Unfortunately for the steer, Mom saw his shenanigans, and confronted him on the spot with a 2x4, nailing him on the head so thoroughly that it left him temporarily daffy and seriously bleeding, with only one horn remaining. That evening, the local vet removed the remaining horn, and when he was fully-grown (the steer, that is), we ate him. Though I doubt he ever understood how this barely-five-foot short, 120-pound woman so thoroughly gained his attention, until the day a .22 rearranged his gray-matter he went out of his way to avoid anything that walked on only two legs.

From a casual observation it would appear that most repairers haven't the intelligence of this dumbest of animals. Repeated blows from insurers have apparently left many among us daffy, and headed for the slaughterhouse. And it all started with that which has been described as "a sort of living oblivion" - APATHY.

From Apathy…

Jaime Alligood, a consultant for Causey and Associates, in her recent article "The Insurance Industry Loves Your Apathy" related her frustration in trying to muster her state's collision repairers to attend a legislative reception - only one of the 40 shops contacted even bothered to respond. Projecting the obvious sobering end result of shops' apathy, she asked, "What will it take to get [collision repairers'] to get involved? Will an insurer-owned body shop built next to yours do it? Will it take the insurance lobby getting laws passed requiring customers to take their cars to the insurance adjuster at an insurer-owned shop, where he is also the appraiser for the shop?

Can your business survive on the junk repairs insurance-owned shops won't have cluttering up theirs? How about laws allowing insurance policies paying only for aftermarket parts? Will it get your attention when insurance companies purchase all your parts and paint direct from the manufacturers? Would insurance companies' cutting labor rates in half, like they do some doctors' fees, spur your attention? What if your state legislature passed a law establishing a bureaucracy with rules so one-sided that you could be investigated and charged with fraud, just because an adjuster thinks your estimate is too high? (Some insurers already have "gone after" some shop owners for fraud because the shop's estimate was higher). Would the above-mentioned things happening cure your apathy?"

Her point, though extremely well articulated, is not well taken by the collision industry at large: For some strange reason this industry seems to host a most incredible inventory of pathetically near-sighted isolationists. Yeah, I know what you're mumbling to yourself…"Right now I'm too busy playing 'catch-up' at the shop to invest whatever time is needed to help chart my future… besides, there's others out there who'll take the heat, and I surely don't want to irritate my insurer-partners."

You are right about there being "others out there willing to take the heat." But you're wrong if you identified these only as the handful of collision repair professionals who have put their businesses, their money and their time on the line in a single-handed effort to assure this industry has a future. But not to worry - insurers, and more recently the Networks they are employing, have more than enough family jewels to make up for your lack.

To appeasement…

I was reminded of the state of the collision industry as it exists today while listening to a recent radio broadcast in which a Mercy Corps spokesperson was quoted as saying that this humanitarian organization has been "trusting in the power of persuasion and moral reasoning" to keep their workers safe from harm. He was alluding to the fact that Mercy Corps workers typically work unarmed and unguarded, even in volatile countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently this organization believes that in so doing, even in countries hamstrung by ruling factions led by tyrants who wouldn't think twice before raping and torturing their own mothers, somehow they will see the good that Mercy Corps performs, and leave them alone. Sincere, yet sincerely wrong, Mercy Corps was shocked and disheartened when some of their workers were beheaded, others shot execution-style by a certain moral-less element within these countries they are trying to help. What a ship of fools! Civility didn't stand a chance for the second son born into this world, and with precious few exceptions, it hasn't stood a whisper of a chance since.