Here is a non-volvo related rant. today I called my insurance company to check that I will be covered while driving a u-haul truck to move across the great commonwealth of PA. While I had them on the phone, I asked them how much my insurance would be going up which gave rise to a scan of my driving history. They informed me that there was an accident on my record...this was a suprise to me...they told me that the record reflected that I was involved in a very minor fender bender type accident in 2002....This was actually true, but as it was so minor (I hit a brand new Tahoe as they guy was driving it home from the dealership directly after purchase and I put a $1200 scratch in it....not hard to do on a new car), so per our agreement, I simply paid the guy in total for his trouble...after all it was my fault. As it turns out, this son of a bitch put in a claim and not only was paid by me, but was paid by my insurance company. The reason that I never detected this is that the accident was so minor that it was "foregiven" and didn't raise my rate at all. Now aside from being swindled out of $1200...(no small feat as I was a junior in college and had just turned 21), the real pain is only now apparent. The car that I hit the guy in was my 1968 pontiac firebird 400 which I decided to restore after the fender bender. Now that she is complete, she is very valuable and the insurance that I carry is completely inadequate (the total value is $700 and liability only is available). I contacted a ton of classic car insurance providers and they all said, no dice because I have had an accident in the past 10 years....not I have a $35,000 liability of a pontiac which is insured for $700....less than what I paid for the paint while it was still in the can!!! The total icing on the cake was that when I got out of the car immediately after the accident, the guy's daughter came out swing'n. When I asked if everyone was ok...(which they obviously were...the truck barely shook at all) the daughter responded by calling me every explitive that she muster. When the dad restrained the loud mouth slut, he shut her back in the truck and we exchanged info as is both customary and cumpulsory. I remember that guy saying to me "don't worry man, that's what we have insurance for." I so easily could have just droped the pontiac into 1st and peeled out of there with almost no chance of them seeing my plates and zero chance of them catching me...the lesson learned...never trust anyone and never expect them to be civilized...I am currently thinking of a way to mount a snow plow on my 86 244 to pay this guy's car a visit while he sleeps one night.
Happy brick slinging.