Ouch, My Car - This is the Thread Where You Tell Me About Your Car Accidents So I Don't Feel So Stupid

Only car accident I've ever had, but a stupid one: Was in my parent's car in high school, me and my sister were driving to the drive-through burger place to get some food. I pulled up into the lane to get our food, realized I was too far from the window. So I backed up some, trying to get a better angle, but somehow drove up onto this median thing opposite the window and (apparently) scraped a pole. I didn't hear anything crack or crumple, but my sister got out and said, "Nick, this looks really bad. There's a big dent here." I thought she was joking. But I got out and looked, and sure enough, there was a good-sized dent in my parents car. I had to help pay to get it fixed, which was fun since I didn't have a job, only an allowance.

Evacuating New Orleans cause of Hurricane Georges; had waited until the very day of evacuation, the day before they locked up the city, because my fiancee-of-the-time was teaching and UNO was stingy about what days they'd give off. (i.e., this particular day was one instructors could opt to take off, provided they made it up by teaching a Saturday class during finals period.)

Took us 13 hours to drive from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, which is normally an hour and a half away. So we're tired as fuck, frustrated with that gridlock frustration, and when things thin out a little past Red Stick we hook into a truck stop to get some food. After we eat, we're at the light to turn onto the on-ramp to get back on the highway, and it's a yield. There's a truck in the oncoming lane, and he stops for us, so we turn ... and hit/get hit by the car we didn't see because the truck was blocking the view.

We had a dent in our bumper; they had a dent in their driver's-side back door.

The lawsuit -- the woman driving the car sued us for damage to the car, damage for preexisting medical conditions, emotional trauma because her son didn't make the football team, loss of employment, etc. -- lasted a year and a half.

Btw, I meant the litigious cunt who sued Tep.

there was no damage, though, and she was very nice about it.

what happened with sarah's car?

She was more shaken up than I was! A fireman (coming out of the Mickey D's next door) saw the accident and called the ambulance on his frequency. I was rushed to the hospital in the next town, in case of broken bones. Hurt like hell, but turns out I only had a sprain. Had to hobble on a cane for a month. Going out clubbing was a damn journey in itself.

Question: Can you sue the guy, or did he get away?

So I get out of the car and go to check on her. She's bawling into her car phone but looks ok. I go and wait on the curb. Local police arrive and take my statement. I notice that a person I guess is the woman's husband has arrived. After comforting her he goes over and begins a friendly conversation with the cop that took my statement. Too friendly in fact, turns out they know each other.

Next day I pick up the accident report and according to the cop my car was square in the middle of the road and somehow upon impact took a 50 degree turn into the ditch that we ended up in, violating all laws of physics. Also somehow there is skidmarks to prove this despite the fact that her car had anti-lock brakes and marks the cars left in the grass prove the angle was much less severe. Needless to say I'm upset.

So I go to a lawyer friend and she looks it over for me. "How old was she?" she asked. "Oh around 40 something" I reply. "And how old are you?" "I'm 21." She then informs me the court will never take the word of a 21 year old male over both the cop and a 45 year old female with a clean driving record, no matter how much evidence I dredge up. The lawyer gets me out of the points but I still take the ticket and therefore the blame and therefore a huge insurance surcharge for the next 3 years on top of the fact that my insurance now won't re-imburse me for my car because of our state's insurance laws and I'm a poor college student who was hoping his summer job would finance living expenses and not another used car.

I'm still upset about that whole sequence of events.

It didn't help that when they took it to the mechanic this morning, he looked at it, whistled and said "DAMN."

This weekend me and my boy walk outside about noon to find the front and back windshields of my car covered in cardboard and packing tape. My next door neighbor had left in the middle of the night, drunk, and smashed this guy's van on his way out. Since we're always hanging out together the guy decided to plaster this huge note on *my* car saying he had called the police etc. I was mortified. My neighbor still owes me a car washing muthafucka. .

I think it's cursed! (Or I am...)

The mechanic called me and said it's not as bad as I think it is, but won't say yet how much he thinks it will cost.

Really? That could be a positive sign...less than $500.

