I made it into Detroit tonight around midnight local time. There was almost no traffic in the city at all. Perfect.
It turned out the directions I was given were not good at all. I drove around for about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to get to the loading/unloading area of this civic center. I was going down one street that became very obvious was not the one I wanted, and I decided that I need to back track. I saw a good place to make a u-turn, hit my signal, double checked what was behind me because there was a ramp right there where traffic could be coming down onto the street. Everything was clear so I started to make my left turn.
Suddenly a white pick up truck came flying around me on my, you guessed it, left side. He was really moving, but not fast enough to avoid hitting my left front corner as I was already half way into the turn. It almost tore my bumper off, damaged the fender, tore off the chrome work around the headlights on that side, and pretty much scared the shit out of me. Just what I need at half past midnight.
Luckily nobody was injured. It was obvious to the guy that he had seriously screwed up. I called 911 and waited over 30 minutes for a cop car to finally show up. I walked the cop around showing him where the impact happened, which was easy as my chrome was still laying there, and then showed him the damage to my truck.
Once he saw how the bumper was pulled out instead of pushed in it was obvious to him what had happened. If I had hit the pick up my bumper would have been pushed in, not pulled out.
The cops did their report and ticketed the dummy who hit me.
Now I have to go through the hassle of having my bumper replaced and fender repaired all over again.
When I called "R" to report the accident while waiting for the cops he laughed and said "You have a dark cloud following you around."
No shit.
It's now 2:00am. I need to get some sleep if I can now. I have to be up in less than 6 hours to deliver this load. What a way to end your day.
But at least the cop gave me proper directions to this place.