|
|
This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
|
|
Author
|
Topic: My First Car Accident
|
Joe Redifer
You need a beating today
Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99
|
posted 12-16-2007 05:08 AM
Well I got into my first car accident ever tonight (actually last night around 11:50pm MST). Not fun. I was coming home from a friend's house and had a green light at the fateful intersection. Some person(s) coming the opposite way decided it would be a great idea to turn left on a red arrow as I approached at or near 40mph. See crappy illustration below:
I hit them really hard. Both airbags deployed. My car (which I loved) is totaled. One payment away from being 100% mine, too! Anyway I never lost consciousness and I cussed for about 20 seconds or so before getting out of the car. Someone else was already calling the police. The SUV-type vehicle that was hit also had its airbags deployed, both doors open and nobody around. The driver and passenger had apparently fled... on foot! At first I thought the vehicle must have been stolen, why else would they flee on foot? But they were caught and it turns out the driver was unlicensed and a minor (14, maybe?). The registered owner of the vehicle was the passenger but the police were not 100% sure they had insurance. Probably not, knowing my luck. Alcohol was not involved in any way, apparently.
I hit the vehicle really, really hard. It was not fun. It still is not fun. I loved my car (2003 Honda Civic EX). I used to pat that thing on the chassis telling it we were going somewhere and things like that. When I got out after the wreck and saw the massive front-end damage, I patted my car goodbye, knowing that it could never be driven again. As for me, I was taken to the hospital, treated and released. I am scraped up on my hands from the airbag deployment and a little bit on the face. It feels like I've been hit in the chest with a freakin' bowling ball. The doctors saw no reason to believe that I was permanently damaged or required to stay at the hospital, but they did say that I will be extremely sore for awhile in the chest. I can still smell the airbags, hear the crash and all of that. The two people they caught running away were apparently taken to the same hospital I was, though I never saw them. It was the same hospital I was born in, so obviously I recognized my old room and nursery, etc.
On the way home from the hospital we drove by the scene of the accident, just because I wanted to face it immediately and not have that looming in the future. They did a nice job cleaning it up so fast. I have to get my car replaced. I am not looking forward to going through all of that red tape. I am glad to have walked away and all that, but still if I had left 30 seconds sooner or later... the world is full of "what ifs". I'm still shaken up to some extent, and only time can heal that wound. I hope it doesn't take forever.
Thanks for listening.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 12-16-2007 08:54 AM
Sorry about the now deceased car, but surely the important thing is that you're OK. From the way you describe it, I guess it's quite likely that the airbag saved your life. A full impact at 40mph dissipates a hell of a lot of energy.
Despite only being 34, I've been involved in three road accidents, one train accident and, earlier this year, an aviation incident which could have become an accident, but thankfully didn't.
The first car accident was about 3-4 months after I passed my test, in 1994. I was driving back to university, and right at the end of the six-hour drive I turned right (i.e. across the oncoming carriageway, given that we drive on the left in the UK) into the main entrance of the campus, and was hit by an oncoming car which I'd failed to realise was so close. It was very foggy, on an unlit rural road (the campus was out of town) and it was my mistake pure and simple: I thought the oncoming car was further away than it actually was. No-one was hurt, but both cars were knackered. The other one was brand-new, top of the range BMW as well! The policeman who attended explained that the last few minutes of a long drive is a peak risk period for accidents, because you're back on familiar roads, anticipating getting to your destination and letting your eye off the ball. I've always tried to force myself to pay extra attention towards the end of long drives since, and will sometimes make a coffee stop about an hour short of my destination. Thankfully I was in my first year of driving and didn't lose my no claims bonus, because I hadn't accumulated one!
The second accident was driving home from work in Middlesbrough in 2003. Middlesbrough is a very economically depressed, former steelmaking city with an extremely high crime rate. A rusty old black BMW (why do I always have trouble with BMWs?) turned right out of a side street and smack into the side of my car as I was passing. None of the five occupants of the BMW could speak a word of English. I rang the Police on my mobile, who said that if there were no injuries there was no need for them to attend: I should just swap insurance details with the other party, and that was that. So I took photos (I always keep a disposable camera in the car for such eventualities), took his number and called the RAC, who came and towed our cars away. My insurers later discovered that the BMW had been registered as having been scrapped in 1997, and that if their previous experience of dealing with accidents in that part of town was anything to go by, its occupants were probably all illegal immigrants. So bang went my no claims, but at least no-one was hurt.
The third accident was in a hire car on a business trip to Germany. I was queuing at a junction to join the autobahn hear Hahn airport, when a lady - yet again, in a BMW!!! - went smack into the back of me. She was paying more attention to her mobile phone conversation than the road in front of her at the time. The police were brilliant, and sorted everything out with the hire company. They also told me that if her mobile phone records proved that she was making a call at the time of the accident (the precise moment of which would be determined by footage from a CCTV camera covering the junction), she'd be looking at three to six months behind bars.
