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Ever been involved in a Car Accident?

Started by KEK Inc., June 02, 2012, 08:24:59 PM

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KEK Inc.

So my car at the time was the little white piece of shit Mercury Mystique (aka Ford Mondeo/Contour) on the right. On the left is a girl's jeep. Notice how I'm parallel to the line, and she's skewed.  :spin:



Randomly in the middle of senior year of high school, she decides to park as close as possible to my car to make it inconvenient for me to get out. (We had this little mini-prank war going on.   :pan:) Anywho, one day, I got back from lunch with a friend. After I parked, my friend and I go into the trunk to retrieve our backpacks. As I retrieved my backpack, the car shakes...   :ded:

The funny thing is, the people in her car were well aware of what happened, and she was oblivious.   :clap:

Fortunately, it didn't do noticeable damage, and the car I was driving at the time was pretty much worthless as it is, so I didn't bother to file a claim.

---
I've never been in one officially behind the wheel. I'm relatively good at accident avoidance, and I've avoided a few would-be accidents in my time, but there were a couple times a Portland bicyclist almost forced me into one when I was volunteering down there.  Bicycle laws aren't enforced in Portland from my experiences.   

Once, I was driving back from a friend's zoo (he has 2 dogs that shed and I'm allergic) at 5:30 AM due on an early Sunday morning.  While I was able to breathe after a couple of minutes of being outside and in my car, I also got relaxed with the car's heater, and I almost fell asleep on SR-500 just east of I-205 in Vancouver. I did drift through the rumble bars, but all of the roads were empty fortunately, and I corrected myself before I would go off the shoulder.  About 500ms after I drove over the rumble strips, I was blasting classic rock/metal with the air conditioning and windows down.  :sombrero:

---
As a kid, my parents were involved in a few where I was in the car. 

One was on CA-85 in South San Jose.  We were in the family van, and some woman with her brick cell phone (this was the late 90s) crashed into us almost orthogonal to our car.   :pan:  Because we were in a van, the damage wasn't too noticeable.  I was roughly 6-8. 

On the way back from a vacation to Yosemite on CA-120, we approached a stop light in Oakley.  The guy behind us wasn't paying attention, and hit us at 40 MPH.   :pan:  Fortunately, damage was relatively minimal.  I believe I was 7-10 at the time. 

---
So I guess, share any experiences you had or maybe even witnessed.  I honestly don't remember witnessing a major wreck. 
Take the road less traveled.


texaskdog

I've totalled 3 cars in my life, though ironically never caused an accident that wasn't an "act of God".  Hit (and killed) a deer in 1997.  Drove the car home 40 miles.  Mom fixed it and then totalled it again 8 months later, for good.  Car #2, some idiot made a right turn from the left lane and totalled my car in 2003.  Drove mine home but he had a flat and couldn't drive away.  Totalled yet fixed that one too, drove it til 2009 when it died.  6 months ago some guy rearended me at a T-intersection, totalled the car, fixed it, though I had to fix the transmission 6 weeks later, and the trunk, finally today, won't close. 

Duke87

Define "accident". Police reports exist with me named for four accidents, two of which were my fault (all of them were minor with no injury resulting and damage measured only in hundreds). Though, I've been in a few other minor scrapes which weren't reported. You know how easy it is to clip someone's mirror on a narrow street in New York? All it takes is someone being double parked and leaving you basically no room to squeeze by.

And, if you want to stretch the technical definition, I've been in too many "accidents" to count: when parallel parking in NYC, it is normal and acceptable to slowly back up until you hear "thud", and then pull forward a bit. Legally, each instance of doing this or having this done to your car counts as an "accident". :spin:
If you always take the same road, you will never see anything new.

Takumi

In elementary school about 20 years ago, on the way home my bus rear-ended someone. Nobody was hurt, fortunately.
Quote from: Rothman on July 15, 2021, 07:52:59 AM
Olive Garden must be stopped.  I must stop them.

Don't @ me. Seriously.

Brandon

Unfortunately yes.

