Sometimes there's a price to be paid when venturing out.
First off, Steve and I are both okay. As Steve says, "the truck did what it was supposed to do" and protected us, especially him. It could have been so much worse. The window tint Steve had done on the truck even held the shattered passenger window in place.
I was driving, Steve was in the passenger seat. We were proceeding along a large, four-lane parkway when a mid-sized U-Haul truck (which had a stop sign and should have waited for us to pass) abruptly pulled out of a small side street and smashed into our truck. I swerved to avoid, but the U-Haul broadsided us anyway.
The U-Haul quickly left the scene, pushing our stopped truck out of the way to do so. So quickly in fact, that we couldn't get a good look at the driver or more identifying information on the vehicle (other than, obviously, to see that it was of the U-Haul persuasion) before he/she fled.
I am profoundly shaken up. Not because of the accident, accidents happen. Not because of the callous disregard of the U-Haul driver, people can be thoughtless, this is not news. After Steve and I confirmed to each other that we were uninjured, I got out of the truck feeling okay about the whole thing, but then I saw the damage... to the side of the truck where Steve was sitting just moments before. And I had an overwhelming feeling of failure that I did not somehow prevent what could have done so much more harm to the most important thing in the world to me. But that's life, I suppose. We are all so frail.
We'll find out from the insurance adjuster on Monday if our little truck can be repaired or if it's final act was to valiantly defend Steve from a much larger vehicle. If we can repair it, we will. We owe it that much. Otherwise, well... I guess we'll see.
