Real life | 23 April 2015

As a wise person once said (or if they didn’t, they should have), there is only one thing worse than being wrong and that is being right. I always get peevish when I win.

After being told I had triumphed in my three-year phantom car crash battle, I started to feel survivor guilt. It was all very well for me, embroiling myself in a gargantuan struggle for justice following a low-velocity car prang. I factor time into my schedule to wage war on the world.

I complain about life for a living, so far as anyone can.

But what about all those other poor motorists who are well adjusted people and don’t have the psychological flaws and deep-seated emotional problems to make them fight, and fight, and fight, until the vein stands out on the side of their head? What about normal people who don’t get off on arguing like I do? What about them? Eh? EH?

To recap: a few weeks ago, the charming couple who were trying to extract money from my insurance company by alleging I had ‘reactivated pre-existing injuries’ in an encounter between my bumper and theirs on Streatham High Road, which didn’t even leave a mark, had to drop their claim because the statute of limitations expired.

I refused to settle, and said I would see them in court, and possibly hell, if need be. Then I waited three years and four months for them to submit their evidence and come to court, which they never did. But all that time, it had to be assumed I had injured them until I proved I hadn’t, or until such time as their claim ran out. So I had to pay crippling amounts of car insurance.

After the statute ran out a few weeks ago, and my file was wiped clean, the vein on my head barely stopped pulsating for a second when I began fighting for a refund.