Sensational headlines get all the attention.
The fact is that this story all happened in 2006, before there was a Kim Kardashian on the national radar and before I had been successfully un- and under-employed for almost four years. The reason that I'm telling this story now is because I've just found out that I'm being denied a new insurance quote because I have an accident on my record. I'm livid about this, of course, and largely because this is a classic case of the "haves" beating the "have nots" just by having. This is the story of a "have not" - check it out.
It's also a meandering piece of personal essay, coming from an emotional, rather than a rational place. That said, every word of this skreed is true and fact.
Back in June 2006 while I was working at Signature Pictures, I had a little motorcycle - a ninja 250, actually, and I liked it. I bought it at the end of May and had it about six weeks. Then, one day while I was riding down Constellation Blvd. just west of Century Park East, I was hit by a Range Rover. That Range Rover was being driven by Kim Kardashian.
She and I both made a left turn onto Constellation and were travelling in the left lane. She, driving very slowly, pulled into the right lane, and I started to go around her. What was actually happening was that she was making a U-Turn, but her huge SUV was too big to make the U-Turn she was planning, so she had to swing into the right lane to make it happen. So, as I was starting to go around her, I see the big front tire cut out towards me and the whole car turns my way. No one was coming in the other lane, so I hit the brakes and swerve into the oncoming lanes to avoid the car, but that's not going to work because I'm right where she's going. Her huge front left tire catches the right side of my bike as I try to scoot in front of her and I wobble hard left and then eventually come down hard on the right side of the bike, my shoulder and my head. Wear your helmets, kids.
Now, the SUV wasn't all the way out of the left lane when I started to go by her. That's lane splitting. In California, it's legal, but it's not always smart, and this is just a great example of why. She did not signal her left turn - which is illegal in California - a move that would have warned me that something strange was about to happen. Also, there is a double yellow line dividing the road across which she made a U-Turn, which is illegal just about everywhere that has lines painted on the road.
Anyway, my insurance company talked to her insurance company and came back to me and said, basically, "fuck you, we're not going to persue your claim." When I pressed them for a reason, they cited lane splitting. I mentioned the state, the laws, etc. (lane splitting is legal in CA), and the answer was "lane splitting is illegal if it causes an accident." Of course, the ILLEGAL U-TURN IN THE MIDDLE OF A 4-LANE ROAD WITHOUT A SIGNAL is always illegal, but they didn't mention that. When I brought that to their attention, there was just some sputtering and then "fuck off, our decision has been made."
At the time, I knew that the girl who hit me was rich - she was going to meet someone in Century City while driving a Range Rover. I didn't know that her family was rich and famous, but you can bet that her insurance company told my insurance company that. Neither insurance company told me, of course, because what if I'd decided to sue? Horror. I'd definitely have won, but the resources to sue a rich chick from a lawyering family have never been mine, that's for sure.
