Hit and Run

So for about a month or so I've been workin' at my friend’s shop (he’s a coach builder) helping him out. I do about 2 days a week with him, I work in the front and basically do any work that’s overflow. It’s actually an interesting place to be. It gives me the extra work hours that many of us need these days, as well as allowing me to meet the very quirky characters that come through on a pretty regular basis and, every now and then, we get a real piece-of-work that we have to deal with…

About 2 weeks ago, toward the end of the workday, a delivery truck comes to drop off a shipment to the company that rents next door. As the delivery tuck was pulling out of the driveway, the truck clips the side of my car and destroys my side-view mirror. Rather than stopping, the truck just continues out of the driveway towards a dreary, cloudy sunset. Very upset, I thought that I’d just have to deal with repairing the car myself. Good thing I’m spending 2 days a week at a car shop. Then I find out that, even with my friends help, I’m still looking at $400+ in parts, paint and labour.

Fast-forward to the following Friday. I’m sitting at my desk doing some work when one of the shop-guys comes running into the office. “Mr. Zach, the man who has hit your car is doing a delivery right now. Go get him!”

So I went out to the loading dock to confront the man who hit and ran on me, but suffice to say that the driver of the truck was refusing to admit that he was the one that caused the damage to my car. So, knowing that I am now going to have to report it to the police if I am to get any justice whatsoever, I go outside with a digital camera to get some shots of his plates, the company name on the side of the truck and the driver himself. While I am taking the pictures, the man gets extremely hostile and even threatens to hit me! I'm about to snap a shot when he lunges at me with a closed fist and my picture gets ruined. However, as you can all see, I did end up capturing quite an image.

I won’t bore you with too many of the details afterward, but, suffice to say that the entire cost of repair to my car is now being taken care of . . .
And yes, I am happy that I’m not on the hook for the bill, but what really gets me going is the steps that I had to take to get someone to do the right thing.

The moral of the story? I’d say that there are two:

1 – It pays to be persistent with people. The world will not balance itself out. Sometimes you have to take initiative and balance out the cosmos yourself.

2 – People don’t like taking responsibility. We should, as a people, really make an effort to not wrong others while we go about our lives. But when we do, we should take steps to make sure to set right that which we made wrong.

If we're only good to ourselves then we will end up alone, in need and without help.