Big change

Finding that it's been a year and a half since I wrote anything in this blog, I was quite surprised - but also realized that I need to address this issue.

On the morning of Monday, December 15, 2014 (a day I am regarding as Black Monday), I drove an errand for my employer, picking up tires from our store in Canton, and afterwards was waiting to turn right (west) onto Ford Rd., to go back to Ann Arbor. Looking to my left, I was watching for traffic on this busy thoroughfare to clear, when WHUMP—a bicyclist struck my vehicle. Fortunately, witnesses called 911, the the cyclist, who flew off his bike and landed on the ground, was very soon being treated, and the police officer, who arrived quickly also, came over to see me.

I first showed him my card explaining why I couldn't talk, and he was fine with that, asking me to wait in my vehicle. He wrote up his report, taking 10-15 minutes, and then finally I ambled back over to his vehicle to inquire about the cyclist. "Is he OK?" I asked, and the officer responded quickly, "He's fine." In the end, however, I was ticketed for failure to stop on leaving an alley or private drive. This seemed to me quite ironic, since I WAS stopped, and the cyclist hit me.

At any rate, I returned to my store, and typed out an explanation of what had happened. But a few hours later, when I was ready to leave for the day, my manager asked to speak with me. Although he asked, "What does Allen want to do?" it was fairly clear to me that my wishes had little significance; he had already drawn up the paperwork for my "Exit Interview," and requested my signature. So I was fired from a job I had held since March 2001.

Wanting to deal with it quickly, I paid the ticket online that afternoon. But then in thinking it over later that day, I remembered that when I walked over to the cyclist, the very first thing he said to me was to scream, "WHERE'S MY PHONE?" I walked a few feet away, picked up the phone and its detached cover from the ground, and returned it to him. And it seemed to me that the combination of his words, the condition and location of the phone, and the fact that I was sitting still when he hit me, was very good evidence that he had been texting while riding and not seen me before he ran into me.

I went to the court the next day, laptop in hand to explain the circumstances, and filed paperwork to rescind my payment, and was told that I will be contacted by mail to tell me how I can go about contesting the ticket. So those are my plans.

Meantime, those close to me have weighed in with the opinion that, given my driving history, a job requiring me to do a lot of driving was probably not the best match for me, so I am moving on, looking for something else.