Adventures on the I-5

So I had to be in Los Angeles for a few days for work this week and I finally was able to leave on friday afternoon after spending all day in the courthouse.


It was a tedious drive home since the traffic was congested like nobody's business.  It took me 3.5 hours to get to Encinitas and along the way saw this in lane 1 when I was stopped.

This is a smart car with Hello Kitty.  I could not tell if she was on both doors or just the passenger side.  Here is another photo of it when it pulled ahead of me.

I test drove one of these cars in the convertible version when they first came out and I decided that for the money and the space (you can't do a decent CostCo run), it wasn't the car for me.  I'm not sure who was driving it, but I hope it was a young girl.


Then when I got to Crown Valley Parkway, I was driving about 35 mph in lane 1 in anticipation of the car pool lane ending when I felt a grating noise and a bump.  I looked around and saw a full size ram truck pulling to the left shoulder and the BMW that was in lane 2 next to me pull over so I followed them over to the shoulder.


The truck driver was young and pretty shaken up especially after I told him he hit my Government issued ride.  I had to call to get a police report and to have the patrols clear the lanes to move all of us to the right shoulder.  Granted traffic was heavily congested at that time of day so it took a little while for that to be accomplished.


After taking everyone's statements, we were released by the CHP and I was back in the traffic.  I think my car sustained the most damage and everything seems to run okay, but my light is busted and will need replacing.  Maybe it is time for my replacement vehicle....

I will have to wait until monday to start filing the paperwork on the accident.  It is a total inconvenience when I have so many other things to do....