03-16-2020, 05:30 AM
GoldOxide, I don't know whether it's a sign, but it certainly has become a stark reality. I never imagined it would prove this difficult to sell a relatively rare, exceedingly beautiful, functionally perfect, cosmetically pristine, bone stock Honda streetbike. It may turn out that my only options are to sell her to a dealer and get my head ripped clean off, which I am viscerally opposed to doing, or keep her and eventually begin riding again, neck and foot willing.
The way things are looking financially, I just don't see that latter option as being a reasonable, responsible choice. State disability income, which I'm surviving on at the moment, is short-term. It doesn't last forever. Once it runs out later this year, and if it turns out that I am unable to return to work by then, I will have zero income. The process of applying for and being granted permanent disability usually takes two years. Almost no one is ever granted permanent disability on the first attempt. It nearly always requires a minimum of two tries, and the hiring of a disability lawyer. With all this staring me in the face, continuing to pay the $180 extra each month for motorcycle insurance and garage fees in order to keep a pretty motorcycle that I can't even ride is a luxury I simply won't be able to afford.
It's just basic math.
My attorney has filed a lawsuit against the guy who hit me. No one disputes that he is 100% at fault. He was eighty-five years old at the time of the collision, and his assets are limited to a paid-off $700,000 ranch up in Loomis, along with nearly $700,000 in cash in his bank account. He has full 100/300 auto coverage.
Here is where it gets tricky. His auto insurance is offering to pay the full extent of his policy, $100,000, and that's it. My attorney receives one third of any settlement. We know that if it goes to court then the old guy will lose, probably to the tune of an extra two hundred thousand dollars. His attorney's strategy is to wait me out in the hopes that I will cave in and accept only the insurance limits as a total settlement, knowing full well that I will run out of income long before a court case is settled, which will take a minimum of two years.
Again, just basic math, which, at the moment, is decidedly not my friend.
It's now a poker game.
The way things are looking financially, I just don't see that latter option as being a reasonable, responsible choice. State disability income, which I'm surviving on at the moment, is short-term. It doesn't last forever. Once it runs out later this year, and if it turns out that I am unable to return to work by then, I will have zero income. The process of applying for and being granted permanent disability usually takes two years. Almost no one is ever granted permanent disability on the first attempt. It nearly always requires a minimum of two tries, and the hiring of a disability lawyer. With all this staring me in the face, continuing to pay the $180 extra each month for motorcycle insurance and garage fees in order to keep a pretty motorcycle that I can't even ride is a luxury I simply won't be able to afford.
It's just basic math.
My attorney has filed a lawsuit against the guy who hit me. No one disputes that he is 100% at fault. He was eighty-five years old at the time of the collision, and his assets are limited to a paid-off $700,000 ranch up in Loomis, along with nearly $700,000 in cash in his bank account. He has full 100/300 auto coverage.
Here is where it gets tricky. His auto insurance is offering to pay the full extent of his policy, $100,000, and that's it. My attorney receives one third of any settlement. We know that if it goes to court then the old guy will lose, probably to the tune of an extra two hundred thousand dollars. His attorney's strategy is to wait me out in the hopes that I will cave in and accept only the insurance limits as a total settlement, knowing full well that I will run out of income long before a court case is settled, which will take a minimum of two years.
Again, just basic math, which, at the moment, is decidedly not my friend.
It's now a poker game.