Bad Driver: 3AD814

This is the license plate of the guy of a huge truck or SUV who failed to come to a complete stop behind me while I was waiting to get onto 47 after going to Wal-Mart to buy and install a new windshield wiper.

I had a millisecond of dread looking in my rearview mirror when I saw this guy, a middle-aged white guy, look down as he creeped his car towards me, then creeped up again.  He's getting kind of close, isn't he? I thought to myself, and then I heard an audible BOOM! as me and the car jerked forward.

My fight-or-flight response kicked.  What the fuck am I supposed to do?  The very least I had to do was convey my sense of outrage, my what-the-fuck-ness, by jumping out of my car to see what damage he did to my rear bumper.  He did the same.  What I saw in my very brief survey of my car was a small chunk of paint off of the right side of my rear bumper, several inches to the right of another chunk of paint that was gone after I backed into something else a long time ago.  Other than that, nothing.  It was a relatively soft tap, and it wasn't like my bumper was caved in or my taillights were totally shattered.

"No harm, no foul, and I have to get home," I said in a huff towards the guy after he apologized.  I didn't want so much to get home as to get away from the situation.  But should I have stayed?  Should I have made a bigger deal of this than the ten seconds I was out of my car?  Should I have ripped the guy a new asshole? I don't know what I could have done, like shake him down for money for running into me.  But as soon as I drove away from the guy I had the nagging feeling I was being a pussy, that when faced with true confrontation I choose to shirk away as quickly as possible instead of standing up for myself.  And that still bothers me.

Having said that, I do look at my bumper from time to time and it is as damaged as it was before the hit.  Ever since it happened I can't tell where the damage is, although when I looked closer I could see a few small circular scratches and indentations where that truck/SUV kissed my bumper.  And to prove to you how relatively inconsequential the rear-ending was, I don't know for sure which day last week it happened, Monday or Tuesday.

Guess what I'm saying is if it were as important as I fear it should be, I would have done something about it by now.