1. Jan 27, 2002.  Driving north on Western Avenue on the border of Chicago and Evergreen Park, IL.  I'm slowing in the left turn lane to turn into Evergreen Plaza.  The signal is red, and the turn lane is empty, so I should have enough room to slow and stop safely from 30 mph.  All of the sudden, a Mazda 626 pops out from between two vehicle on the right.  I slow to 3 mph or so and hit it, removing part of the front bumper.  I stop, and both I and the other driver (an older black lady) get out.  She immediately accuses me: "You was speedin'!".  I try to assure her I was not, and it looked tense for a minute.  Both of us backed down when I backed away.  City of Chicago police arrive a few minutes later.  They ask me what happened; they ask her.  She says that the people waved her out.  The cop looks at her and says, "Lady, don't you know you're supposed to look first?".  She gets the ticket and I get my nearly new car fixed on  her insurance's dime.

2. Dec 8, 2009.  Driving south on Weber Road, between Division Street and Caton Farm Road (Crest Hill, IL) on a snowy, icy evening.  Now, I know this section can be icy due to the open fields on both sides.  Thus, I'm traveling with traffic at 25 mph, about 20 or more car lengths behind the next vehicle.  An asshole in a pickup truck speeds by, spinning out just in front of the vehicles in front of me.  He gets away cleanly, but causes both the cars near him to spin out.  I release the gas and apply the brake.  No ABS, and it wouldn't work on this ice anyway.  My only chance is to steer between oncoming traffic and the car spinning in my lane.Thus, I steer in that direction.  I get my vehicle slowed to under 5 mph and aimed where I want it.  However, by back end slides out just before reaching the still-spinning vehicle.  My right rear tire makes contact with his right headlight.  I have a bit of suspension damage; he has a broken headlight.  Crest Hill cop responds and has a hard time stopping himself.  He nearly spins out doing so and spooks a lady next to him when he turns on his lights.  The lady went over the curb into the ditch.  My car was towed to a body shop nearby (one I trust).  No one got a ticket due to the weather, but the road was closed until the county got its salt trucks out there (county yard is about a mile away on Caton Farm Road).  As it was, the insurance company even cut my deductible in half due to the weather.  The cop was amazed that I got my car to such a stop and nearly avoided the accident.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

hbelkins

^^^^^

Why the talk of tickets? What was the offense for in the first instance above? And why would a ticket have been justified in the second instance, if not for the weather?

As for me, every vehicle I've ever owned has had an insurance claim.

79 Old Cutlass: Someone backed into me at the post office. Dented a fender.

84 Chevy Camaro Z28: Swerved to avoid an animal and went into the ditch and ended up on my roof. This was within sight of my home so I crawled out and walked across the field to the house.

88 Chevy S-10 Blazer: Slid on a snowy/icy road after braking and hit a guardrail.

94 Saturn SC2: Had to have a body shop repair damage from a break-in where the thieves tried using a concrete block to smash the windshield (didn't work but it dented the hood) and then then they threw it through the passenger's side window. Also, I rear-ended a boat and it caused some damage to the front end and also broke my windshield.

00 Toyota Tacoma: My wife backed into it, damaging a turn signal/parking light and a fender.

08 Saturn Vue: I hit a deer last month, causing some minor front end damage. I haven't gotten that fixed yet as I'm waiting on the insurance adjustor to do his thing.

The highway safety people don't like the term "accident" when used to describe a vehicle mishap. They prefer "crash."


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

Brandon

HB, the offense in the first instance above (for mine) was a failure to yield to cross traffic coming out of a driveway.  She did not look first before proceeding, taking the waves from the two vehicles she went in front of as verification instead.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

vdeane

I don't understand the accident vs crash vs collision terminology debate.  Accident does not mean "random" like my driver's ed textbook would have you believe.  It means "not intentional".  I doubt very much that people involved in accidents intended to hit another car.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

1995hoo

Quote from: Takumi on June 02, 2012, 09:49:48 PM
In elementary school about 20 years ago, on the way home my bus rear-ended someone. Nobody was hurt, fortunately.

Mine too, I think when I was in the first grade. It had to be prior to fourth grade because we were approaching the old one-lane bridge on Woodburn Road in Fairfax County (long since replaced with a two-lane bridge) and the only time the school bus took that route was when I went to Pine Ridge Elementary, which the county closed after my third-grade year. Anyway, we were coming down the hill on the way home from school and the bus driver rear-ended a VW Beetle. The Beetle, of course, is a rear-engine design, which does not bode well when a larger vehicle like a school bus hits it, but I do not remember how much damage there was. Another bus happened to be coming by in the other direction and its driver stopped and took us all home. The funny thing is that I remember one of my friends saying that the bus creamed that car's trunk and I said, "That's the engine. A Bug has the engine in the back." How I knew that at six years old, given that my parents had a Volvo 165 sedan back in the 1970s, I have no idea.


