Last month while I was staying late at work, my roommate texted me a photo of Lloyd. My car’s name is Lloyd, Lloyd Car.  (Go Blue!) Lloyd’s front bumper was badly dented and one side was on the ground. Someone smushed it with his Dodge Charger and drove off. A few neighbours saw the accident, reportedly yelled at him, recorded a video of him driving off, and wrote down the license plate number for me.

After lots of investigating and filtering through the hype, I found out that it was my next door neighbour’s granddaughter’s friend. Nana got my number and promised she would have him call me. She assured me that he was a good 19 year-old kid with good auto insurance. She heard that he had tried to leave a note on my front door, but perhaps the wind blew it away.

I waited 3 days for Hector to call me. Nana told me that he was busy as a drummer in his band, and that he also worked on the weekends. I decided to write him a letter to gently let him know that I had his plate number from three adult witnesses, that I forgave him for hitting my car, and that I would prefer to get his insurance information rather than file a police report and classify the incident as a hit and run.

Shortly after receiving my letter, Hector called me to apologize. He reports asking around if anyone knew whose car it was, and that he tried to leave a note on the windshield, but perhaps the wind blew it away. He didn’t stay too long because all of my neighbours were “staring at me as if I had six heads”. He informed me that his dad would call me to “take care of it”.

Within minutes Dad called me to apologize profusely. We agreed that I would get him a couple of estimates on repairs. He planned to pay cash.

The whole community doubted that he would pay because traffic justice has such a poor record around here. Especially when the damage costs $1900.

Long story short, he paid!

A father paid for his son’s recklessness. A teenager [hopefully] learned to be more responsible. A mechanic in the community was given a job. My neighbourhood watch system was successful. It “only” took 22 days, but Lloyd was restored!