Despite the very high price of gas, Bucharest has some of the worst traffic in the world. There are many reasons for this. The bad infrastructure, not great public transport, and the fact that cars are still seen as a major status symbol and one does not just mix with the hoi polloi in the subway and buses. Making it worse, a good number of drivers are bad at it, assholes or both.

The traffic makes people angry and reckless, so there are a high number of accidents compared to other EU countries, both minor and major. Traffic rage is frequent and everyone, I mean goddamn everyone, seem to honk their damn horns all the damn time. Maybe I am getting old, but it is rather annoying. Both air quality and noise levels are quite bad.

I usually only drive on Sunday when I visit my mother. Occasionally other days. I consider myself overall an above average driver, but I get angry easily in traffic so I rather avoid it. Also, I like walking and do a lot of it, and am in the area of the city with arguably the best public transport connections. As such I feel I have a low chance of getting into an accident. Sometimes it happens.

In this particular case, there I was, waiting for the light, minding my own business. The light turned green and I started forward when wham! Bam! (I do not know the correct onomatopoeia) Something hits me in the side of the car, quite unexpectedly. Apparently, the car on the lane to my left decided to suddenly switch lanes into the one I was occupying. The driver claimed I was in a blind spot, though I am not sure I believe in blind spots if your mirrors are set right and you turn your head just enough to cover the area not seen in the mirror (no mirror jokes you bastards).

The results were minor. My left forward door was slightly bent and the paint scratched. The guy told me it would buff off, but that was clearly bull. So we did what is called “Constatare amiabilă” which is an agreement for minor accidents between the parties, when there are no casualties and the people involved do not contest who is at fault. If there are any casualties or any disagreement, one must go to the police and report the accident. In this case it was clear the other driver was at fault. The form was filled – took about 10 minutes – and it contained the license plates of the cars, names of the drivers, insurance information and the details of the accident. The insurance provider needed to asses the damage, which can be done by going to an assessment center or doing a video assessment online. I chose to go to the insurance place, as it was close to my house. I went there, filled some forms, and the guy looked at the car and took some pictures and wrote the results. With this, I went to a body shop which did their own assessment and requested additional cost to what the insurance guy estimated, and the insurer agreed and that was that. The whole process took me two hours.

The system works as follow: you can either go to a body shop that has a partnership deal with the insurer, all the payment is done between the shop and the insurance company. Otherwise, you get a sum of money from the insurance company and go with it wherever you want. I chose the first option, as there is less hassle. In the second option, the insurer usually low ball you, and if it is not a “agreed repair shop” they do not accept estimates from that shop. They will, and for Romania rightly so, claim that you will make a deal with the shop to overcharge the insurance. Some insurers have partnerships with bad shops or ones outside the city. This insurer was a good one and the shop was quite close to my house as well.

After a couple of weeks wait, I took my car to the shop, it took me about an hour until I returned home. The car was in the shop for 10 days – excessive time imo – and then I got it back, another hour. I did not pay a cent in the process, so what it cost me was almost 5 hours of my time and some stress. This was pretty good all things considered, it was much worse 10 years ago. I could have gotten a car to use during the time mine was in the shop, but that would have cost the insurance extra and I did not really need it; I ubered to my mom’s that Sunday. Some would take the spare car anyway, because there was no cost for me, but I find this a bad thing because overcharging insurance companies leads to higher insurance costs for everyone in the long term, but many do not think this way and think fuck the insurance companies. This is not a good long term if you ask me.

Now a short word on car insurance in Romania. There are to types. One is usually called RCA (Răspundere Civilă Auto) which covered damage done to others if you are at fault for an accident. This is compulsory for all cars. If you do not have it you get a large fine and lose the right to drive the car on public roads until you get one. The second one is CASCO (from the English words CASualty COllision) and this covers damage to yourself if you are at fault, and this is optional.

RCA is one of those things where most Romania thin k is a good idea, mandatory insurance, but which creates a bit of moral hazard. This is due to the fact that someone smashes your car, they give you insurance info and that is basically it for them, no other responsibility for the injured party. This may not be a problem in itself, but it led to the proliferation of a bunch of shitty insurance company which sold very cheap insurance but then did not pay or massively lowballed people. This should have been solved by the government regulation authority, but I do not need to tell you how well that worked. I always bought pricier RCA because I thought: if it is my fault and cause all the problems associated with having your car smashed into, the least I can do is have decent insurance. I was a minority in that thought process, most got the cheapest they found. This led to moments of anxiety when you asked someone what is their insurer, and usually dismay when you heard some shitty one. This was improved recently by the worse ones becoming bankrupt, and some of the better ones introducing a clause in their RCA that cost extra, but allowed you in case of accident that was not your fault to get the money from your insurer, and then your insurer got it back from the other driver’s insurer. Because it was easier for a large company to sue / negotiate with another company that for a random person.

I am pretty sure this is of zero interest to the glibs, but here you go anyway, a general idea of how things work.