Fender Benders

While reading the thread about people's cars, I started to wonder how many of you with cars/motorcycles have been in accidents.

Personally, i have been in 2. About a year ago, I was working about 30 miles away from home which usually would be a fast 40-50 min drive home if there wasn't much traffic but on that day it took me 2 hours to get home due to traffic on the freeway. I was already tired as it was due to lack of sleep but the fact that i was stuck in traffic for so long didn't help my case.. About a block from my house, i finally passed out and side swiped a fire hydrate and slammed into the back of a car. I was soo scared of driving afterwards that I didn't wanna drive if I could avoid it. It took me a few months before I was back to my usual driving style. Thankfully my issurance covered the damaged to the other car.

And a few months ago in my new car I backed up into another car due to the fact that my driveway is on a slope so it's sometimes hard to see whose behind me. There happened to be some dumbass double parked in the middle of the road and since I couldn't see, I backed up into his door.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I hit a parked car once when I was borrowing my brother's car. See, I drive a Focus. A tiny little car with an amazingly small turning radius. He has a Grand Am that was sold on the slogan "Wider is better." I was trying to make a really tight turn in a parking lot, and, well, his car couldn't quite make it. I dented the rear door of a parked car pretty bad, but didn't do any damage to my brother's car, so he never found out.

I've had a few close calls, but easily the worst was one night when I was driving across the state on a night during a really heavy snow storm. One of those nights where they say YOU HAVE NO REASON TO BE ON THE ROADS NO MATTER WHAT, JUST STAY AT HOME (sadly I had already left when it got to that point). Traffic was going around 20mph, and there was this one car going about 10 in the right lane. So, everyone was shifting over a lane to try and pass him. Well, when it gets to be my turn he decides to abruptly change lanes, hits front right of my car, and sends my car spinning out. I missed hitting the center divider on the road by about 2" and wound up coming to a stop while facing oncoming traffic. Thankfully I was the last person in line to pass this guy, so there was nobody for about a quarter of a mile. They all came to a stop and let me turn around, so it wound up being ok. Although not an accident, when I finally got home to my neighborhood, about two tenths of a mile from my house I wind up getting stuck in this bullshit snow drift. Luckily a snow plow came along 10 minutes or so later while I was trying to dig my car out with my ice scraper, but it was definitely one of the worst rides across PA I've ever had.

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I had two accidents. One that cost me a bunch, the other just damaged my car only.

First one, the day of my High School Graduation party. I was about to leave the house really quickly to pick up someone. A friend of mine decided to tag along with me since there was no one there at the time. As we backed out of the driveway, I completely lose focus and back into a car and completely dent in the door.

Ironically enough, the car I hit belonged to the guy who was tagging with me. Half the graduation money I got went to repairs to his car.

The second one, I just lost focus again, and rear ended an SUV. I managed to ram right into the hitch on his car. Low speed crash and nothing happened to his car. As for mine, got this nasty little hole in my front bumper in the shape of the part of the hitch that I hit.

My dad did manage to pull back the part that got pushed in a cover it up. Still noticeable, but not as bad as it was before.

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RR> One of the 1st car I got to drive around was my dad's big of SUV.. I always ran over the curve or the stop blocks in the front of the parking spot b/c I couldn't see street properly. So I feel ya on that.

Choatic> That sounds like a scary situation. Just randomly losing focus. Do you have ADD or is it more of a passingout/blackout kind of situation?

How ya doing, buddy?

I got into a nasty bang-up back in 2000 when I was driving with my best friends to go Christmas shopping. We were on a 3 lane highway, I was in the middle lane. There was a woman in the left lane, just ahead of me. She promptly put on her blinker and switched lanes INTO me.

I hit the right guardrail, swung across and banged into the left guardrail. Of a 3 lane highway. I threw the car into park, pulled the e-brake, and asked if everyone was okay. They were. I took my foot off the brake pedal, opened my door, and stepped out.

The car flew into reverse. I have no idea how to this day. Upon stepping out, I was pinned under the door, face down, being dragged on the pavement for who knows how long. I CLEARLY remember thinking "If I don't put my head down on the ground, I will die."

I put my head down, cheek to the ground as I was moving, and the door went over my head. My friends tell me today that they thought I was dead. The car ran over the side of my leg (which I have no feeling in today).

