We have had our first car accident in Hong Kong and all in all, it was quite a pleasant experience.

On this particular section of the island, slower cars / trucks will flash their hazard lights if it is clear to pass them and once passed, the hazard light flash is reciprocated as a ‘thank you’. Sometimes, the hazard lights on the trucks or older cars don’t work and they tend to use their indicator to signal to pass.

It was unfortunate on Friday morning, on the way to the ferry pier, that the indicator was a signal to turn.

We had floored it expecting to pass a large dump-truck that was on a slight rise. It had begun to turn into the service station. We joined it on its turn, colleted the front and side of the car, mounted the gutter, took out a workmen sign and came to a halt.

As the driver looked down on us from his cabin, we realised both needed to reverse simultaneously so that the vehicles could come apart and I could get out of the car. With this achieved, I called the police, told some other drivers that there was no point honking to pass as there had been an accident, tipped glass out of my shoes and brushed it from the two pleats in my skirt.

Mr Shallot surveyed the damage, significant to our car and non-existent on the truck, the other driver gave me a tissue (I had a minor scratch from the glass on my leg, worse damage was to my stockings which were quite badly laddered and clearly needed replacing), the service station guy gave me some band-aids. I called work to say I was going to be late.

Both vehicles were in the service station when the police arrived. The truck driver was filling up, given that was what he was going to be doing anyway. The drivers gave statements which the policeman took in a little notebook. The policeman accurately summarised the statements “ahhh, misunderstanding”. The drivers then signed to say they weren’t going to pursue this any further and with that, the formal part was done. The whole process was in a mix of Cantonese and English and took about thirty minutes.

The truck driver then called a mechanic (who had previously replaced our tyres) and told him, in Cantonese, what had happened. He then gave his phone to Mr Shallot so he could arrange to bring the car down.

At Mui Wo, we dropped the car in (after driving incredibly slowly and using the hazards ourselves so others would pass) and saw the truck driver again. He checked that we were ok and was then on his way.

No charges, no fines and no car for three weeks.

* Thanks to Cake for the title to this post.