Why were you driving without insurance?
Because I'm a friggin idiot and it bit me in the ass. I let my old policy lapse because I was only working 3 days a week for $11.00 an hour. That insurance bill would come due, and I just wouldn't have the money for it on top of everything else. I was usually able to reinstate the policy before having to totally rewrite it, but the last time, I just couldn't get the money together.
Now that I have a new job making a significant amount more, I was looking at getting a new policy. I was actually saving up for the initial premium of $900. I was almost there...
Liability insurance is required in Ohio, but you don't have to insure the value of your car for your own protection. I'm hoping that's the case here. Otherwise, Scott may have more serious problems if the local cops or prosecutors decide to press the issue of no insurance. (Scott, accident report filed on this, or did you just limp home without involving the cops?)
I didn't have liability insurance either, but the police weren't involved. It was just a concrete barrier on an entrance ramp. So yes, I left the scene of an accident and did not have liability insurance. Shhhhh!!!
On, and I was wrong about the damage. It is actually about $8,000.
Hold up, hold up. What were you doing near a wall? With your car? 
I was driving up a curved entrance ramp. It was raining and I lost the rear-end (in a friggin Taurus, which is FWD). The rear-end NEVER came out on me before in that car. I wasn't even really pushing it on the turn at all, even for the rain. So I thought at least.
I felt the rear slip out to the left some. It was not the first time that's ever happened to me, but the first time in this vehicle. So I thought it wasn't a biggie, just let off the gas and turn the wheel left in the path I want the car to go. But unlike all the other times in all the other vehicles this happened to me in (including a loaded 32,000 lb. truck), the end didn't tuck back in. It just came roaring around, totally ignoring my increasing steering input. The front left corner slammed into a retaining wall travelling essentially backwards, and then spun around and then the back left corner hit.
I still don't really know why it happened. It happened in a FWD car that has an independant rear suspension, and my tires are all less than a year old and were fully inflated the day before. I had taken the turn much faster before, including in the rain.
I think one of three things happened: 1) I was going much faster than I think I was going, 2) It was a freak thing when I hit a slick spot, or 3) I had just had my brakes done the day before, maybe there was a bias in the brake balancing, with the rears being stronger than the fronts (I was lightly braking when the skid began).
