Bloody hell, that sounds nasty.
My incident isnt anywhere as bad as that. No one was hurt , its just
cosmetic damage to a bumper that amounts to a scratch. They wanted silly
money for it and I told them politely to go forth and multiply.
I'd just had my car shakened and it was supposed to be road safe, my
handbrake failed which resulted in my car rolling into another and hitting
another car about 4 metres away.

They seem to think that my repeated requests to stop calling my wife and
deal with me is some kind of joke.
And all this for a dented bumper.

"David Cunningham" <cngnhmwa@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:4091B9D9.4060903@spamcop.net...
> ho ho. this is all very interesting.
>
> my wife was hit by a japanese driver while we were visiting near nara
> last xmas. she was crossing at a lit intersection by a woman driving
> over the speed limit, according to the local cops.
>
> she had to wait in the ambulance until my son and i arrived at the
> accident scene [she was walking alone at about 1030 pm, heading for the
> sunkus for a green tea ice cream] and convinced them that it was
> irrelevant that she spoke no japanese. we're both middle-aged white
> folks, but my son has enough japanese to get across just fine. he was
> managing a bar in tawaramotocho at the time. the hospital was a real
> trip, to say the least. the nurses were great and i could stay with her
> for a week  and a half  until i had to go back stateside to get to work
>
> she spent 3 weeks in a japanese hospital with a majorly munged left
> ankle and broken ribs, the ankle unset, until she was well enough to fly
> back stateside. the japanese doctors didn't want to operate to set the
> ankle because they "didn't want to be responsible for the fact that she
> would not be able to walk again."
>
> less than 4 hours after touching down, she was on the operating table.
> she had the last hardware taken out last week. she walks pretty well,
> and expects to improve even more.
>
> the flight back cost me $10,000. two last minute tix for her and my son,
> only first class was available on the less than 24 hours notice to
> travel and she couldn't fit into coach with the splint on her leg and
> couldn't spend the trip upright because of the ribs. she was delivered
> to the plane at KIX by ambulance. our health insurance covered
> everything here.
>
> i can't even get my plane fare back from tokyo marine fire and casualty,
> the insurers of the driver. she supposedly had 'unlimited' insurance.
>
> i'm planning to be in japan again for an extended [2 year] stay in a
> bout 18 months. i keep contacting the lawyer in japan, but nothing. i'll
> be looking to get my own attorney there in the mean time, and get
> something moving. she had to spend 3 months in a wheel chair, months of
> physical therapy, got aced out of her trek to nepal by the hit, loads of
> pain, yada yada. hell. she wasn't killed.
>
> the japanese cops say they didn't cite the driver because "she wasn't
> speeding much" and maybe my wife was trying to commit suicide because
> she "ran in front of the car." fact is, she was 60 years old at the time
> and hasn't "run" anywhere in some time. she walked well enough before,
> but certainly not very quickly. moreover, she'd just spent the year
> prior beating breast cancer with surgeries, chemo and radiation. it
> didn't help her that the car hit her on the same side as all the
> radiation. the ribs were probably not as strong as they would have been
> without.
>
> japanese insurance companies aren't very quick to settle up, in my
> limitted experience.
>
> regards to all. i've  been lurking on this group for several years; this
> is my first post.
>
> dave cunningham
>