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Originally Posted by SLO Freebird
Good luck on your acquisition and your recovery from your accident!
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Originally Posted by Coffee Bean
Cheese wagon First of all I Hope your healing up from your accident.
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Originally Posted by Phatman
Best wishes on your recovery and endeavors !!!!
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I appreciate the kind words and wishes. Unfortunately, though, the reality is that full recovery and healing is unlikely. I have a spinal injury, as well as a labrum tear in one, possibly both shoulders, and I need surgery.
This is going to get long, and it is not a ploy of "Oh, feel sorry for me", but it is the absolute truth -- and my reality.
As soon as I mentioned the injuries were from a car crash, the spine doctor started running with their tail between their legs, yelping "degenerative disk disorder", and the shoulder doctor would say no more than the crash "could have exacerbated an underlying condition", which I liken to the former.
The problem here is that I have no history of any of what is going on with me at this time, prior to this crash. Pain sitting or standing too long, getting up from or taking a sitting position, even what amounts to rheumatoid arthritis. Even dressing or putting on a coat often hurts. All of which have only appeared since the crash. I know what's going on here -- the doctors are purposely choosing their words to avoid being called to testify in a lawsuit because they make more money at the office, fleecing insurance companies.
How do I know all this? If any of this was ever going to be an issue without this crash, it would have appeared in the 400,000+ miles bouncing down the highway in a mediocre fleet-truck-spec air-ride seat in said fleet-spec truck that bounces you around on harsh roads -- plenty of which I traveled -- 218 in Iowa is about as close as you get to washboard with pavement / concrete.
I had to get into debt to replace my vehicle just so I could get back to work driving rideshare (which is what I was doing when this crash occurred -- with a rider, no less), just to pay for physical therapy that only improved symptoms slightly. Only then did the shoulder doctor recommend the surgery, only to have the facility throw up a roadblock after I saved enough money to cover my bills for the estimated 30-day recovery, because I had no health insurance and no way to pay the mounting bills.
I had good health insurance until asthma forced me out of trucking -- it was going to cost me $500 a month to keep it through COBRA, and that was only going to last six months. ACA is a joke -- $70 a month for coverage that only kicks in after paying the first $6,000 annually. The medications I need for my asthma are $400 a month on average.
To further complicate things, the rideshare service's insurance company feels they are offering me an olive basket by offering half of the estimated surgery cost as part of the settlement.
There is a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement that disallows discussing certain elements of the settlement, however, I can divulge this. Going by the insurance company offering half of the cost of surgery, at best, I am getting less than a third of the bills and projected medical expenses for pain and suffering, and nothing for the loss of 4 months of income while being jerked around on replacing my totaled vehicle, mostly due to certain facts not being properly clarified to me.
In fact, the car had been inventoried at CoPart for at least two months, maybe three or four, before I ever got paid for it, and I actually had to start pushing grand theft auto charges and call the state insurance commissioner because the other driver's insurance company was refusing to make a fair offer on the property damage after removing it from the storage facility.
When I made the three phone calls I promised the adjuster I would make -- a personal injury law firm, the state insurance commissioner, and the state police, the rideshare service's insurance company finally stepped in and clarified that it was their baby, not the other driver's. They had contacted me before the other driver's insurance company, but had not made it clear that they were ultimately supposed to cover it.
In my opinion (and my attorney's apparently) I am getting screwed big time on out-of-court settlement. My attorney is even working with me ever so slightly on their fee, depending on how the final numbers fall. But it is my attorney's advice that going to court isn't going to help me much, if at all.
I'm told juries these days are usually comprised of idiots that empathize with the defendant more than the victim and are soft on verdicts because they don't want to put the defendant on skid row. Which means I am likely to spend money preparing for court that I will not get back. Never mind that returning to trucking is a very stupid idea with asthma as bad as I have, let alone the injuries I have.
