Well said Ben.
I know a woman who stopped in the middle of the road and abandoned her car when she saw a spider in her car. Another car ran into her and had to pay all damages. Apparently, the Police told her that what she did was quite legal and the other driver was at fault for running into her.
Accidents happen - I've done it myself where I've only had laid-up insurance on a vehicle and forgot to change to comprehensive when I started to drive it on the road again. Which reminds me, thank goodness (and OP for the timely reminder) - I've just agreed to let someone borrow my Statesman to attend a wedding out of town and it only has laid-up insurance. I'll have to change it to comprehensive before I lend them the car. Thats how damn easy it is to let something lapse and not be fully insured when you need to be.
Its a horrible experience, even when you have insurance which is then compacted tenfold when you don't. Then if your finances are suffering there is a whole new stress of getting around and recovering your losses.
Fandango - I feel for your situation and hope you can recover soon. Please do investigate, their insurance may be able to pick it up, its well worth the investigation and I hope that spider didn't give you too much of a fright or whatever it was that caused the accident.
PS: has anyone EVER driven where there is diesel on the road? Holy sh!t thats slippery, I was fortunate, but don't know how I didn't hit anyone because I had zero control of the car while it was in the diesel and for about 60 feet after.