I didn't feel the need for its own thread but for some reason sharing this is helping, although I still feel like an idiot. Here I complain about other peoples' driving and I do this...
I was going through an intersection when this car at the head of the line was blocking the rest of us from making it through because he wanted to go from the far left to the far right lane. He was just creeping through with his signal on waiting for there to be an opening to his right to move over. This caused myself and the rest of the line to be hung out to dry in the middle of the intersection. As he finally got out of the way the line sped back up as we were trying to get clear of the intersection before our light went red. I looked ahead, saw we had a green light at the next intersection, took a quick glance over to my right at the guy who had held us all up and when I looked back...I got a face full of Ford Ranger that had hit their brakes (turned out she was also looking over at the guy) I hit my brakes too...but it was too late.
No airbags, and the truck's damage was minimal...she'll likely just need a new rear bumper. My car wasn't so lucky. Insurance is handling it and while I'm now out my $500 deductible...I'm otherwise fine save for some soreness. The lady was really understanding and not mad at all, and even apologized to me, too. No police called and we just exchanged info and took pictures. It's at the shop now. All I can say is I was surprised by how well the car took the hit...I didn't feel much except shock and then thinking to myself "did that really just fucking happen?" I remember briefly just wishing I could close my eyes and have it all go away when I opened them. Nope.
The irony...somebody keyed my trunk about 6 months ago and I had been almost hoping someone would rear-end me. No such luck...in fact, quite the opposite.