The rail accident I was in was this one. I was in the rear carriage and was unhurt. Bizarrely, this might be a case of smoking being good for one's health. I was in the rear carriage because it's the smoking carriage and the colleague I was with wanted a fag. I wanted a coffee, which you buy from a carriage further forward, and we agreed to go and get one after he'd had his fag. All but one of the deaths, and many of the very serious injuries, happened in the carriage which had the coffee bar in it.
The air incident was in September this year, on my way to a conference in Rochester, NY. The Minneapolis to Rochester plane had started its take-off roll and then aborted it about 15 seconds in, slamming on the brakes VERY hard. Luggage fell out of the overhead racks and the experience was pretty alarming! The pilot later explained that he'd been given permission to take off in error, as a plane which had just landed on the same runway had failed to vacate it. Flight attendants then replaced the luggage, checked that no-one had been hurt and then the plane made a second, successful attempt to take off. This surprised me a little bit - I thought that brake pads, etc. would probably have to be checked over after an emergency stop like that, but apparently not. The airport had been closed for about an hour before we left because of a thunderstorm, so I suspect they were trying to get as many flights in an out as they could, in order to clear the backlog. It was still quite scary, though.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
|
posted 12-16-2007 12:07 PM
Leo, you really do seem to have been most unlucky to have been in no less than four accidents in your relatively short life so far. I've been in one road accident, a very minor one, which resulted in nothing worse than a broken side-light, and I've also been on a train which ran into a fixed, i.e. not hydraulic or friction so it could move to absorb the energy, buffer stop at about 2-3 m.p.h. I was standing at the time, and it was quite a jolt, even at that speed; I wouldn't want to do it any faster.
Between 1978 and December 1982 I did have a car, it was a 1967 Morris 1100. I never wanted to drive, but my Mother insisted that I should. I drove a total of not much more than 1000 miles in the four and a half years or so that I had the car, and 300 miles of that was on one day, the only long trip that I ever made. An aunt of mine, who lived in Chard, Somerset, had died and we went down to collect some things from the house. I doubt if I'd ever driven for more than half an hour at a time before, and certainly nothing like this distance. On the way back we were somewhere on the outskirts of London, had taken a wrong turn, and I wasn't sure where we were going. I wanted to stop, but mother wanted to carry on, and get home. I knew I was a bit tired, but really didn't realise that I was almost asleep, until I actually drove off the side of the road, at which point I insisted on stopping. The only real difference between the way I was driving and The driver at Great Heck was that I came off the road at a time and place where it didn't do any harm, but it could easily have been different; I learned a lesson that day.
I stopped driving a year or so later, when car and mother both expired at about the same time, and I never want to drive again, I either walk, use public transport so somebody else can do the driving, or I don't go. Most of the placces that I actually need to go are within walking distance, or a bus ride.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 12-16-2007 03:45 PM
quote: Stephen Furley
...and I've also been on a train which ran into a fixed, i.e. not hydraulic or friction so it could move to absorb the energy, buffer stop at about 2-3 m.p.h. I was standing at the time, and it was quite a jolt, even at that speed; I wouldn't want to do it any faster.
They are very heavy objects with a lot of energy to dissipate, which can dissipate in very unexpected ways if it's done by any other means than applying the brake! There was an incredible side-to-side vibration in the carriage I was in at Selby as it slowed down extremely quickly. Bags and stuff flew off luggage racks, and one of the passengers who was standing at the time broke his arm. If more passengers had been standing - for example, if the crash had happened only a couple of minutes after leaving York station, when people were still finding somewhere to sit - I'm sure there would have been a lot more serious injuries. I later heard that all the people who died were standing at the moment of impact (all but one in the queue for the coffee bar, which is where we would have been if I'd got my way), and can well believe it. While I'm not convinced that seat belts would have helped an awful lot, I am convinced that standing on fast, long-distance trains should be outlawed.
quote: Stephen Furley
I stopped driving a year or so later, when car and mother both expired at about the same time, and I never want to drive again, I either walk, use public transport so somebody else can do the driving, or I don't go. Most of the placces that I actually need to go are within walking distance, or a bus ride.
I don't especially enjoy driving either: but outside London I'm afraid I'm not in that position. And even when there is a public transport alternative, it's always a lot more expensive and a lot less convenient than driving. So, despite the added safety benefit (and I admit that statistically, I'm very, very unusual in having been involved in a train crash) of public transport, I'm prepared to take the risk of driving for the cost and convenience.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic