to charge me with inattentive driving because it's a $160 fine that really doesn't do anything but make the county richer. So he wrote me up for not having my proof of insurance with me!

DANG! That is so sweet.

Now I need to find another vehicle...I'm going to try to get an estimate on getting it fixed. With the vehicle dripping oil...i'm pretty hesitant.

Do I pay a couple grand to fix it up or pay a couple grand for another used truck...

Irregardless...R.I.P. Jesse Duke...