Alright.... here we go.
I was driving down the far right lane, pulling into the turn lane and was cut off by a Scion (I thought it was a vibe but learned otherwise) that jumped into the turn lane and hit the brakes. I was following my brother to get tires so I can bring him home while they put tires on. When she cut me off and hit the brakes, she had started to pull into on coming traffic when cross-traffic came off the light and she slammed on the brakes and I hit her right rear corner.
Coincidentally, the cop in the first picture ran up seconds later and asked if we were okay and what happened. For reference in the rest of the story, this was NOT the cop that ticketed me.. He asked me to move the truck and asked her to move her car into the parking lot on the side. This cop was actually pretty cool. Very nice, calm and stopped to listen. Turns out that cop was off duty in his personal car only a lane or so away and was just rear ended seconds before. He ran over to see if we were okay. We got into the side lot, and another on-duty cop showed up and got my information. I stood around and looked at the truck to see if I was going to be able to drive it home. Which I did.
The investigating cop NEVER came over to ask me what happened. He NEVER investigated the incident with me and NEVER even saw the position of the vehicles in the accident. He wasn't rude or mean, he was very short with me. When he came over he wrote me a ticket for following too closely, gave me his number a case number, and left. She was gone before I got a record of my ticket.
I WILL be fighting the ticket. If you notice, the damage on my truck is on the far right corner, not in the middle where it should have been if she was already in my lane and I rear ended her. Her damage was on the right corner of her car. Technically, if she was in the turn lane turning right when I hit her like she said she was, the damage would have been on the right corner of my truck and around the center of hers.
I WILL be fighting the ticket, and will be pushing for her to be put at fault.
NOW, on to the damage. The radiator core support is buckled, but probably fixable. The radiator isn't damage, nor is the frame bent. The headlight's didn't even break. The grill is torn up, bumper is destroyed and the rest is obvious.