Bumper Cars: A Touch-and-Go Guide

The cab I was taking today got into a little fender bender. It was clearly the other driver's fault; a classic case of not checking the sideview mirror before changing lanes. Look at how these two drivers resolve the issue.

1. Bumper (left) remains calm, even patting the Bumpee (right) repeatedly on the arm and says the damage is negligible; essentially, "let's forget the whole thing". Bumpee isn't falling for it and presses his point by throwing a hissy fit.


2. Passenger from Bumpee's cab approaches to pay her fare and go on her way.







3. Passenger decides to join the discussion, expressing her opinion that as cab drivers, they should consider each other colleagues and settle the matter simply and cheaply. Bumpee reviews his points for everyone who has already heard them.



4. Bumper, seeing that Bumpee's anger is faltering, takes the opportunity to quickly hand over RMB100 before he regains strength. Both drivers then return to their cars.





5. From where I was sitting, it looked like my driver (the Bumpee) was bullied into settling for RMB100 so when he gets into his seat I immediately start saying how it was the other guy's fault. For the next 10 minutes, my driver rants about how wrong the other guy was while exalting his own merciful qualities. When he stopped to breathe, I asked about the damage, but he said there wasn't any.

[thoughtful pause]

I'm confused. What was the money for then?

currency converter
> RMB100 ~ grand total of $10.25