Eventually, the curvature of the highway caused the car to hit another guardrail down the line, and the wheels spun out a while. I got up off the ground, ran to the car, and let my friends out. They couldn't get out because the guardrails I hit had banged the doors in so they couldn't open the doors properly.

I am amazed we survived it with MINIMAL injuries. I was the one who got banged up - they were fine. The doctor who saw me the next day said I was internally bleeding judging by the bruises I had on my body. I didn't believe her and walked out against medical advice.

This is the night Jim Morrison appeared. You guys are going to think I am fucking whacked out of my mind, but I am not the only one who witnessed it. We call him this because he was EXACTLY how you'd imagine Morrison these days. He appeared out of nowhere, said NOTHING but "God is on your side tonight" (to which I balked in tears, of course), and DISAPPEARED as quickly as he arrived. Very. Very. Fucking. Strange.

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I've only been involved in one accident about a year ago. I'd gone over to the mall area after class on a particularly nice day, and was heading towards home. There's a traffic circle that connects the road from the mall area, the road into the main shopping center with Wal-Mart and such, and the road that goes towards the interstate. I was going all the way around to get to the interstate, but this guy entering from the shopping center didn't stop at the stop sign and slammed into the passenger side of my car going 15-20 mph. I saw him coming fast a split second before and slammed my brakes; I think it was some idea that flashed thinking I might not go spinning wildly if I was stopped when he hit. It was too late to do anything else, and I remember trying not to tense up since they say that's what contributes to a lot of injuries in car accidents.

When I looked up (or opened my eyes, I just remember that I looked away) my first thought was that I seemed to be okay. My second thought was "that fucker's running away!" because I could see his car heading towards the interstate. It took a moment for me to realize that he was actually driving on the sidewalk, trying hard to come to a stop while luckily avoiding all the little trees planted on either side of it. Apparently my idea of coming to a stop had worked and while my car stayed put his had bounced off at an angle and flown over the curb onto the sidewalk. I pulled up next to him and motioned to park in the Kohl's parking lot on the other side of the sidewalk he was on, which I was a little uneasy about doing but I didn't want to block major traffic just to make sure he couldn't run.

I finally saw that it was a middle-aged man when he parked, but what shocked me was that he only had one leg. When he got out of his car I nearly shouted something to the effect of "Holy shit, did that just happen?!" We were both pretty shaken up, but I kept myself busy inspecting the damage on both of our cars. It wasn't until I started writing down his information that I noticed my hands and legs were shaking so much that I could barely hold the pencil. His front bumper and the frame of his car had considerable cracks, and both doors on my passenger side were pretty bashed up. It's remarkable that the front window didn't shatter since the metal was bent into it.

Since the accident was entirely his fault his insurance paid for all my repairs and such, though he did try to weasel out of it. He told his insurance that I had merged out of an inner lane into the outer lane, but as far as I know no traffic circles have more than one lane so there wasn't any hold up.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Been in two accidents lifetime-to-date. First was entirely my fault, had only been driving for 6 weeks when I pulled out from a stop sign and T-boned this SUV. Don't know why I didn't see him coming (wasn't a 4-way stop, by the way) but I didn't. Guy had a warrant for his arrest though so kudos to me. The second wreck tells a better story though.

I was on my way home from work and was maybe two hundred yards away from the parking lot. I lived on campus at the time, and an exhibition tennis game was goin on -- Andre Agassi and some other guy. The parking was filled to capacity and then some, as cars were parked all over the place. Now, the stadium exits onto the road I was driving on, and there's an intersection there. I had just hit the yellow light so I passed on through.

And then a van, parked up on the sidewalk 100 ft. away from the exit, decided to pull off onto the road's right lane, where I already was due to the fact that I was about to turn right to get into my dorm's parking lot. Needless to say I tried to avoid him but ended up hitting the center of my front bumper into the left corner of the van's rear end. Made my car look like a cannon ball hit it dead-on.

The guy was a complete and utter douchebag. We're doing the requisite swearing at each other from across the street when here comes his bitch wife. She gets out of the car, clearly in a drunken stupor, and calls me a stupid little college idiot. I marched rather quickly in an attempt to snatch her and rip her to shreds but it so happened my roommate, who was following me but caught the red light than I passed on yellow, had caught up to us and dragged me away from them.

Dude said he saw me coming and had claim to the lane, but his insurance company found his ass at fault and I got some cash.

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Originally Posted by Furby

Choatic> That sounds like a scary situation. Just randomly losing focus. Do you have ADD or is it more of a passingout/blackout kind of situation?

