Driving up the crowded West Side Highway last Friday on a clear and dry afternoon, my car was slightly side-swiped on the driver side above the rear wheel by a commercial van. I signaled the driver (a portly middle-aged man with an unkempt grey beard) to stop but he ignored me. After a mile or so we had to stop at a traffic light. I got out of my car and approached his window. He kept the window rolled up and stared straight ahead. I was able to get the name and contact info for the company that owned the van. I called the company, AHL Tone Communications, which apparently has locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and told the woman who answered the phone that I had just been side-swiped by one of their vans and the driver had left the scene of the accident. She was remarkably casual and unapologetic about the incident. She asked for my cell number and said she’d have the driver call me. Thirty minutes later, still no call. I called her back and she was uninterested in speaking with me further, to say the least. In fact, she hung up on me.
I considered calling the police but decided it was not worth the hour I would have spent waiting for them to show up. So I cut my losses, reported the incident to my insurance company (not as a claim, just for informational purposes), went home and ate Green and Black’s hazelnut and currant dark chocolate.