Car accidents - a poll

Depends at fault or no fault?

I've never, hit anyone, but several have hit me! Not lately though PTL!

 

I have been in several, only two times while driving. Neither one was my fault, but I did get cited at one for my license being expired.

 

It is amazing how quickly those parts add up.

A few people have bumped into me from behind, but they never get past my trailer hitch. And I never make them file, if they don't want to.

 

Never in one where I was at fault.

First one: I was a passenger and seated in back. It's not one I like to think about.

Second one: The wonderful driver was a male driving in winter with a good snow snow going on, driving down a road I knew quite well. I warned him about a sharp, blind turn coming up and he laughed at me and said if it was that bad, there would be a sign. He didn't slow down and...didn't see the turn coming and smashed us into the guardrail. (WHY do people always expect the government to save them from every possible hazard?! Maybe if you LOOK where you're going instead of depending on government agencies to warn you of every twist and turn in life...)

Third one: I was driving down the road and a teenage girl came flying out of one of those long country driveways in a giant pick-up truck and didn't even pause, smashed right into the side of the car and thankfully nobody was hurt...all three of my girls were pretty young and all in the car. I tore through my seatbelt reaching backwards and managed to rip my oldest (she was by the window on the side the truck was hitting) right out of her seatbelt and away from the door. Everyone was pretty impressed with that one. LOL My body wasn't...and her insurance company wasn't too happy with her.

Fourth one: I had just come to a complete stop at a stop sign and a lady speeding behind me couldn't stop in time not to hit me. She said she was in a rush to work and apologized profusely. I felt bad for her and told her to just go to work.

Fifth one: I wasn't even there! My car was parked in a parking lot. Someone slid into it and caused damage. He left a note with his name and number, said he hit it, and when I called, apologized and said he was fully at fault and would pay all the costs. His insurance company came and took photos and such and then called me and said they'd pay for half. I was ticked, but didn't have the money to go to court over it, so I said okay and they sent a check for half. Then I got a bill for half of HIS damages, which were much more extensive than mine and they tried to say that by cashing the check for half the cost of mine, it was the same as admitting to my being responsible for half of his. I called him and his daddy answered...daddy was a lawyer who went off on me big time, claiming I couldn't prove I wasn't there or that I hadn't run into HIM. I was completely horrified. I called the insurance company and the lady who answered sounded very sheepish and said from the photos and the note, she couldn't do what they wanted her to and told me not to worry about it and that was that. I hope she didn't lose her job for doing the right thing.

Where we live now, there are lots of drunk and high people driving and the rest are on their phones texting or talking, it's really horrible. There is very little police enforcement in our particular area, not nearly enough to even begin to touch the horrific problem. Seems at least one local person a day dies in a car accident or is hurt pretty bad. It's to the point where I'm getting scared to even go anywhere because at least once a trip, it seems we have to slam on the brakes for someone pulling out ahead of us while texting away on their phones or someone ahead swerving across the center lane. I've never, ever driven in a place this bad and you're talking to someone who has been in Los Angeles, NYC, downtown Cleveland OH, drove daily for a few years on the Redwood Highway through OR (supposed to be about the deadliest road there is) and NOTHING has compared to the sheer stupidity I see on the roads here. City roads and teens are slamming their brakes to make their cars spin...they're not even bothering to THINK, let alone worrying about the safety of others or even themselves.
I'm waiting for us to get slammed. Seems about inevitable and it's bad enough that sometimes I just have to sit there and cry if it's a really bad day for traffic. (that's why I won't drive out there, I let DH handle it, I can't)
Ugh.

 

2 here, neither my fault. Passenger in one accident, young girl hit my then future wife's car from behind at 35 mph while we were stopped at a red light. She told the cop she was playing with the radio, uninsured...and he let her walk She got an attitude to boot. I was driving and bent the steering wheel 45 degrees back toward me from pressing the brake so hard trying to keep from hitting the car in front of us.

 

Praise the Lord, I've only had one traffic ticket in about 40 years of driving. But that was a doozy.

Pulled out of a fast food joint at an intersection. Had to cross 3 lanes of traffic and then make an immediate left turn across 3 more lanes. Long story short, read the light wrong. Turn lane was red. Got t-boned on the passenger side. I wouldn't have made it, had the impact been on the driver side.

More points added to my insurance, but no ticket, when I hit a patch of ice on a bridge and took the bridge abutment head on. Totaled the front end. That hit convinced me to wear a seat belt from then on. BTW, my car ended up in the median. While I was gone to call (no cell phones then) another driver hit the ice and totaled the back end. His insurance paid for the back end and mine for the front.

Slowed down to get around an accident scene in the edge of the highway. Rubber necker behind me ploughed into me at full speed. Cops at the scene saw her hit me, so at least that part was simple. She got the ticket, no questions asked.

Shoulda answered the poll 4-5 as I remember two more. Driving around another fast food joint, a woman backed out of her parking place and hit the left rear quarter panel. Impact scared her and she pressed the gas rather than hitting the brake. She just kept pushing. Again, I was fortunate.

I wasn't driving when a fellow pulling a boat couldn't stop for a red light and did a number on my new car. Lied to the cops about his insurance. Thank the Lord I had uninsured motorist insurance or that one would have been a big chunk of change out of my pocket.

Annsni, glad to hear the injuries were minor.

 

That is awful. Poor guy.

I had a woman slam into me head-on, after losing control of her car. I was driving myself to radiation treatments for my cancer. The cop who came was a childhood friend of mine, but he still had to write me up for the expired lisence. I ended up getting enough money to buy another used car, and I wasn't hurt.

Car accidents are scary, scary things. My brother and I were looking at his car, after a man ran thru a redlight and hit him broadside at 45 mph, unable to believe anybody could have lived thru it. And I've had friends die in cars that looked hardly touched.

 

I've been in three. I've been hit twice by people failing to stop (one red light and one stop sign), and I slid one time and hit someone from behind on a wet road. Thank God, no one was injured in any of them.

 

I've been blessed in never having had an accident in 40 years of driving. I've been a passenger, in my younger years, in a couple, and my husband had enough accidents in his younger years that it's a miracle any insurance company will speak to him! LOL. The results of one of his accidents cost him a kidney and his spleen.

Now, we're the ones driving the big boat of a car in the pokey lane on the interstate, letting everyone else pass us driving like madmen. We stopped being in such a hurry years ago....it doesn't get you there any faster. We've both grown a respect for speed and automobiles, living on a road where someone flips their car and is killed about twice a year because they're driving too fast on this narrow two-lane road.

 

I have had several bingles. Mostly in the rear vision line.....I am sorry but trees speed grow where I am reversing. Insurers are never happy as they cannot get money out of trees. The most recent was several years ago in a shopping carpark where I think the other guy and I simultaneously reversed...I park as far as possible from the entrance and leg it over to the shop....nothing the matter with my legs.