I was going to say “A funny thing happened on our way out of the Post Office”, but it wasn’t funny and that act began a series of events that will end tonight with me attending a Driver’s Improvement course.

Making a turn into State Road 7 or 441 from the North Miami Beach Post Office is not so hard unless you want to turn left onto Miami Gardens Drive which comes right up and you have to cross four lanes of traffic to do so.  I handily got across the first two lanes and signaled that I wanted to turn left into one of the two left turn lanes.  As I was turning into a space, a car behind me made a right turn into my driver’s side of Carol’s brand new Lexus.

I think I made the right decision which was to get off this busy thoroughfare and pull into the parking in a bank building on the right and the other car followed me in.  Now, there are always two sides to a story or many if there are witnesses.  My thought was to get out of the way and not contribute to the multitude of fender-benders and many nasty accidents which make driving in Florida an adventure.  That was probably a mistake because all witnesses to what happened proceeded on their way probably wondering what happened if they wondered at all. 

I have already acknowledged that the Lexus is Carol’s pride and joy – her baby.  I am in sufferance in being allowed to drive it at all but I automatically get in the driver’s seat and Carol lets me do this. The other car had a headlight dangling on its wiring and the Lexus was scraped from the rear tire rim up to the front driver’s side door.  The driver of the other car is an FBI agent who called ahead to her office and Carol and she called the police.  On 441 the State Police are the bosses and we got two cars reporting to look the “thing” over.

It goes without saying that I automatically was blamed for the accident because I was making that left turn into the left turn lane – even though I was signaling the entire time.  The FBI lady was very nice and she claimed that she angled out of her lane because she wanted to go straight and not make a left turn. The State Trooper Lady automatically said it was my fault.  The State Police Trooper tried to explain that while it was my fault I could pay the fine and get 4 points or go to court to fight it or take a 4 hour course to keep my record clean.  Our Insurance Company, GEICO, was extremely helpful and I was served and noticed and a rise in our costs will probably follow.

We were interrogated by another FBI Agent to see if we were security risks. But, that was yesterday.  Tonight I go for my 4 hour Drivers’ ED course. (Just imagine – we are half way through the AARP’s Driver Safety Program.)