From: NONSPORT@aol.com (Mollie)
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998

We were living in a Condo at the bottom of a hill.  In the middle of the road (between 2 sets of buildings) was sort of a 'green' where visitor's could park since the condo owners had all the available parking spaces in front of their units.

It was a Sunday morning and we were just eating a leisurely brunch when we heard a LOUD crash. We ran to the balcony (our Condo was on the 2nd floor) and looked down to see a total disaster.

It seemed someone who was visiting parked his car on the 'green' leaving his St. Bernard inside. The dog, out of boredom chewed the gear shift and put the car in gear which caused it to come barreling down the road...SMASHING into my 2 month old sportscar!!!

WAIT...that's only the beginning.

Upon further investigation we noticed the car hit my car with such force it pushed it <sidewise> into my neighbor's car (cars were slot parked not parallel.) In doing so, my car completely wiped out the driver's side of my car as well as the passenger side of my neighbor's car.

Imagine the time my neighbor had explaining this to the insurance company:

Speed of your vehicle: "0"
Speed of oncoming vehicle: "0"
Direction your vehicle was traveling: "None"
Direction oncoming vehicle was traveling: "None"
Driver of your vehicle: "None"
Driver of oncoming vehicle: "None"
Was there another vehicle involved: "Yes"
Driver of other vehicle: "Dog"

Both my neighbor and I had a terrible time with our insurance companies because they couldn't make up their minds whether it was a traffic accident (since my car was hit by a moving vehicle) or not. Also causing problems was the fact a dog was in the car originating the crash and they couldn't decide if it should be considered an accident caused by an unlicensed driver.

Approximately 2 months after this accident, hubby, myself and my 4 year old son (on my lap) were traveling home from a visit at grandma's. We traveled along a road in NY which had a very high wall on the passenger side and atop the wall was another street with houses.

All of a sudden, a basketball came off the wall (someone must have lost control of it), hit the car antenna which crashed (and demolished) the windshield. We were very fortunate because if the ball didn't hit the antenna it probably would have come right through the windshield and hit me and my son.

Imagine my hesitancy though, when I had to call the same aforementioned insurance company to tell them that "this time" I was hit by a basketball.