Since I've been driving I've been in four major accidents and two minor ones; two of the accidents (the first two) were my fault and the others were all the other drivers'. The two that stick out most in my mind were (1) the first one (my fault) when I was 16 years old because I was driving my dad's car and he was in London on business at the time, and then when he got home I was away on a school trip to Norfolk (from which I considered just disappearing and not coming home); and (2) in 2004 on Russell Road in Alexandria when an 18-year-old girl somehow failed to notice the long line of cars stopped in front of her for a red light and drove into the back of my 1997 Accord at 25 mph or more. I don't know if she was distracted by the speed humps or playing with a mobile phone or what, but I have never been able to figure out how she didn't notice the stopped traffic ahead of her. Thankfully I don't "block the box," which meant I didn't slam into the car in front of me when she hit me, but she did over $7000 worth of damage and the insurance carriers declared the car a total loss. (I still remember how it burned me up that the cop's accident report was more focused on the damage to City of Alexandria property than on the damage to my car. When she hit me I spun the steering wheel to try to avoid the car across the intersection and as a result my car jumped a curb and knocked over a stop sign.)

Got a new car to replace the Accord and three months later a woman illegally talking on a hand-held cell phone backed into it in traffic on New York Avenue in DC (despite my constant LOUD honking....dumb bitch was so focused on her phone that she was oblivious) and I had to have the front bumper replaced. Second car in a row that happened to: I bought the 1997 Accord in August of 1999 and less than a month later I was at the end of a line of cars at a red light that had JUST turned green (so not everyone had gotten to move yet) and this Pakistani woman in a minivan rear-ended me and then tried to blame me for not moving when the light was green. The cop obviously found her at fault; before he got there, she tried to leave the scene. We were in front of a 7-11 and all the employees had seen what happened and I said, "If you do that, I'll ask all these witnesses to testify against you when I ask the cops to charge you with a hit-and-run." She stayed. Her cheap fucking insurance company (GEICO) gave me a piece of crap Ford Escort rental car for the period while my Accord was in the shop.

It all really underscores to me how much you're at the mercy of the other idiots on the road because you can do everything right and drive defensively and watch out for yourself and still get run into because so many people are just morons. More and more I'm coming to believe that here in the DC area it's a matter of when you're in a crash, not if. (Just seeing the number of cars that are now driven at night without headlights underscores it to me.....if we drive back from a Capitals game around 10:00 at night I usually see a minimum of five cars being driven without headlights.)
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

huskeroadgeek

I've been in several, all as a passenger, and all minor. In one that occurred when I was about 10 or 11, I was riding in the front seat and actually hit the windshield as I was not wearing my seatbelt. Fortunately, the car was traveling at a fairly slow rate of speed as it had just left a stoplight, so I only got a little bump on my head. It did leave a mark on the windshield though, which made it look worse than it was. To make it somewhat stranger, the accident occurred only a block from my house. I fortunately did learn a big lesson though-it scared me enough to make me sure to wear my seatbelt every time, which became second nature for me-it's the first thing I do after sitting down. Wearing my seatbelt likely saved me from injury on a few future accidents too.

One other side thing here on the use of the term "accident"-I don't know if anybody else has ever encountered this or maybe does it themselves, but I've noticed that some people(particularly in the South) use the term "wreck" for any kind of car accident regardless of damage incurred. To me, a "wreck" would imply that the car was wrecked and not just merely damaged, but I had a friend in college(from Tennessee) that used the term even for minor fender benders.

golden eagle

1. A woman backed into me in front of the student union at the University of Southern Mississippi
2. I rear-ended a woman in an Atlanta suburb. It was my fault
3. A driver made a sudden left turn in front of me on US 78 east of Atlanta
4. A woman rear-ended me at a traffic light, but there was no damage
5. Last month, someone backed into the driver side of my car, but drove off. I was at my cousin's house and when I was about to go home, I noticed damaged on my car. We didn't see or hear anything since we were in the back room of his house.

