+2....About a year ago, a friend and customer got run down from behind by a pickup truck. I mean, he was at a stop light on his bike, truck behind him, light turns green, and the truck just mows him down as they proceed forward. A crowd gathered, the driver fled the scene on foot, and was caught later. He was drunk, and had what appeared to be a full bar in the front seat of his truck. This was early in the afternoon on a Sunday, FWIW. Luckily, the rider escaped somehow with only minor injuries, but the bike was completely run over and ruined, literally pinned underneath the truck's axle when it was all over. It was a nice bike, the guy had bought it from us, and he had outfitted it in his own way like we all do, and so he had a fair amount of money in it.

So some time afterwards, I get a call from the rider's insurance company (the pickup truck driver had no insurance), his own insurance is going to pay for his damages. It had already been established that the bike was a total loss, there was no question about that. And we had already prepared an itemized list for the customer showing the price of a new, equivalent bike, and all the add-ons that he had on the old one that were now completely destroyed. It was all pretty simple, I thought, and so did our customer. We were all very honest about everything, not trying to "upgrade" anything, just wanting to get him on a bike that was like the one he had before.

Well, when the insurance company called, you would have thought she was part of the fraud division or something. The lady questioned me, very skeptically, about each and every item on the list, and the price. I mean, the whole list added up to something like $1500; I wouldn't have thought it would have even been worth the insurance company's time to scrutinize it. But she did.

We would get to something on the list like the Brooks saddle, she'd give me the price on the list, which I'm sure was about $100, and she'd say something like, "now, was this the same type of seat the old bike had on it?" I got so impatient with her I kind of lost it. I said something like, "listen, this fellow was run down from behind by a truck; there's nothing left of his old bike and thankfully he's going to be okay. He's worked with us to make this itemized list, which is exactly what his bike was before. There's no dishonesty here. This isn't even a particularly expensive bike. Your company has agreed it's going to cover his losses. I don't have time to go through this list with you, I'll give him a call and let him know what's going on with his insurance company and let him take it from here."

Keep in mind, if she would have called and simply gone down the list to verify prices, I wouldn't have minded a bit. Even one blanket question of "just to verify, this new bike on the list is exactly the same as the old bike, correct?" would have been fine. But she was questioning, in a very rude way, every single item and pretty much implying that he was trying to gouge them for an upgraded bike, and that, in effect, we were, too. I'm thinking, wow, he was run down by a motor vehicle from behind, could have easily ended up with catastrophic medical bills, and they're questioning me about the price of a Brooks saddle?

So I called the customer and told him about the phone conversation. This fellow is not a person I would want to debate with about anything, I'll tell you. He calmly said he would put a call in to the insurance company and discuss legal options with them. The shame of it, of course, is that the lowlife drunk driver who hit him didn't even have insurance......this was his own insurance company he was having to deal with. I suppose it was it was his homeowner's policy that was covering it, I don't know. Or maybe the "uninsured motorist" portion of his auto insurance. Anyway, in the end, we put the bike together exactly as he instructed, he came in and paid for it with his own funds.....and I asked him later, out of curiosity, if the insurance company paid him for the bike. "Oh yeah," was all he said, and I was glad to hear it.

Bottom line: look out for your own interests in this. A person broke the law and damaged both you and your bike. Give'em hell........unfortunately, you may have to.