i just had a wreck and i need to vent

[Halo299]

today, my gf and i went to the grocery and then stopped off to get something to eat on the way home. We had a Role-playing game planed for tonight with a friend. My GF was driving because she wanted the practice. She has avoided learning to drive her whole life and currently has a learners permit, but drives as well as i do.

we were crossing a rather busy intersection (we had a green light). A girl ran a stop sign and slammed into us on the driver's side right behind the front left tire. The force of the impact knocked us across the intersection and almost into another car, but my GF was able to avoid most of the impact. We only scraped their front bumper.

Instead we went forward over a curb (and stop sign) where we at last came to a stop in a bank parking lot.

No one was hurt.

I have insurance and all that. but i am still really angry. I just bought this car in January and it was my first car (rather than having my parent's cars on permanent loan). I took good care of it and tried to keep it looking good and clean, and i do not appreciate some little punk assed kid breaking it. I take it very personally and feel very upset that my car has a broken axle now just because some girl doesn't know what those giant red signs at intersections mean.

To make the whole thing worse, this happened right before finals week when i have a shit ton of stuff to do.

This whole thing happened less than an hour ago and i am still rather upset about it, so hopefully when things calm down and i can talk to my insurance company i'll feel better.

On an interesting note, remember the car we scraped? that guy got a ticket for driving on expired tags.

-halo

[Xero]

today, my gf and i went to the grocery and then stopped off to get something to eat on the way home. We had a Role-playing game planed for tonight with a friend. My GF was driving because she wanted the practice. She has avoided learning to drive her whole life and currently has a learners permit, but drives as well as i do.

thats fucking scary

we were crossing a rather busy intersection (we had a green light). A girl ran a stop sign and slammed into us on the driver's side right behind the front left tire.

then insurance will take one look and it will be their fail

I have insurance and all that. but i am still really angry. I

I take it very personally and feel very upset that my car has a broken axle now just because some girl doesn't know what those giant red signs at intersections mean.

I find it pathetic that some examiners just pass girls 'cause they show TnA, I happen to know a few girls that go their licenses that way...
and it goes a long way to explain all the bad drivers I see on the road(90%+ are female btw)

To make the whole thing worse, this happened right before finals week when i have a shit ton of stuff to do.

yeah its bullshit
and if you don't get all the insurance and medical exams done(insurance should pay for them and its a good thing to get anyways just incase) it gets harder and harder to collect on it

[Halo299]

thanks guys.

i am up really early because i couldn't sleep. I'll be calling the insurance today. I have a bruise on my elbow that wasn't there when i went to bed, i can only assume it was wreck related.

-halo

[Lulujayne]

That's horrid Halo, I'm sorry to hear that, however, thanks to some form of tentacled elder god that none of you were hurt.

[RevChris77]

I'm glad to hear you're both ok.

Definitely talk to your insurance company, and do everything they recommend to make sure your side of the story is well documented.

I remember my first "real" accident. Guy in a small foreign car (older model sentra, I think) t-boned my ford ranger, and while I was talking to one of the witnesses, he was picking up the pieces of his car, and then jumped in it and drove off! When the cops showed up, they followed the trail of coolant until it stopped, and never did find the car.

[PopeMac]

Sorry to hear about the car, but at least nobody was hurt. I've never gotten into a serious accident, though I've seen several happen right in front of me while I was driving. I still don't understand how some people can be so oblivious to everything that they run straight into another car without even slowing down.

Also, as far as losing your first car goes, I know how you feel. My first car had belonged to my parents, and I was going to pay them back for it as soon as I made some money. I was a little banged up, and it made some funny noises, but it seemed to be holding up fine and my parents had never had any trouble with it. Less than half a year after I got my drivers license, my mom decided to drive my car because the roads were bad and she didn't want to risk messing up her new car, which was understandable, especially since I still hadn't paid for it yet. Five minutes after she left, she called and talked to my dad. When he hung up, he told me we had to go pick her up because my car was on fire. When I got there my car no longer had an engine. Apparently a lot of older model Camries (pre-2000) have an engine defect that makes them randomly burst into flames if you drive them too much.

tl;dr - if you buy an older model Camry, be prepared for it to die a horrible flaming death.