realjd

Quote from: texaskdog on June 02, 2012, 09:17:39 PM
I've totalled 3 cars in my life, though ironically never caused an accident that wasn't an "act of God".  Hit (and killed) a deer in 1997.  Drove the car home 40 miles.  Mom fixed it and then totalled it again 8 months later, for good.  Car #2, some idiot made a right turn from the left lane and totalled my car in 2003.  Drove mine home but he had a flat and couldn't drive away.  Totalled yet fixed that one too, drove it til 2009 when it died.  6 months ago some guy rearended me at a T-intersection, totalled the car, fixed it, though I had to fix the transmission 6 weeks later, and the trunk, finally today, won't close. 

If you fixed the car, it by definition wasn't totaled.

formulanone

#12
Quote from: realjd on June 03, 2012, 05:18:31 PM
If you fixed the car, it by definition wasn't totaled.

All "totalled" means is that the total cost to the insurance company for repairs to your vehicle is roughly greater than 70-80% of the car's current value. There is also an appeal process, for example, if a car requires paint/refinishing only, in which no/few mechanical repairs would otherwise hinder the car from functioning normally. (This happened to me after a hurricane pelted my car with tree branches and stones to my windows and paint.)

A title can also be "branded" as salvage, in which the car can be repaired after the insurance company sold the car after you agreed to settlement amount (typically to a third party), and then repurchase the same vehicle after all out-of-pocket repairs are performed to make it road-worthy.

I've crashed a few times, all but one mostly my fault. Haven't been in an accident since 2000. The "mostly" one involved me aquaplaning after hitting a puddle on I-95 in the rain, while going 55 mph. I had to turn the wheel because the road was curving to the right; when the car went into the next lane, I kind of had no choice but to turn the wheel, or hit the wall more or less head-on. The car did a perfect 180, and I hit the concrete barrier at probably 40 mph, enough to shatter the rear window, skew the right-rear wheel, and leave the trunklid in quite an open position.

CentralCAroadgeek

Since my dad is a relatively safe driver, we never really got into an accident until December 31, 2011. It was in Pacific Grove when my uncle and his family came over to visit. We were on our way to Lovers' Point in PG after visiting Big Sur. We were stopped at an all way and a Mercedes Benz rammed into us from behind. Even worse there was a downhill slope. The Mercedes was totaled. Fortunately, our Honda Pilot only suffered bumper damage, but the Mercedes was undrivable. My aunt called 911 and less than 2 minutes later (we were near downtown), emergency responders came, and luckily, no one was hurt. The driver of the Mercedes was really nervous and even smoked a cigarette at the sidewalk. I was in the car while my dad and uncle talked with a lady from the emergency responders. There was also a jogger who witnessed the crash. A couple from a nearby house also came to see the commotion. A couple weeks later, my dad took our Pilot to a repair shop and we used a rental car for a couple days.

corco

Knock on wood I haven't been in a serious accident yet, although I was involved in a hit and run when I was 16. I hit and she ran.

I was pulling out of my high school parking lot and bumped into the side of her Saturn driving down the road at low speed (I realized my mistake as I pulled out and managed to brake)- it caused no damage to my Jeep and put a small dent in the side of her car. She told me she was in a hurry and didn't have time for this and meet her at the Best Western at 3. She never showed up.

On an icy road once somebody pulled out of a parking lot right in front of me and I had the choice between rear ending them and going into the ditch- I drove safely into the ditch and didn't do any damage to my car, so they got lucky there.

Then in Tucson a couple months ago somebody did a u-turn right in front of me. I was in the inside lane, they u-turned into the outside lane and then changed into the inside lane at about 10 MPH with me about 10 feet behind them at about 45 MPH. There happened to be a curb cut there so I got one of my tires up onto the curb while braking hard, so I avoided any damage to either car, but we were inches away from a pretty significant wreck, so they got lucky there.

