New Haven Independent

“I’m so sorry,” Henrietta Lamar (pictured) was saying to 72-year-old Ella Culbreath after the rented SUV she was traveling in switched lanes and crunched the back passenger door of Culbreath’s Toyota Camry. “Will you please forgive us?”

Culbreath, her daughter, and Lamar’s relatives had been exchanging heated words as cars zoomed by in the mid-day sunshine.

“Yeah, I forgive you this time,” Culbreath allowed. “But I’m just so pissed off!”

The accident occurred Wednesday around 1:40 p.m. in the midst of the hydra-headed crossroads of Broadway, Tower Parkway, Dixwell, Goffe, Whalley, and Elm.

Ella Culbreath was driving her daughter Joyce to her home-health aide job in West Haven. They passed Yale’s Payne-Whitney Gym on Tower Parkway. They went through the first of three lights crammed into the monster intersection.

Behind them was Henrietta Lamar and company. They were looking for the Howard Hill funeral home (which is on Chapel Street). They’d never driven in New Haven before, according to Lamar.

Lamar’s brother, Joe Gates, just died of cancer. So Lamar flew north from her home in Memphis, along with her nephew and her fiancee, to come to New Haven to make funeral arrangements. They rented the SUV. The fiancee (who didn’t wish to be identified) was behind the wheel.

She, too, passed Payne-Whitney and approached the multiplex-like marquee directing drivers to various lanes, depending on which of four avenues they planned to turn onto. She was apparently in the far right lane, which is supposed to be reserved for cars turning left onto Dixwell or Goffe.

As she passed the light, she drove straight, instead, where traffic merges into a narrow lane feeding into Whalley Avenue and eastbound Broadway. Her car rammed into the back passenger-side door of the Culbearth Camry, producing a sizable dent. No one appeared to be hurt.

But the Culbreaths were angry. Both drivers stopped. Everyone got out of the car. An argument ensued. Click on the play arrow to watch snippets of it.

Lamar, who’d been riding in the back seat, said she didn’t see what happened. She kept her voice calm and told the Culbreaths that she accepts responsibility, that her group is new to the area. She suggested they report the information to their insurance companies so the Culbreaths to pay for repairing the damage.

Lamar’s niece, however, insisted she hadn’t been at fault. That kept the argument going. The two sides did find time to share insurance and driver information.

“You never made a mistake in your life?” Lamar asked Ella Culbearth.

“I ain’t run over nobody else’s car!” Culbearth (pictured) responded “‘Cause I STAY IN MY LANE!”

“We had a loss in our family. We do apologize,” Lamar said at another point. “You arguing — we’re trying to talk to you. We’re trying to get you know, we didn’t mean to hit your car. You could hit someone yourself.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“We all drive…”

Joyce Culbearth interjected: “She has every right to be upset.” Then she turned to the fiancee. “You were supposed to be turning!” she told her.

Lamar tried an appeal to faith. She told Ella Culbearth about the death in her family and expressed sorrow over “your loss,” meaning the dent in the car.

“The Lord,” she told Ella Culbearth, “wants us to get along.”

“Oh please,” Culbearth scoffed.

Lamar was asked how she manages to keep her cool.

“I haven’t always kept my cool,” she said. “I’m a born-again Christian. I know how to walk in love.

“My brother was a double amputee. He was hit by a drunk driver. And he forgave.”

In the end Culbearth offered the forgiveness quoted at the top of this story. She and her daughter returned to the Camry, Lamar and her group to the SUV. They drove their separate ways.