This case of mistaken identity will cost the well-meaning driver at least $5k
You’re driving home late at night. You stop at an intersection in a dangerous part of town. As you watch, a man leans halfway inside a car ahead of you. Would you assume it’s a carjacking?
One Brazilian driver did. He made a split-second decision to intervene. And it cost him thousands. “I thought that was a robbery and hit the guy with the car,” he wrote on Reddit. “It turned out the guy was the husband of the pregnant woman driving the car.”
When a carjacking isn’t a carjacking
The driver struck the motorcyclist at low speed. “I hit the guy in about 10km/hour,” he explained. Luckily, he only knocked the biker down, but didn’t hurt him at all. But he did get him pretty pissed off.
“He even tried to hit me and everything. I’m only worried about my financial situation because the guy was ok.” His fears proved justified. The man was angry but uninjured. His wife was alright, too. “She was fine thank god,” the driver added. “The guy told me later that they went to the hospital to do a checkup and everything is fine with her and the baby.”
But the situation escalated fast. “Police came and everything, and obviously I was at fault,” he admitted. “The officer said that assault circumstantial. It occurred like 11:50 PM on a desert intersection in one of the most violent parts of Brazil. Still, that’s no excuse.”
The cost of a mistake
The driver contacted his insurance company. He told the truth. “I was honest with the insurance worker,” he wrote. “I learned that’s no good to lie in those insurance things.” But honesty didn’t get him out of the bill. “After 20 days, the insurance declined the claim because I purposely hit the guy.”
Today, he’s deep in debt. “Now I’m stuck with a 5k USD debt for the repairs on the guy’s car, motorcycle and my dad’s car,” he explained. “With a job that pays me about a thousand dollars a month, while paying for my apartment and my college loan.” His father blew up. “I was scolded by a lot of people, including the officer who answered the call.”
Looking back, he regrets everything. “That’s okay, I know I’m totally in the wrong,” he admitted. “Thank God I didn’t kill the guy. Lesson learned and now I must deal with the consequences.” One bad call. One second. Years of debt. All because this Brazilian driver wanted to help out.
You can see his reddit post embedded below:
TIFU by hitting a car thinking that was a robbery
byu/fish_chips_n_ranch intifu
