Close Encounter
Well, God spared me tonight. I was coming home from school and talking to Shannon like I normally do when all the traffic came to a sudden halt. I had to stop pretty hard, but I was never in danger of slamming my breaks. However, when I stop hard like that the first thing I do is look in my rear view mirror to see who I'm depending on. Thankfully, there was no one there. This was not the case for the HOV lane however. So once I realized that I was ok the next thing I did was look up to see the car in front of me getting side swiped like a mad dog. A black SUV must have swerved out of the HOV lane to avoid direct contact but traded good paint with car in front of me. I think he added a side mirror as well. He hit about 2 other cars and took off like a wild pig at feeding time. I was just thankful that it wasn't me that he hit. The car didn't stop to see the damage he had done and is probably long gone by now, but I left the victims my info if they needed me. I just thought I would share that story. This world woudn't be so bad if it weren't for those type people.
posted by Shaheen Matuni at 8:22 PM
3 Comments:
I will find this villian through my wiretapping program. I will bring this noob to justice. Promise. I am glad you didn't get hit. Specially since you only have $2.00 left to pay off your car.
Your story reminds me of my wreck I had back in Spring of 2001. I was driving home after only working a half day at work and at the 360/121 merge I noticed someone had been severly run off the road by a semi and his car was stuck in the ditch about 20 yards from the edge of the highway. Looking to see if he was alive and OK, I wasn't paying close enough attention to notice that my front tire had drifted over the right shoulder paint line on the road. When I looked up I noticed that a full-size pickup truck towing a flatbed car trailer had pulled onto the shoulder and completely stopped to examine the accident as well. By the time I saw this, there wasn't enough clearance to veer left and clear him, even though I tried my hardest. I was driving between 60-65 mph upon impact. I was driving a 1999 Camaro and the point of impact was at the passengers front headlight. By veering left in my attempt to clear the trailer, in put me into a clockwise spin, ripping the entire fiberglassed body panels apart all the way down the entire passenger side of the car. It looked like something out of NASCAR... When the outer skin of the passenger door got ripped apart, the passenger window shifted apart from the door moulding several inches, creating a vacuum whereby a large amount of the shredded fiberglass particles were sucked into the cabin during the spinning of the vehicle and blasted all over me, even going down my back. My car did a 180 degree spin, hitting the front quarter panel of that truck, and finally came to rest in front of that truck. Surprisingly enough, the airbags did not deploy. I was so blessed that a third party did not hit me during this wreck that seemed to go in slow motion and last forever, as Hwy 121 was experiencing heavy traffic that day. The impact and spinning action of the wreck caused me some significant back issues that took some substantial time to subside. Even to this day I can still pop my lower back, which I never could do before the wreck.
As far as the car, it's book value was $16,000 and it was determined to be completely totalled. A totalled vehicle is when the insurance company determines that it would take 80% or more of the car's book value to rebuild it, so I was told. When I crawled out of the car, the transmission was dragging on the ground and the back hatch was unevenly gapped, from a bent frame I would assume. Every body panel on the passenger side of the car was ripped apart and destroyed; both tires were blown and both rims were missing large chunks of metal from them.
Ever since this event I always tell anyone that I talk to about it that the accident was 100% my fault. If I was paying a little more attention to the road this accident could have been completely avoided. Sometimes that can be harder to do though, especially if you are trying to look out for someone else's safety.
-Mark
I know what you mean Mark. I wrecked my first brand new 2001 Dodge Ram coming home from work on a half day just like you. I was going south on 360 and a car clipped me and sent me uncontollably across 5 lanes of traffic. Yeah, that's right, I went into oncoming traffic and got snow plowed t-bone style. That truck was totalled as well, but I didn't have a scratch on me. Not one scratch! I could have gotten out of that busted up truck and played a game of basketball. Praise God for that. I miss that truck though. That accident wasn't my fault. There were 3 other cars involved and none of them had insurance. So there goes more of those type of people for ya. Thanks for sharing your story.
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