Sarah's not alone then. Happened to one of my friends,too....while I was still inside. Goes like this:

My friend and I had gone to see the band JJ72 at the Bowery Ballroom (lower Manhattan). Course, this was the night I came down with the flu. (Hard to rock, when you have a fever of 102.) Anyway, I'd decided to stay at her house, since I'd had to go to work the next day. The only way to get to the Bronx from there is over the GW Bridge.

She had borrowed her father's van to drive us there. Since I felt like shit, I decided to lie down in the back and take a nap. Apparently, while she was driving, she began to see smoke. She thought it was the radiator needing water. By the time she pulled over, the front of the van caught fire.

She leaped out, and ran to the passenger side to open the door for me. I opened my eyes and couldn't see (cause of the smoke). I began to cough from the smell of burning rubber from the tires. I could hardly see her pointing down to the door handle from outside.

Luckily, I found it and leaped out. In the 40 seconds it probably took for us to trot down the road, the former van went up like a Roman candle.

Irony? Her father planned to sell it the next week.

No way. Minor damage to him is less than $500. This means maybe under $5000.

(lately everybody I know has been having serious car issues. I got in a wreck, my friend Luke damaged both rims and both tires last Friday coming home from the FAP, Helltime had to get his xmission rebuilt, my pal Nick got his Mercury totalled coming out of a parking lot, the list goes on - and this is all in the last three weeks.)

You are an angel.

(Guess how much this impressed my passenger.)

Guess how much love Sean got from his folks, when they saw their car.

Dan: paying the deductible for the insurance certainly felt like that kind of "love".

Except nobody got hurt. I was new to cell phone AND car ownership, junior in high school, and driving in the ice and snow on a Saturday morning on my way to my little part time job in the mall, holding the phone to my ear with one hand, hot coffee in my lap, fiddling with the radio with the other hand (yes, I was young and foolish.) I was coming up on an intersection where I needed to make a left turn when the car began to skid on the ice; I completely lost control and slip-slided over the dividing line, where two oncoming cars avoided hitting me within inches ... then I slid back onto the correct side of the street where I (miraculously, and not of my own power) wove past two other cars and barely avoided collisions. Then my car was out in the middle of the intersection; it slowly turned in a circle and then came to rest pointing in the direction of the street I was going to turn on anyway. Dazed, I pressed the gas and proceeded down the street without incident, having not spilled a drop of coffee, still holding the phone to my ear (where I had been going "Uhhhnnn ... uhnnnnn ... uhhnnnnn ..." into my then-boyfriend's ear for about a minute or so).

That's my happy car-incident story. I later totaled that car (a Ford Escort grampa gave me) but that, as they say, is a whole 'nother story. And I don't talk on my cell phone while driving anymore, btw.

My stupidest= getting into the car in the morning in my parking garage, and turning too quickly on my way backing out=> I hit my mirror on a concrete pillar & snapped it completely off. The guys at the garage near my house told me to drink more coffee before I got into the car the next morning, since I didn't see the pillar at all until it had cracked off the mirror.

nikki

Also had two that weren't my fault, but in both cases the offender's insurance company fought harder than mine and I had to pay the ductible to fix my car.

so cheer up.

My sister's car fire: She was on her way into the city with her best friend to do some school shopping. He had piled a BUNCH of returns in the bed of his low-rider truck, which was also tricked-out with a massively expensive sound-system. They drove over what they thought was a piece of cardboard. It wasn't a piece of carboard. And then the truck started making an odd sound, so her friend pulled-off to the side of the road. My sister opened her door and flames came licking-up over the frame. They both bailed out and truck actually exploded (and started a nice little fire, too). When the cops and fire and other emergency personnel, they were asking for ID information (both my sister and her friend had left their ID's in the truck, and they were now melted goop). Well, my sister and her best friend happened to have the same birthday, and the cops were convinced that they both had concussions because they had the same address and same birthdate, but weren't twins.

Oh, and my aunt burned-down part of a national forest by forgetting to put oil in her car.

And my friend of the 'driveway' story backed out of my driveway one night and instead of turning the wheel backed right into my neighbors truck, damaging two pannels (her car had tail fins!). She put her car into drive, pulled forward a bit, then went into reverse and hit the truck for a second time! She later said that she couldn't hear the collision because she had the music on too loud. That did not help her case.