Rob Cockerham at cockeyed.com (whom I’ve already mentioned twice today — he’s got lots of good funny money stuff), has a profile on the extraordinary price of dents.

In Early May, my friend Tim got into a car wreck. It wasn’t his fault. A gal popped out from between two stopped cars and put a large crease into his front fender. Luckily, the woman’s insurance paid for the repairs. Tim took the car to Cozz’s auto body in Sacramento. It took four days for the insurance adjuster to examine the car and authorize the repair bill, and 12 days for Cozz’s to perform the repair, including a perfect paint job. When the repairs were finished, the car was as good as new. The price for repair, which was paid by an insurance company, was $3,200. $3,200 is an awful lot of money, which almost no one wants to spend on auto body repair. Another use of that much money would be to take a vacation to that paradise of the southern hemisphere, Australia. The price (for one person) breaks down like this: Fly to Australia ($1,100), Stay at the Sydney Harbour Marriott for 7 days ($1,400), and take a helicopter tour of Hunter Valley ($623).

Cockerham has a couple of other examples of how much even minor vehicle damage can cost.

[The extraordinary price of dents]