SONDERMANN | Truth stranger than fiction | Columnists







Eric Sondermann

Eric Sondermann


From time to time, true events can be stranger that just about anything the head can reasonably conjure. And from time to time, individuals real happenings can get rid of gentle on considerably larger difficulties and developments.

So be sure to indulge me a personalized story. I assure it will shock you and be well worth your read. In this situation, my micro practical experience factors the way to the macro troubles confronting all of us.

It all begins innocently plenty of on an early February night. My wife and I had been driving dwelling following a delightful supper we experienced introduced and shared with an elderly pal. That mate was a former initial girl of Colorado. Which is solely beside the place.

On this icy evening, we were stopped at an east Denver intersection, ready for the gentle to convert. However I under no circumstances observed the vehicle coming from powering and only heard the crash, the other vehicle had been moving a great deal far too quickly for the conditions. With bald tires, to boot.

The significant information is that neither Tracy nor I ended up wounded. Neither was the younger driver of the other vehicle who was at fault.

Of program, we exchanged driver’s license and insurance data. All regular treatment. I was gingerly equipped to generate our auto dwelling, the other car was additional terribly weakened and necessary a tow.

Now matters acquired appealing and deviated from the usual. A few of times later on, in talking with the other driver’s insurance coverage company, I realized that her protection experienced lapsed for non-payment of rates. She experienced been driving uninsured.

Our insurance firm stepped up and furnished protection via our uninsured motorists clause.

I took my automobile, a 2019 Hybrid RAV4, to a physique store around Stanley Market in Aurora. The injury estimate was in the ballpark of $4,000, not all that much. My expectation was that it would be there a week and all would be fixed.

Au contraire. It looks there is this tiny concern referred to as the provide chain. The estimate for acquiring two new panels for my car or truck was two to three months. That estimate later on changed to somewhere involving mid-summer and under no circumstances.

In the meantime, I went in look for of a rental car, to be coated by my insurance policies firm. But there is a further little problem in that there are practically no automobiles obtainable. I was supplied a 16-passenger van which I politely declined. A few months later, I eventually secured a Jeep Wrangler that I have been driving considering the fact that, even if I don’t just fit that demographic.

Hang on. We are just warming up. Now a complicated tale gets simple bizarre.

Offered the countless delay in getting parts, the owner of the auto body shop gained insurance enterprise approval to install employed components. The mend was almost full and I was obtaining prepared to select up my motor vehicle two months ago.

When a pair of times ahead of performing so, my car or truck was stolen out of the store in the wee early morning hours. It was very the procedure and anything at all but an newbie career.

Protection footage exhibits a few guys inside of the shop, calmly, routinely likely about their enterprise. All ended up closely armed, 1 sporting an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

Meanwhile, other folks in the crew patrolled the perimeter of the developing and ended up there to drive off the stolen booty. In the conclude, they absconded with 4 automobiles, which include mine, together with substantially of the shop’s equipment and keys to dozens of other motor vehicles.

That identical night, an additional shop a mile or two absent in Northfield was in the same way strike. In the week since, there have been virtually equivalent experiences out of Arvada and other locales.

Even if I experienced developed prepared to go on from this RAV4, it was located within a few of times. Turns out that mine was the only 1 of this batch of stolen of autos with GPS monitoring capacity. The reduced-existence robbers, clearly pros, recognized that, also, and deserted it. Fortunate me.

The Aurora law enforcement staked it out for just about 24 hrs just before using it into custody for the full CSI remedy. Now, two months later on, I am receiving completely ready to retrieve it. To include insult to injury, I will be charged just about $200 as a towing fee.

That is the saga. Let me propose that it has indicating further than just the huge headache and the latest sense of private violation.

Let us rely all that it reveals.

Initially, there is the really true difficulty of much way too a lot of men and women driving without having insurance plan. Shame on them.

Following, the provide chain mess is all too real. In my case, a rather easy, basic, fairly lower-cost repair became an prolonged experience above various months.

No matter if it is a function of significant-tech chips or broader challenges, people supply chain hiccups also end result in pretty much no inventory of vehicles to hire or to obtain. Very good luck to any individual in require of both a rental motor vehicle or new wheels.

Then, with utter predictability, that restricted source has led to very sizeable inflation. The rental car or truck you applied to be able to get for maybe $40 per day is now numerous periods that. The car sector is upside down. Used vehicles of alternatively current vintage now price tag practically as much as new autos.

For the duration of the months whilst my RAV4 sat at the entire body store and a police impound great deal, it really acquired a couple of thousand bucks of value, per Kelley Blue Guide.

Ultimately, we arrive to the challenge of escalating criminal offense and that feeling shared by considerably also several of worrisome insecurity and a thing badly amiss. Colorado now potential customers the nation in car theft, a dubious honor, for sure.

Mohamed Mouaddine, the Moroccan immigrant and excellent human who operates Amina Vehicle Maintenance, studies that his place of work supervisor no for a longer time feels protected exhibiting up in the early morning and that at the very least a person of his employees is now carrying a gun for self-defense. In current times, Mouaddine has built the sad choice to shut his Aurora store at the finish of May possibly thanks to repeated criminal incidents across the region.

Daily life grows additional coarse organizations near all of us go through the drop of neighborhood welfare and straightforward decency. A prominent Denver television reporter remarked to me in a private text, “Feels like the slender blue line has dissolved in so lots of strategies.”

Welcome to Colorado and the U.S. of A., circa 2022.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for ColoradoPolitics and the Gazette newspapers. Access him at EWS@EricSondermann.com observe him at @EricSondermann.

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