SP Cook

81 VW Rabbit - Got hit in a parking lot.

86 Chevy Celebrity - Hit a curb, broke the wheel and knocked the car out of line.  Hated that car.

92 Ford Tempo - Not paying attention and rear ended woman in drive thru. 

03 Toyota Camry - Stoner kid hit women behind me, knocking her into me (on December 23rd) at a stop light.  She was hurt and her car was totaled.  His insurance refused to total mine, spent 7 weeks in body shop.  Car was not the same, so I traded it off when I got it back.


mobilene

1989: 1989 Chevy Beretta, dude in an F-350 with an iron flatbed changed lanes into me.
1991: The Beretta again, slid off an icy road and a dude in a Cavalier slid off after me and into my passenger-side rear wheel.  The damage was repaired but it twisted the undercarriage a little. There was forevermore a spot in the front passenger footwell that when you pressed your foot into it, it popped like the safety "button" on the lid of a baby-food jar.
2009: 2003 Toyota Matrix, I ran a red light while far away from home on a road trip. A Saturn hit me and it totaled the poor little car.
2012: 2003 Toyota Matrix (which I bought to replace the one I totaled), I got rear ended on the way home from work.
jim grey | Indianapolis, Indiana

agentsteel53

Quote from: Duke87 on June 02, 2012, 09:24:59 PM

And, if you want to stretch the technical definition, I've been in too many "accidents" to count: when parallel parking in NYC, it is normal and acceptable to slowly back up until you hear "thud", and then pull forward a bit. Legally, each instance of doing this or having this done to your car counts as an "accident". :spin:

I definitely use that method to parallel park on occasion.  at about 1mph, if not less, there isn't even a thud - you just see the car behind you move slightly.

I've had three cars totaled on me.  two red light runners (one T-boned my passenger side, and one I ran into and T-boned because I had no time to stop) and one idiot old lady making a left turn from the right lane of a divided expressway.

I have hit a deer once, and hit an embankment avoiding a deer once.  Both caused minor damage on rental cars, which my collision damage waiver took care of. 
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

NE2

I suppose walking into the path of a car backing out of a parking space counts :)
pre-1945 Florida route log

I accept and respect your identity as long as it's not dumb shit like "identifying as a vaccinated attack helicopter".

Sanctimoniously

When I was thirteen, I managed to drive my mom's 2000 Kia Sephia through two ditches, across an old man's yard, and into a tree less than five feet from his house. That split the radiator, smashed the cooling fan against the engine block, increased the height of the hood by about a foot, all told, I did about $1500 worth of damage to it.

When I was seventeen, on my first journey to MEPS to process into the Navy, my recruiter and I were involved in a four-car accident on Interstate 20 just outside of West Monroe. It had begun to rain very heavily and a Ford F-150 headed eastbound spun out and ended up in the westbound lanes, hitting the government-issue Stratus and sending us into two other vehicles, one of which plowed through a BGS and ended up in the trees. I think all of the vehicles involved were totalled.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 22, 2013, 06:27:29 AM
[tt]wow                 very cringe
        such clearview          must photo
much clinch      so misalign         wow[/tt]

See it. Live it. Love it. Verdana.

vdeane

Quote from: 1995hoo on June 03, 2012, 02:29:43 PM
Since I've been driving I've been in four major accidents and two minor ones; two of the accidents (the first two) were my fault and the others were all the other drivers'. The two that stick out most in my mind were (1) the first one (my fault) when I was 16 years old because I was driving my dad's car and he was in London on business at the time, and then when he got home I was away on a school trip to Norfolk (from which I considered just disappearing and not coming home); and (2) in 2004 on Russell Road in Alexandria when an 18-year-old girl somehow failed to notice the long line of cars stopped in front of her for a red light and drove into the back of my 1997 Accord at 25 mph or more. I don't know if she was distracted by the speed humps or playing with a mobile phone or what, but I have never been able to figure out how she didn't notice the stopped traffic ahead of her. Thankfully I don't "block the box," which meant I didn't slam into the car in front of me when she hit me, but she did over $7000 worth of damage and the insurance carriers declared the car a total loss. (I still remember how it burned me up that the cop's accident report was more focused on the damage to City of Alexandria property than on the damage to my car. When she hit me I spun the steering wheel to try to avoid the car across the intersection and as a result my car jumped a curb and knocked over a stop sign.)
How is $7000 damage a total loss?  I'd much rather pay $7000 to fix a beloved car than $20000 for a whole new one.  Insurance companies are weird.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