I certainly didn't ask for Miss Daisy to slip her moorings, run a stop sign, knock me galley west and nearly kill me. I was struck squarely in the right rear door at the stop sign about 10-15 feet behind the ambulance in the first photo, causing the car to spin 270 degrees in the perhaps 60 feet it took to come to a stop after bouncing off the retaining wall behind it, probably still traveling 15 mph. What you can't see are the tree and telephone pole, right of camera, that I would have pin-balled off of and been even more seriously injured, if not killed, had I not turned into the skid when I felt the impact push the car's rear to the left.
The accident report states the other driver's speed as 20 mph. Sure, I believe 20 mph did all that. It is to laugh. Extremely realistic driving simulators I've tried have not yielded this type of damage until over 40 mph. Sadly, this is not my first experience with shoddy accident investigation with the municipality in question.
To boot, I've been ripped off driving rideshare in the first place. The leading services usually take 50% of what the rider pays, only reducing this to 20% on longer trips with a rate structure that gets cheaper as you go further and faster -- and no deadhead for return mileage on long trips.
In over 18 months doing rideshare, I have generally observed about $4.85 per hour net profit after expenses. I have also noticed that when I exceed $10 per hour logged in or $20 per hour of time spent with riders, I am veritably locked out of the dispatch, even though it appears that I am still logged in and able to take requests.
Unfortunately, most who frequent such services are under the mistaken impression that drivers get 80% of the price, and do not tip, because they are being falsely informed that rideshare drivers make $20+ per hour and that tipping is not necessary.
Also, many riders play power games making up false complaints to try to get out of paying for the ride. Most riders I have taken give me a five-star rating and wonder why my rating is less than 5 stars -- this is why. If the rating drops below a certain range, we are booted from the platform -- thus, I have put up with a lot of abuse from a lot of jerk-offs for less than minimum wage after expenses.
And the rideshare services do nothing to discourage this behavior. One service has even discriminated against me by booting me from their platform simply for having to screen riders to avoid smokers, when I have clearly stated it is for health reasons. That could very well be another lawsuit under ADA, which I am looking into. I've been told it is not likely to be worth it though. Health aside, it's my car, and I should have the right to say who rides in it and who doesn't.
Were it not for the respiratory problems I have, I wouldn't do it -- I would rather work like anyone else, but the severe asthma makes it difficult at best. My doctor says I should be on disability, but the Social Security Administration and the attorneys for such claims don't even want to deal with people with problems like mine. However, the silver lining is that with the injuries from this accident combined with the asthma, they will finally have to listen.
Unfortunately, filing for and getting disability means that I will probably have to give up the car I bought when trying to get back on my feet, as I won't be able to afford the payment on disability. And paying it off will eat up over 1/3 of my settlement, taking more than a few options off the table with it.
So basically, I was ripped off the whole time I did rideshare, and now I'm being ripped off by their insurance company for something that happened on the job that was not my doing, and which has left me with long-term effects that may or may not be correctable at this point -- In the time since the hospital blocked getting my surgery, my shoulders have developed a pronounced outward sag and I am getting more and more weeble-wobble when getting up and walking the little distance I can before getting winded.
So, for those of you who use rideshare services, I encourage you to use taxis instead -- they were here first, and the drivers are treated better and make better money. The rideshare services simply do not deserve the success they enjoy. I myself used to be an independent owner-operator before rideshare jerked the rug out from under myself and others.
While I cannot divulge specific terms of the settlement, I can say that the so-called "proceeds" will severely limit my options in getting and fitting out a bus, let alone starting over at the tender age of 45 with a damaged body and damaged lungs (the product of secondhand smoke exposure, mostly in the home as a child - I have never smoked and was diagnosed with asthmatic bronchitis at the age of 5).
Even getting the surgery I need is shaky when taking into account that not only was I only given half the money to cover it, it may not even stop the pain or improve my mobility. Not to mention I also need to make living arrangements geared more toward long-term.
Even though a golden opportunity has fallen in my lap in the past couple days that I hope to be able to take, I have to be cautious, as I don't even know for sure what my end of the settlement will actually be just yet. I can only hope that things will play out in my favor.
So you see, the property and skoolie park idea is not just a place to make my home -- I hope for it to be a means of staying out the box of disability and living on bare-bones government benefit programs -- even if it means barely staying above poverty level.