Two hundred dollars and a stupid accident

My life is for the most part pretty boring, but sometimes whacky things happen.  Yesterday was one of those days.

I left work last night and realized that I left my purse at my cube.  So I drove back to retrieve it.  I usually don’t park in the underground garage because it is always full, but at that time many people already left work so I figured I would park there since it is the closest parking lot to my building. It has one of those arm gates that raises up after you swipe a keycard.  Then after the arm gate there is another metal sliding gate.

I have always had a problem with these gates because my arms are very short and oftentimes I have to stretch out pretty far to activate the keycard.  Yesterday this happened again and stretched out just a bit too far and my foot went off the brake for a second.  Unfortunately, the lane to the gate is on a downward incline so gravity took my car straight into the gate arm and made contact with the metal gate and then stopped.  The distance from the keycard station to the gate is less than ten feet so it wasn’t a huge impact, but the car still managed to break off the wooden gate arm and made a dent in the metal gate.

Amazingly enough the car just had a few scratches in the front bumper and was not damaged at all, but the metal gate to the garage stopped opening.  So I called building security and a pretty nice old security guard came out and took my information.  Today the property management called me and said that they have repair people out there and if the damages are not extensive I don’t have to file a claim.  They were actually quite nice about it and thanked me for informing security quickly and giving my information.  They also said they will keep me updated on the repair costs and possible claim.

In case you work in the former Siebel buildings in San Mateo and you were inconvenienced by the south garage gate closing today, I’m really sorry!  I felt pretty dumb after the incident so I went home and Googled garage arm gate accidents, and what do you know, other people have the short arm problem too.  Here is an example.

After watching these videos I actually felt a bit better.  Then I started sorting a bag of mail I got from my parents’ house this weekend, and I found a check for $200.13 from a class action settlement.  Apparently a law student named Kashmiri sued the Regents of California for increasing student fees in the 2002-2003 school year and after five years of legal battles the students won and the Regents paid out a $33.8 million settlement.  It is kind of sad because I completely understand why the Universities of California had to raise fees at that time.  The economy was in the ruts, and the fees were really quite cheap.  I entered Berkeley in 2001 and I think I paid less than $2000 for tuition for each semester, and then the next year they increased the fees dramatically for international students, but the resident tuition did not change all that much.  Here are the webpages from 2001 to 2002 and 2002 to 2003.   The real fee hikes actually started from the 2003 to 2004 school year where the fees went from $2100 to $2900.  Now it costs over $4400 for resident tuition. I actually feel bad for receiving this money because I don’t feel cheated by my Berkeley education. I’ve already earned my all four years of my tuition money back in less than a year after college.  I also found out that the University of California barely raised its fees from the late 80’s until 2002 after I met an alumni that graduated in 1988.  He told me that he paid around $1500 a semester in 1988.  Basically, it is a public school system that tried to keep its fees down for many years but just couldn’t do it any longer and it is understandable.  I am  just going to donate this $200 back to UC Berkeley’s engineering program and I encourage other UC grads who are comfortably employed to do the same because our alma maters probably need the money more than we do now.  I really want the UC system to remain the best public universities in the world for generations to come.

So that’s the entire story of my stupid accident, and the $200 of found money.  Hopefully my car insurance will not be adjusted and the owners of the building will fix the gate.  In the future, I will always park my car in front of those keycard swipers first so there is no chance of sliding down into a gate.

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