30/8/99

On a collision course with greed

    I had my first traffic accident recently. After a flawless 27-year record in two notoriously bad driving cultures -- Quebec and Israel -- I finally did it.
    I emerged alive. I wouldn't say it was exactly a brush with death, however, because when I hit the black BMW, I didn't even realize I'd had an accident. I bumped its bumper -- no, that's an exaggeration: I nudged, brushed, touched it, while I was traveling about 3 km per hour, emerging from a parking spot. It was not enough of an impact to set off its alarm. You can do more damage with an uncooked spaghetto.
    But oh, the furor!
    In seconds a small crowd had gathered. I thought at first it was all very comical. Presuming that rational thought would prevail, I pointed out that the "damage" was a scratch that was not even deep enough to penetrate the coat of paint -- literally. And besides, I reasoned, it's the bumper, and that's precisely what it's there for.
    But it turned out that most of the crowd had a vested interest in that car, and each of them figured, "here's an easy way to make a lot of bucks off some sucker."
    There was a bearish man with rings on his eyelid; a loud, fat woman who was his wife (they had leased the car from Avis); an employee of Avis, who witnessed my "collision"; another couple of Avis people who jumped out of their shop to join in the fray; and finally, the Avis manager, who was summoned to contribute to the shouting. The rest of the people there were onlookers with nothing better to do.
    After a few moments, I began to realize they were all taking this very seriously, they had no intention of being rational or reasonable, and they were gearing up to get me for a lot of money.   
    Foolishly believing the obvious truth would sway all these people shouting at me, I invited everyone to actually inspect the site of impact. Well, that was a mistake: you couldn't actually see anything, but by running a fingertip over that spot on the fender, you could feel a hairsbreadth scratch. About five cm away was another crisscross scratch, but it was undeniably obvious by the positioning of my car that I had not caused that. Of course, everyone unanimously agreed to deny the obvious.
    The Avis manager, Ronit Harari, poked a finger behind the fender and said aha!, and pulled out further evidence of damage: what looked like a tiny flake of paint.
    Then Harari, "j'accuse!" written all over her face, triumphantly indicated a white blemish on my fender. That confirmed everything. I explained that (a) the car I had hit was black, and (b) my fender has 16 years of experience in fendering. But not now, nor at any point during the ordeal, did anybody (i) concede that I might be right, or (ii) listen to anything I was saying. There was money to be made here, and they were going to cash in.    
    It had become a ludicrous satire. But I wasn't laughing.
     Harari asked if I'd like to have the police summoned. I declined. I know our cops: he who shouts loudest is right. Besides, I would have been thoroughly embarrassed to involve the police, not to mention my lawyer and insurer. I did not think I could be convincing enough that the extent of damage was so blatantly minuscule, especially as I am not an artful hollerer in Hebrew.
    I began to wonder how much the back half of a BMW would cost to replace.
    I could have repaired it myself -- which would have cost me no more than one-thousandth of an agora worth of shoe polish (maybe three-thousandths if I also repaired the crisscross scratch) -- but I didn't imagine they would jump at the offer.
    I almost escaped the situation by a tactical blunder on Harari's part. While we were hollering at each other about whether I was accountable for the crisscross, I pointed out what was surely obvious to all: that by the positions of the cars and that scratch, it was virtually impossible I had caused it. Oh yeah? she said; back up again into the BMW, and we'll see exactly where contact is made.
    She actually commanded me to hit the car!
    By the time I reached my car door, Harari realized her gaffe and hastily withdrew her suggestion. Bummer. I could have just reared into the BMW, and roared off, leaving everyone yelling at her instead.
    I was left with a sinking feeling that, having been outshouted and outmaneuvered -- truth and justice be damned -- I am going to end up paying a lot of money for no good reason. 
    This sort of manipulative intimidation is common in this country, where guileful aggressors make mincemeat of the meek. All you need is a total absence of shame, embarrassment and integrity, which are not famous traits in quite a few Israelis.
    How much they extort from me depends on the depth of their chutzpah. They could dab the spot and claim they replaced the entire fender (and "repaired" the bodywork beneath), and not even I could tell if the fender is old or new. But I'm certain the demand will be outrageously out of proportion to the damage (anything more than a thousandth of an agora would be excessive, though I would grudgingly settle for an agora.)
    Up against a greedy, loudmouthed couple and a huge corporation, and faithless that any single lawyer, insurer, policeman or judge would fairly grasp the perspective of this travesty, I hold out hope in one person: the assessor. I'd love to see him trying to photograph the "damage" or justify costly repairs.
    Considering all the crocodile tears shed over this incident, Avis should change its slogan:
    "We cry harder."