Not really, I'm just in my own world from time to time and it's not exactly the best place to be on the road.

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Quote:

...as far as I know no traffic circles have more than one lane so there wasn't any hold up.

Most traffic circles that aren't just tiny little joke ones have multiple lanes, and, frankly, I don't know how there aren't more accidents in them with how little people seem to understand how they work.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Not really, I'm just in my own world from time to time and it's not exactly the best place to be on the road.

How the fuck do people like you get driving licenses? I mean, how can you reverse off a drive way and into a stationary car? It beggars belief really. Having a bigger car is a pretty crap excuse for an accident too. I've driven cars from a mini to a long wheel-base Transit van and never once clipped a kerb or caused any sort of accident. How hard is it to just loko where you're going?

It makes me pretty angry hearing stuff like that because while I've never caused an accident I've been in a few and they've all been caused by some dickhead pulling out without looking or driving too close or being unable to drive in a straight line.

I had one car written off because we were in a queue of traffic which started moving off, someone cut in front of me so I hit the brakes and the twat behind just drove straight into me. He had started moving and was "Miles away" apparently, far enough to ram a Mercedes 4x4 into a Corsa at at least 20 mph. Bent the back axel and wrote off the car.

Another time I was in a mate's Landrover coming down a smallish but busy road in the country and some dumb bitch pulls out of a driveway literally 15 yards in front of us. We must have hit her at about 40mph and smashed the shit out of the front of her car, it was a Clio I think. Luckily, Clios are made of plastic and fail and my mate's Landrover was one of the old cast iron ones and he had but a small dent in his bumper whereas her car was scattered over about 20 yards of road. We waited for the police (Who arrested her for careless driving) and went on our way.

But yeah, if you're incapable of spotting immobile objects or can't manouever the car you're in without hitting things you shouldn't be on the road. There's just no excuse.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Most traffic circles that aren't just tiny little joke ones have multiple lanes, and, frankly, I don't know how there aren't more accidents in them with how little people seem to understand how they work.

I've never seen one big enough to warrant multiple lanes, but how does that work? Surely that would cause a ton of accidents from people trying to get out of the inner lane.

It's a shame my accident had to happen in a traffic circle. I thought they were pretty fun before getting rammed.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I've been in 3 accidents. The first one was shortly after I got my license. I was driving a 98 Chevy Blazer and it was nothing but problems from the moment I got it. The brakes were really bad. So I was driving down the street and I told my brothers that there was candy in the middle console if they wanted any, so they started to fight over it and I was trying to close the console and tell them to stop and when I looked up I was a few feet away from a stopped car at a light in front of me and I was going about 40mph. I slammed on my brakes and my brakes were jumpy so I slammed into this guy with a Toyota Camry, I SWEAR I hit him like 3 times too. My car bounced off of his. The front of his car hit the stopped car in front of him and I screwed up my back, but all I did to his car was crack the bumper and I put a hole in my oil pan and fucked up my engine.

After that accident I fixed the engine and did a lot of work on the SUV and my parents bought me a new steel bumper for Christmas because the one I had had a dent in it like I hit a light pole but that was from hitting the camry.

Shortly after that I was pulling into the community college with the same Blazer and there were a bunch of speed bumps and I was in a hurry. This lady in front of me slammed on her brakes to avoid hitting the speed bump too hard and I wasn't really watching and I slammed into her. I dented my bumper the same way and I did to her small Honda was take the tiniest bit of paint off her bumper. She, thankfully, said it wasn't a big deal and we didn't have to call the cops. My Blazer was all fucked up again under the hood so I sold it to the junkyard after that.

The last accident I was driving my husband's little Dodge Neon. It was a stick and I was in a hurry to get home so I was driving like crazy. The street that I turned on was weird. The right side of the road was like 3 lanes wide and the left side of the road was one lane wide split by a small cement divider in the street. This young bitch decides she wants to make a U-turn to get to the side of the road that is one lane wide and she doesn't want to end up in the rocks next to the road. She pulls out wide right and then tries to make a U-turn. Well I have no idea what she was doing so when she pulled out to the right I went to the left of her and tried to pass her but then she made the U-turn right in front of me and I slammed into her driver's side door. She sent me to the hospital, but everything was fine. Totaled the car. It was a disaster. My husband had a aroooga horn on the neon and when I hit the car it sounded off and I couldn't get it to shut up. When my husband showed up he quickly unhooked it. That part was funny but it was bad.