1995hoo

Quote from: deanej on June 04, 2012, 11:54:15 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on June 03, 2012, 02:29:43 PM
Since I've been driving I've been in four major accidents and two minor ones; two of the accidents (the first two) were my fault and the others were all the other drivers'. The two that stick out most in my mind were (1) the first one (my fault) when I was 16 years old because I was driving my dad's car and he was in London on business at the time, and then when he got home I was away on a school trip to Norfolk (from which I considered just disappearing and not coming home); and (2) in 2004 on Russell Road in Alexandria when an 18-year-old girl somehow failed to notice the long line of cars stopped in front of her for a red light and drove into the back of my 1997 Accord at 25 mph or more. I don't know if she was distracted by the speed humps or playing with a mobile phone or what, but I have never been able to figure out how she didn't notice the stopped traffic ahead of her. Thankfully I don't "block the box," which meant I didn't slam into the car in front of me when she hit me, but she did over $7000 worth of damage and the insurance carriers declared the car a total loss. (I still remember how it burned me up that the cop's accident report was more focused on the damage to City of Alexandria property than on the damage to my car. When she hit me I spun the steering wheel to try to avoid the car across the intersection and as a result my car jumped a curb and knocked over a stop sign.)
How is $7000 damage a total loss?  I'd much rather pay $7000 to fix a beloved car than $20000 for a whole new one.  Insurance companies are weird.

If the damage to the car exceeds the value assigned to the car by their valuation tables, they declare it a total loss. I don't recall what the total amount of damage was, but it was something in excess of $7000. When the amount of damage isn't too much over the car's value, they'll sometimes work with you, but in this case they weren't willing to do that. With the amount of structural damage the car suffered, I was happy to take the insurance payout (which I received within five days) and use that as part of the down payment on the next car. The level of damage made me reluctant to try to fix it.

It pains me to look at these pictures again even eight years later. This was the morning after the accident. I had the car towed home since it happened in the evening, then the next day I had it towed to the auto body to begin the insurance process. There was damage to the front as well that isn't visible here, but you can see the back end of the car was basically crushed. While the Acura TL I bought to replace the Accord is a very nice car, I did really like that Accord. It seemed like it was cursed, though, since I got rear-ended less than a month after buying it (as described in my prior post) and then this accident happened when I had ONE MORE LOUSY PAYMENT to make!!!!

"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

Quillz

I've only been involved in one car accident, back in October 1999, long before I learned how to drive. I was in my mom's minivan. We were stopped at a stoplight when a car behind us came barreling into the van at nearly 35 mph.

Luckily no one was hurt and neither car was very heavily damaged. Was pretty scary for me, though, since it was the first accident I was in and the whole car started to shake violently all of a sudden.

SP Cook

Quote from: Sanctimoniously on June 04, 2012, 11:42:55 AM
When I was thirteen, I managed to drive my mom's 2000 Kia Sephia through two ditches, across an old man's yard, and into a tree less than five feet from his house. That split the radiator, smashed the cooling fan against the engine block, increased the height of the hood by about a foot, all told, I did about $1500 worth of damage to it.

In my neighborhood we have those brick deals with a mailbox and a post light.  So I get up one morning and my neighbor is in my yard, picking up bricks.  Seems a kid, 14, up the street living with his grandfather, an Episcopal priest, stole his neighbors pickup, got it going fast enough to totally destroy the brick deal, spreading brick at least 30 feet.  Made it to the main road before the engine siezed because he had destroyed the radiator.  Walked home and went to bed.

When confronted, the good reverend told everybody to "just collect from their insurance".  So we explained to him that if we did that the insurance company would just collect back from him, and the boy (who was there because his family couldn't handle him) was going to the slam. 

Chris

I once had an accident in France in 2006, where I rear-ended a French car on an "Autoroute" (toll road). I had my license for only a few months and did not really have enough driving experience to undertake such a trip, but hey, you're 19 and you want to get around. Anyway, my car was a "total loss", i.e. an economic total loss, the damages where more than two-thirds of the value of the car. The car was repaired later, as I saw it driving around in my city. There were no injuries in my first and so far only accident.

By the way having an accident in southern Europe can be a major pain because most people do not speak much English (or any foreign language for that matter). My French is not much more than "bonjour, merci and au revoir" and the guy I drove into did not know a word of English (or German for that matter). Fortunately the police officer did speak some English and fined me for not keeping sufficient distance (the standard fine if you rear-ended someone).



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