The Saga of THE WRECK

About a week before we went to Baton Rouge, Matt was in a really bad wreck.  He was turning left into the business that they buy water on the way to the dump.  Matt did everything right.  He slowed down.  He had his signal on.  He made sure no one was coming from the other direction.  The van behind him was going about 80 miles an hour, and when Matt was turning, the driver of the van was driving in the left lane of the road thinking he could get around Matt before Matt made the turn.  As Matt was turning into the water place, the van rammed into the tailgate of the pick up.

The impact caused the truck Matt was in to spin out.  Also, it knocked the spare tire off the bottom of the car and sent it about a half KM down the road.  The axle on the back driver's side bent badly that a tire could not be replaced on it.  Several other parts of the car were badly damaged.  Since they were on the way to the dump, they were carrying my dad's dump pots, one full of rice, the other beans.  Karol and Kelin stated that it was raining beans and rice.  The pots were also badly damaged.

The van that hit Matt flipped.  It was completely totaled.  The 2 or 3 passengers in the van broke bones and one had a concussion.  The driver was fine.  In Matt's car, Karol and Kelin were rattled and had minor swelling in the head and back, but after some tests we knew it was just minor injuries.

Since the wreck happened over a month ago, Matt has spent a lot of time dealing with this problem.  Fortunately, the business where the wreck happened had security cameras that got the wreck on tape.  We thought that would help, so we went and made a copy of the video for evidence. Police do not decide fault at the site of the wreck, nor do the collect evidence in wrecks.  A judge decides fault, and one must provide his own evidence.

The day after the wreck, our lawyer was busy at trying to defend Matt before the court hearing the following day.  At the same time the people of Cafe Indio (the business of those driving the van) were paying people everywhere to say that it was Matt's fault.  Oscar, the lawyer, was doubtful that anything good could happen for Matt until he saw the video, then he thought Matt's chances were much better.

Friday, Matt had his hearing in court.  At first, the judge didn't even want to hear Matt's side of the story.  She just looked at him, saw his white skin, and insisted that it must be his fault.  Finally, Oscar convinced her to see the video.  After she saw the video, Matt and my dad both thought she declared Matt 25% of the fault and the other driver 75% of the fault, but she recorded it that Matt had 75% and the other only 25%.

Oscar did something with the problem of the wreck while we were in the States.  And when my mom picked us up in the airport, she told Matt that he needed to be in transito (the department of the police where they deal with wrecks) the next morning.  After this meeting, he thought that he was going to have to miss going to Copan because there was another part of the process the day after they were going to leave.  Oscar told him to go on to Copan; Matt wasn't needed there.  Then Saturday, Matt found out that he was going to have to come home a day early from Copan with a truck that is a similar model to the one he wrecked.  Fortunately, my dad had rented a Mazda truck while his is being repaired that they could use in the reenactment of the wreck.

On Tuesday, Matt spent the morning reenacting the wreck with Oscar, and found out that he would once again need to be in court this morning.  The investigator, who did the reenactment, did not bother to show up to court today.  The judge refused to see the video, and Matt was given 100% of the fault.  My dad asked the judge to explain how it was Matt's fault, to show exactly what he did wrong and pointed out that the other driving was breaking a minimum of THREE driving laws.  She had no answer and just responded it was her decision not his.  (She evidently had been paid off as well.)

This wreck has been very frustrating to everyone.  Matt and my dad refused to sign the papers acknowledging fault, so the eternal process is not over.  It is maddening that people can be so easily bought off, and for so little money.  It is irritating that in court a white person is almost always given the fault because people believe that all white people have an insane amounts of money.  It is annoying that the person who has the fault can so bold-faced lie about everything, and no one holds him accountable.  It is frustrating that the cops who came to the wreck did not have to testify about the wreck which leaves it as Matt's word, a gringo who speaks Spanish as a second language and struggles with it when he is under pressure, and a native Honduran.  SO FRUSTRATING!!