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Trivial Pursuits => People & Places => Topic started by: jay-ell on October 07, 2003, 08:07:43 pm

Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: jay-ell on October 07, 2003, 08:07:43 pm: I wrecked my car yesterday.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: AlohaDawg on October 07, 2003, 08:11:57 pm: That SUCKS! You are OK, though, I gather (and hope). So what happened? Agnes stepped on it and rear-ended you? Did a barbie van with a squirrel in it run you off the road?

Seriously, I hope it works out OK
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: jough on October 07, 2003, 08:13:56 pm: Oh my!

We've been worried about you. Are you okay? What happened?
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: CortJstr on October 07, 2003, 08:17:24 pm: You'd think the fact that she's posting means she's okay, but in reality part of the car fused with her spine and she now has the Internet in her brain.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: V-Adore on October 07, 2003, 08:30:59 pm: God, that's horrible. I hope nobody was hurt...
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: jay-ell on October 07, 2003, 09:08:31 pm: No, we're all OK over here. I rear-ended an old lady who decided to screech to a halt in the middle of the road because she suspected another person might be turning left sometime this decade. It was totally my fault, but my car is the one who is suffering.

Apart from a couple of bruises, stiff muscles and a nasty welt across the back of my hand from where the airbag snapped me, I'm OK. The lady I hit is complaining of back pain, but her car wasn't even scratched.

Seatbelts, people, seatbelts. Always wear them. I can not stress this enough. My parents have a habit of not wearing their seatbelts when they are going short distances -- to the corner store, for instance. I hope none of you do this. I was less than a mile from my house when this incident happened, and my seatbelt prevented me from flying through the windshield. Hence the painful bruises across my lower abdomen and left breast. It hurts, but it beats the hell out of sitting in a hospital picking broken glass out of my face.

This has been a public service announcement.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: slink on October 07, 2003, 10:12:28 pm: I'm absolutely with you on the seatbelts issue.
My parents had a LandRover that lacked back seat belts, and while I liked it cos it meant I could sit in the middle ( I hate it if I can't see ahead in a car) I wouldn't trust it with my dad getting progressively iller and his driving now scaring me slightly.
Even if I go the shortest distance I always put my belt on. Might be a side effect of having had motor bikes in the past and having come off them, and knowing what it's like for inertia to propel you!

Glad your OK though. Sucky about the car. Welcome to the dead car club!
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: CortJstr on October 07, 2003, 10:24:23 pm: Quote from: "jldunston"
No, we're all OK over here. I rear-ended an old lady who decided to screech to a halt in the middle of the road because she suspected another person might be turning left sometime this decade. It was totally my fault, but my car is the one who is suffering.

This is exactly why I hate driving behind my mom. But indeed, okayness of everybody is good.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: ferocious j on October 08, 2003, 12:21:49 am: From here, it sounds to me like it was the old lady's fault, but I'm no lawyer. Glad you're OK in any case!

I always wear my seatbelt.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: jay-ell on October 08, 2003, 12:37:23 am: No, if you rear-end someone, it is always (legally) your fault. So I got cited. The cop apologized for giving me the ticket. He seemed to feel genuinely sorry for me.

The paramedic who checked me out reminded me of my husband's cousin, a Green Beret, who is stationed Heaven-knows-where for the next two years. I cracked a joke about women drivers, and he chuckled, just like Michael would have. It was oddly comforting.

Sorry for waxing poetic. I just read The Bleat, and it's contagious.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: V-Adore on October 08, 2003, 02:17:50 am: My general policy: any car accident you don't have to go to the hospital for is a good car accident.

But seriously, my sympathies; I've had really bad motor vehicle mojo for the past year or so, so car accidents are getting a little familiar, but I'm glad you're all right. Hopefully the car will be too.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: Choop on October 08, 2003, 03:59:49 am: jl, the world is happy when you are safe.

Here's a message to the parents out there: when your kids are still young, and out of carseats, have with them "seat belt races" when you get in the car. The last one with the seat belt on is, like to the pool, the rotten egg. This will ingrain into them a constant necessity to be strapped in while riding in a car. It sure as hell did on me, and it's one of a few things I have for which to thank my folks.

Now: is your car totalled, or will it be with you for a while longer?
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: AugustWest on October 08, 2003, 04:24:50 am: Glad you are safe, m'dear. Let me know if you have trouble with the insurance companies or with the old lady.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: jay-ell on October 08, 2003, 12:22:02 pm: No reply on the car yet. It was bleeding oil into the street, so the prognosis is not good. I'll keep y'all posted.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: misterhaan on October 08, 2003, 03:21:37 pm: Quote from: "jldunston"
No, if you rear-end someone, it is always (legally) your fault.

last time i was in an accident it was somebody hitting the rear end of my car, but as i was going in reverse (backing out of a parking stall), it was legally my fault. nevermind the fact that the lady who hit me had to have been doing close to 30 just a few feet out from the back end of all the cars that were parked there . . .
i didn't get a ticket but now my insurance goes up because of some lady who's in too much of a hurry to get to work in the morning to actually drive safely.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: V-Adore on October 08, 2003, 03:26:26 pm: Bleeding oil? Man, that's not good.

Dizzamn. Gotta hope for insurance at this point, I guess.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: side_show on October 08, 2003, 04:00:04 pm: Quote from: "jldunston"
No, if you rear-end someone, it is always (legally) your fault.

This is not always the case. I actually was involved in two accidents on the same day:

1) on the way to my parent's I was stopped behind an SUV at a red light. The SUV suddenly backed directly into me - thankfully not hard enough to set of the air bag, but smashing in my driverside headlights, scratching my bumper and denting the hood. The other driver was found to be fully at fault. And I got almost $900 to repair it. Thankfully there were a lot of witnesses.

2) on the same day, to make me feel better, my parents took me out for ice cream - as they pulled into their parking spot the driver in the car next to the spot swung his door opend and it scraped along the side of my parent's vehicle. The other car was found to be at fault.

I'm guessing if the police were there and gave you a ticket you're SOL unless there were other impartial witnesses who saw the old lady slam the breaks for no reason. I've killed a car in an accident that was totally my fault before and it was not rad.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: CortJstr on October 08, 2003, 04:25:31 pm: Even if the old lady stopped for no reason it would be Jl's fault because she was too close. In theory had she been a car length back she also could've stopped. Now if the old lady cut in front of you then stopped that would be different.
Title: Pardon my absence.
Post by: jay-ell on October 08, 2003, 04:34:51 pm: Yeah, there were witnesses but it was still my fault because (ideally) I should have allowed more space. To be honest, though, I had gone about twenty yards behind this lady, having just turned left onto the road where the accident occurred, so I can't have been going more than 30 mph, so most of it was just that I wasn't expecting to have to stop so suddenly.

Side_show, the accident you describe involves backing into someone, which isn't hitting someone from the rear but rather hitting someone with your rear (in the '60s this popular pastime was known as The Bump). It's not the same as rear-ending another car with the front of your car while you are directly behind them, from a legal standpoint.