Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Car Crash Blues

Last week, I was on my way home from work when I got into a car accident.

It was a cold May day, that felt more like November. The wind was harsh and rain clouds hovered in the sky. It was already past 7 PM and I was only a couple of miles away from home. I stopped at the red light, happy to be this close to my destination.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, my car rocked forward. Screeching tires and metal slammed on metal assaulted my ears. My entire body was slammed forward. The seatbelt threw me back on the seat.

I instantly knew what happened, and when the cars started moving, I drove onto the shoulder. The other driver followed my lead and we both jumped out of our cars. I called the cops.

The other driver was very nice and stayed with me outside until the cops came. We talked about the economy, politics, life, and Mother Nature’s apparent PMS.

We assessed the damage. My bumper hung low, half of my exhaust pipe was ripped off. My trunk didn’t look like it would open easily. The license plate looked like an accordion.  

The other driver’s car didn’t hold a single scratch. The only damage was that before the accident his license plate was a little bent, and now it was straight as a board. His car was a ’78 and mine is an ’02. Same make, similar model. They don’t make them like that anymore, we both agreed.

The cops took a half an hour to get there, which is a bit ridiculous because the town’s police station was maybe three miles away.

Luckily, the other driver had good car insurance so I filed a claim with his insurance company. They got into contact with him and he admitted to 100% liability and now today I’ll be taking my car in to be repaired.



So how are you guys? Any car crash stories you want to share?

9 comments:

  1. Holy moley! Glad you're all right. And so glad he had insurance.

    I blogged about my only car crash story a couple of years ago. It might've been before we met. As usual, it was funny. --well, it's funny now. :)

    http://mariazannini.blogspot.com/2009/12/tales-of-terror-mgb-story.html

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  2. Good grief. Thank goodness you're okay. Lucky he had good insurance too.

    I'm touching wood and four leafed clovers here, but I don't have a crash story to share. I don't want one either. :)

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  3. WOW... at least he was a good guy. And you're right, they don't make them like they used to.

    I got rear-ended at a stoplight once, many years ago, in the only new car I've ever owned. Teenaged girls were watching a cute guy and plowed into me. I hit the car in front of me, and so on -- five car accident.

    She claimed I'd hit the car in front of me, bounced back and hit her. So, it went to court. :::rolls eyes::: Stupid girl.

    Totaled my brand new vehicle only 6 months after I'd bought it. I've never bought new again...

    Hope things are far quieter for a while for you.

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  4. Oh, no! Hope you are okay!! Car accidents suck. No two ways about it. So nice that the guy who caused it was so nice. That's refreshing.

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  5. Yikes! I'm glad you're okay, and good thing he had insurance.

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  6. I was in a car wreck November 7th of 2009. I was traveling down a main highway in my SUV when a 16 year old kid flew off a country road, smashed into me, and pushed me into a culvert. It rendered me unconscious. I have no memory of the accident, and have issues with maintaining short term memory now. It was assessed that the 16 year old was completely at fault.

    His insurance company, however, are being completely *bleeps*. They don't want to pay medical bills (for myself, my brother and my two children; one of which was only three weeks old at the time). They want to only give me minor payoff that no where near covers my lost SUV (it was totally destroyed!).

    So we're sitting in stasis, waiting for my lawyer to tell me when we've got to go to court... I'm glad your incident went much smoother than mine!

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  7. So glad you're all right! I was hit by a drunk driver while driving my mom to my grandmother's house one late night, to tell my 96 year old grandmother her husband wasn't going to make it through the night. My mom had called earlier that evening to tell me EMS had taken Grandpa to the hospital. My grandmother didn't want to go, and Mom didn't know what to do. Stay with her mother or go to the hospital with her father? I drove to my grandparents' house and couldn't convince my Grandma to go, so I drove to my Mom's house and took her. I worked as a registered nurse in a cardiac care unit back then, and one look at the EKG and I knew he was done. I like to think that accident happened that night because that man was so drunk he didn't even realize he'd hit me. By hitting me, it got him off the street before he killed someone. My Grandpa died later that night, while Mom and I were with Grandma. She died two weeks later.

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  8. I'm so glad you are OK. I HATE the sound of metal on metal. I am lucky to have only been in one accident. Since it was a teenager who had gotten into an accident the month before, her father insisted on paying for the car with his own money. No insurance claim. I was fine with it. It was kinda funny because I got a few quotes and he didn't like them, so he asked me to see his mechanic, who discovered the car frame was bent and as a result his estimate was much higher.

    I often wonder what happened to that girl. Was she allowed to drive a car again or grounded until she was 18?

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  9. Glad you came out of it okay!

    My crash happened about a year ago. It was a rainy day and I was taking the back roads home so I could drop off some movies for my boss at a video rental place. My brakes failed and I slid right through a stop sign at the bottom of the hill. My SUV became the filling in a pick-up truck sandwich (there was one coming from each way). They had to use the jaws of life to get me out and I got my first ever ambulance ride. I was lucky - slight concussion and mild whip lash. If I'd been in a car instead of an SUV it would have been a different story. My poor SUV was a total write off. My husband took pictures of the damage, which I posted to my facebook.

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