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Originally Posted by Tritoch

I've never seen one big enough to warrant multiple lanes, but how does that work? Surely that would cause a ton of accidents from people trying to get out of the inner lane.

I know there's a traffic circle in Towson, MD, near the mall, that has 2 lanes, as well as one near the Sam's Club in Gaithersburg. It's not unheard of around here, but RR's right, I don't know why there aren't more accidents.

I've only had one accident worth exchanging insurance info for. I was turning right, in one of those lanes that has an island separating it from the straight lanes. There was only one right turn lane (I was in it), and as I was looking left to see if I was clear to turn, some idiot woman pulled alongside me on the right. I moved the car forward to turn, and scraped my passenger door alongside her car. We exchanged insurance info. I never bothered to get my car fixed (it looked terrible, but the door was still able to open and close, and the car was watertight), and she clearly never tried to file a claim against me because the accident didn't appear on my record when I changed insurance a few months later when I bought a newer car.

A few years ago, after I moved to Ellicott City, I lightly rear-ended a woman. We were in a lane coming off the expressway that has yield signs, but the lane doesn't end right away. Some stupid drivers (this woman included) interpreted "yield" to mean "stop" instead of "continue moving and merge into traffic". She started to move, then stopped suddenly, and I tapped her bumper, but no damage was done.

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Originally Posted by Shin

How the fuck do people like you get driving licenses? I mean, how can you reverse off a drive way and into a stationary car? It beggars belief really. Having a bigger car is a pretty crap excuse for an accident too. I've driven cars from a mini to a long wheel-base Transit van and never once clipped a kerb or caused any sort of accident. How hard is it to just loko where you're going?

It makes me pretty angry hearing stuff like that because while I've never caused an accident I've been in a few and they've all been caused by some dickhead pulling out without looking or driving too close or being unable to drive in a straight line.

Don't get me wrong, Shin. The time I hit my friend's car, I was backing out and he was talking to me as I was backing out. Trying to pay attention to two things at once, I misjudged how much room I had while listening to what he was saying and then *SMACK*. Into his driver's side door, I go. I drive a 4-door sedan anyway, so it's not like I have a huge car to begin with.

The second moment was mostly just misjudging distance again and being caught in traffic. I accelerated a little too quickly and then got into a low speed crash. Nothing happened to the other guy's car, but because of my lack of judgment I ended up getting the butt of the damage. I only have myself to blame.

Most of my friends say I'm a good driver anyway and it's been two years since my last accident and I've been a shitload more careful driving and paying attention on the road since then because the simple fact that I don't want to get into another accident. Honestly, if you drive with me, there's at least gonna be a two car distance from me and the next car because I'm just worried that the car ahead of me is gonna do something drastically stupid.

So again, don't get me wrong. I basically made all the mistakes you could make as a new driver and I've learned since then.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Quote:

My husband had a aroooga horn on the neon and when I hit the car it sounded off and I couldn't get it to shut up.

Laughing so hard at this. It also reminds me of the times my dad would scare the shit out of people with the custom horn he put on our Jeep Wrangler. Normally they have a little meep meep style horn, but he put on one that sounded almost like it was from an 18 wheeler.

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I think the traffic circle on the right there is two lanes, one for incoming traffic to stay in if they're going straight through and another to merge into if you're making a turn.

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Originally Posted by Tritoch

I've never seen one big enough to warrant multiple lanes, but how does that work? Surely that would cause a ton of accidents from people trying to get out of the inner lane.

The Magic Roundabout in Swindon is a roundabout made of five smaller roundabouts. It's easier to get round than it looks though.

Most roundabouts in the UK have multiple lanes. You use the inside when you're turning right and the outside when you're going straight on or turning left. There's very rarely accidents though, you just don't go until it's clear, not rocket science. I hear that a lot of Americans get confused by them when they try to drive over here though.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Shin

I hear that a lot of Americans get confused by them when they try to drive over here though.

Going round in circles coupled by driving on the wrong side of the road tends to do that to a person.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Heh heh, the closest I've come to crashing was in France as it happens. Driving on the wrong side is fine in itself, it's jut when you pull away from a parking spot you have to remember which side to start off on. Playing a lot of American based driving games like GTA helps bizarrely as it's easier to get into the mindset of the traffic being on the right hand side. I still hate driving in France though.

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