Goons in cars

We had our first bingle in the Disco last week - J was dropping a friend off after a girls night out at the movies when an idiot did a U turn across a double white line and smacked into the back of the Disco.

As far as damage points go, it was Disco - 3, Subaru Outback - 100. We ended up with a cracked rear bumper (it's made of plastic that is designed to deform), two bits of broken tail light and a bent exhaust pipe. Although I gave the exhaust a poke with my foot the following morning (it was poking out the side of the car rather than the back) and the back two feet of exhaust pipe and can broke off and landed on the road.

The Outback had a very bashed in front end. It's times like these that I am glad I have a tow ball, but curse the fact that it does not stick out even further than it does. I wish it stuck out enough to not only impale the idiots radiator on the ball, but the engine block as well.

The reason I say this is that the cretin appears to have been at the pub with his girlfriend (prang took place right outside a pub, and both were dressed up for a night out), and he did a burnout as he took off and did his U turn (or as much of a burnout as you can do in an Outback). After smashing into the back of J, he got out and immediately started aggressively mouthing off, and then proceeded to kick the crap out of his car. Luckily for him, his girlfriend had more sense, calmed him down, got rid of him and took control.

Now comes the big moral question - to call the police, or not call the police. If you suspect booze or drugs are a factor, you're supposed to call the cops. However, if he blows in the bag and is over the limit, he has no insurance, and chances are, won't be able to pay for the damage to our car.

On the other hand, it would be nice to see him led away in handcuffs, and be stuck with a huge bill for fixing his car.

In the end, details were exchanged but the police were not called, mainly because they were not obviously pissed. They didn't smell of booze. And I wasn't there, so I can't tell what they had been doing.

The annoying thing is that the pitiful amount of damage will probably cost well over a grand to fix, even though the paintwork is not scratched or dented in the slightest. If the damage consisted of a few bits of broken plastic, I'd fix it myself and send him the invoice.

I still have this nagging thought though in the back of my mind that we should have called the cops and taught him a big, nasty lesson. Having a few beers and then showing off in front of your girl in the car is a really dumb thing to do. Idiots like that have a bad habit of wrapping their cars around trees or power poles, killing their passengers yet walking away unscratched.