[Aeridus]

*hugs Halo* At least you're alive.

I've been in a couple accidents that were a bit rough, one was someone else hitting our van from the side and another in which I totaled a (different) van by making a turn too fast and whacking a sewer drain. At least nobody got hurt in either incident.

[Demus]

Good to hear that both you and your girlfriend are all right. It could have easily been alot worse.

[Putaro]

Well, thankfully you didn't have any injuries.

The best accident I ever had was somewhat similar to yours. I was driving a rental car, a red Chevy Cavalier (this is back in the early 90's), in Cleveland. Light turned green, I went and this lady just blew through her red light and hit my car on the left front tire, spinning me around and leaving the car undriveable.

Fortunately, I wasn't hurt and neither was she (though she had just gotten the car back from the body shop after getting the damage from her last accident repaired and said her husband was going to kill her). I called the rental car company, they showed up about a half an hour later with another red Chevy Cavalier and a tow truck. I drove off in my replacement Cavalier and that was pretty much the end of my involvement.

If you're not injured it's not the accident that sucks so much as dealing with all the aftermath. Even if the insurance company pays for a new car, they never pay for all of a new car, you've still got to deal with buying a new car or getting yours repaired. It's a big waste of time, a lot of stress and if some people would just learn to drive and obey the signals and signs we could cut the accident rate in half.

[Halo299]

thanks for all the nice thoughts guys.

the police report came in and the girl that hit me is the only one at at fault.

I was talking to her insurance company and the lady was kind of rude and very spiteful about the whole thing. but then when i mentioned i had a police report her attitude changed sharply and she became very nice and helpful. I am now in a rental car, 06 Mazda.

The rental is paid for through the 11th, so if i get my car back by then (or a new one) i'll be happy.

-halo

[Fnyunj]

Glad you're okay, Halo.

Fnyunj's tips for car accidents:

1. NEVER ADMIT IT WAS YOUR FAULT (at the scene). It is natural human behavior after the emotional shock and trauma of an accident to admit to things that were not your fault. So try to remember, going into it; just shut your fat mouth. Stick to basic traffic-law-related facts - light was red, light was green, there was or was not a stop sign, etc. Don't talk about your cell phone ringing. Don't talk about the sun shining in your eyes. Don't talk about ice on the pavement. Stick to the legal facts.

2. The #1 most important thing is to make sure the police report is accurate, and if the other driver broke the law, point out the facts to the cop. It is their duty to write the ticket - often they do not, until prompted. Even then they don't do it all the time, but the hack back at the police station who analyzes the report will look at the facts, and determine the official legal "blame".

3. Get a copy of the police report ASAP! Try to avoid talking to the insurance company until you have that report, and it's conclusion in your hot little hand.

4. Assess your health - a big proportion of injuries are not noticed right away; even things as serious as a broken neck. I know a guy who broke his neck in a truck rollover. He was on track to be a pro-football player. He was damn lucky he wasn't paralyzed from this injury, though he did lose enough function and mobility in his neck to end his football career. The shock and trauma of an accident can really freak you out. If you just understand this fact, you'll be way better off. Try to sit, and recall the actual impact(s), and remember how you bounced around inside the car, and try to recall what parts of your body made contact with the interior.

5. Know your legal rights; in some states, the at-fault person's insurance is often legally required to pay for a rental car while your car is in the shop. If that's true, don't let them weasel out of it. If they try to say it was your fault when it wasn't, then remind them of the conclusion of the police report. The insurance agent's job is to be a weasel. They will do whatever they can within the law (and sometimes outside of the law) to get out of paying. Don't let them get away with it. You pay your premiums! Make the fuckers pay!

