What is the effect of the accident on Delaney?

This accidents brings together these two very different men and thus sets off a chain of events that will have profound effects on both of their lives. In the present, however, it simply reveals the true values of Delaney who, though he claims to be very liberal and equally caring of all people, is content to give a seriously injured Cándido twenty dollars in exchange for just walking away and not trying to get insurance benefits out of him. His salesman at the dealership even compares hitting a Mexican man to hitting a dog on the road - it is unfortunate but there are no serious consequences or reasons to be worried. The experience will still haunt Delaney, however, because he has been forced to interact with one of these Mexican immigrants, whom he usually ignores on a day to day basis, on a very personal level. The invisible wall between white people and Mexicans has been breached, and it is at this point that his carefully assembled, real-world ignorant values will begin to fall apart.