Montego Bay, Jamaica: In Jamaica (a car accident)

09FEB08 Jamaica

O.K. So this blog is about the journey, never the destination, but here is an entry with an exception to that.

On Saturday, we journeyed about two hours over the mountains to St. Elizabeth to see my aunt and grand aunt. We had a good visit experiencing the culture as we did so. Basically eating our way across the island.

It started to pour rain while at my family's place so it delayed our departure. Actually it even altered our departure as the roads from whence we came would have been bad for us to drive.

The going was slow as it continued to rain throughout the mountains. As we neared an area called New Roads, I touched the brakes to slow as I negotiated a left hand corner and the car skidded to the right into oncoming traffic, i.e. a van on the side of the road. Thankfully, all was well and no one was injured. You can see a picture of the damage below. The other gut took a bunch of pictures with his camera and although we had a camera we did not take any pictures or video for some odd reason.

It took a few hours to get it all straightened out (for want of a better expression). Which also involved a visit to the Darliston Police station (the station in charge of that area) to give an account of the accident. It was a very pleasant experience and the Officer was very courteous. Adding that when it rains, there is always an accident at that location. He also said that there is supposed to be a "Slippery When Wet" sign there, but that had not been put up as yet.

Luckily the car was still driveable, despite the fact that everyone stared at us all the way back to the airport. Hey, I would have stared too.

At the airport, though, the car rental company was not nice as they said thy had no more cars to rent (not true as we caught them in a lie) so we were out of luck. They even initially refused to get us transportation to/from our hotel until we finally convinced them that they were still obligated to us under contract and negotiated a ride to the airport that night and back the next day (today).

A note to the car rental company will address this lack of compassion and customer service.