* * * *

That said.

Every accident I've ever been in was my fault.

I've never hurt anyone. But I've wrecked 3 cars (of my own). Two of them, I was hot-rodding, driving recklessly. One of them was "legally" the other guy's fault (turning left, oncoming - but I should not have gunned it at the yellow light; I thought I would beat him, that he would not be able to move so fast on the ice - I knew there was ice there, and I should have been driving a lot more slowly). I've also had two other accidents where I really should have been killed, and came out alright. (one where I drove off a 15' cliff, and for some reason, the car landed upright - I just drove it out of there, other where I hit a snow enbankment at 50 mph, and the car just cushed-into it. It took 2 hours to dig it out!) The Illinois Attorney General personally signed a letter to me, telling me I was a menace to society, and that I had one strike left before my license was revoked for 5 years. I didn't mellow out, as a driver, until I was about 30.

Now, my wife tells me I'm a "boring" driver. (I still kick her ass on the track though). I haven't had a ticket in 10 years. I've never been hit by another driver where I wasn't doing something unsafe (though you can be a perfectly safe driver, and get hit by an asshole (like me) or a flake).

Though: I have also been hit by cars on my bicycle 3 times. Twice, sideswiped, and once cut-off. Every time was a potential fatal situation, given the speed, and I was able to bail safely, with nothing worse than a few lacerations. This is why I do not bicycle on the road anymore, and I only mountain bike. Roads are too damn dangerous.

It sucks to lose a cherished car. It also sucks to get slammed with high insurance rates to "pay off" an accident that was your fault.
Worst suckage had to be my wife's most recent accident (not her fault - though she SWORE it was for about two hours after the accident until I heard the whole story, told her it wasn't her fault - police agreed). She had been trying to sell her truck, because she hated paying for the gas guzzler. Then she got into this accident, and the truck repair was like $500 away from the total value, so the insurance company insisted on repairing it instead of totalling it out. What sucked for them, was paying for her rental for four weeks, definitely pushed their payout higher than it would have been if they'd just totaled the damn thing. Good thing was; there was a big glob of tree-sap on the hood that we couldn't get off - now she has a new hood. Truck looks nicer than when we bought it in 2003. Unfortunately, nobody wants to buy it because the record says it was in an accident and repaired.

If they had totalled the truck, they could have just written us a check, and she could have bought the Prius she wanted.

[Fnyunj]

. . . When I was in my 20's, I wanted to write a book; "how to drive like an asshole."

I used to deliver pizza - and drive a cab. And I fucking drove like a maniac. Around where I lived (Chicago Western Suburbs) - you HAD to drive like an asshole, or just passively "wait-in-line" - because the roads were like 200% over their engineered capacity with traffic, most hours of the day. People were so. . . just BEATEN DOWN, that when the light turned green, they wouldn't fucking GO, because they knew that 50 feet further on, was another red light to wait at.

As I drove and worked, I thought about driving, a LOT. Strategies for getting ahead in traffic. For keeping slow people from getting in front of you. For watching to see which lane was best when coming to a light. Which cars were more likely to be a pain in your rear. Which drivers were more likely to be a pain in your rear. I was going to write the book in three parts. Freeway driving. Residential driving. And Suburban driving.

One of my pet-peeves was how suburban housing divisions were designed with meandering, circular streets, so that there were no through streets. This was to make it inconvenient for anyone using the street as a means to get from point-a to point-b. Good for the property values for houses in the neighborhood. Bad for anyone trying to get anywhere. I've got no end of frustrations of how suburbia is designed from inception, to waste gasoline and time.

I don't think so much about this stuff anymore. I guess I've mellowed with age.

[Wipperwill]

Well, glad you are not hurt. Blessings and all that.

Don't let your girl get afriad of driving, it wasn't anything she did.