Topic: I just had my first car accident

[WindAndConfusion]

Let me start by saying that it's okay to troll this thread, but only if the trolls are legitimately funny.

I was on the freeway when (I think) some jackass pulled in front of me, without signaling, and while going a lot slower than me. Then I remember a skid, an oak tree, and someone tapping on the glass and asking me if I'm okay. I instinctively answered yes, then called 911. At this point someone else showed up, asked if I was calling 911, and then took my cell from me. He turned out to be an off-duty cop from Alabama whose name I didn't get, so we'll go ahead and call him "Shithead Prima."

When the police finally arrived, Mr Prima explained that I had taken something out of my car and tossed it into a nearby bush. This was a complete fucking lie, but one of the two cops present (Shithead Secunda) believed it and insisted on a thorough search. (The other cop was actually a decent human being.) At this point, I started to worry a little (what if someone else dumped something there?), but then I had a bigger issue.

After about twenty minutes of the search, I noticed a glowing, expanding white spot in my vision, accompanied by a loud buzzing sound, the sensation that my skull was vibrating to pieces, and the most intense pain I have experienced in recent memory. Since I've studied a fair bit of neuropsych, I immediately thought two things:

• Either I was on the receiving end of a craniotomy, or
• I was having a Simple Partial Seizure.

The sensation passed after a second, and I informed the police officers present that I would REALLY FUCKING LIKE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL. Decent Human Being agreed, and even called an ambulance, but Shithead Secunda objected and insisted that I remain there until they completed the search. Shithead Secunda kept me at the scene of the accident for 45 minutes after the ambulance arrived, so he could piss around in the bush and not find anything.

The neurologist agreed with my assessment (simple partial), and advised that I get an MRI. I had to object to this (FUCK YOU DENTIST), so instead I get to wear an EEG halo for a week. Also, my license has been temporarily suspended, NOT because of the accident, but because epileptics and suspected epileptics cannot legally drive. Hopefully I will have no further seizures, and then I'll be allowed to drive again (not that I especially want to).

To summarize:

• Two out of three police officers can go to Hell. (Third guy, I'd say 'God bless you' except I'm an atheist.)
• My car is totaled and I have no license.
• My insurance will probably go up.
• I have suffered a seizure probably caused either by head trauma or heat exhaustion.
• I am wearing a ridiculous fucking hat.
• The guy who cut me off should invest in a cyanide tooth, so that he won't have to see what happens when I find him.

[WindAndConfusion]

Also, my airbag did not deploy, even though I snapped an oak tree like a toothpick.

I'm a little disconcerted by this.

[gpw11]

Holy shit, that's brutal.  Sooooo....did they find the back of child scalps you dumped in the bush?

Beyond that, you should check to see if there have been other incidents of the airbag not deploying with that year and model, or at the very least file a complaint with the proper government agency. I used to have a link to site that made this a lot easier - I'll see if I can find it.

[Quemaqua]

Good thing they didn't find all the child porn in your trunk.

But jeez, that sucks in general.  I share your rage at people who insist on driving 55 mph and then cut in front of you when you're going 20 mph faster.  And then have the audacity to get upset at you.  In my case, however, that's never turned into oak trees and head injuries.  Hope things turn out okay.

[WindAndConfusion]

I share your rage at people who insist on driving 55 mph and then cut in front of you when you're going 20 mph faster.

I learned a valuable lesson about that:

NEVER PASS WITH MORE THAN A 5-10MPH SPEED DIFFERENCE, BECAUSE IF SHIT GOES DOWN, YOU WILL NOT SLOW DOWN IN TIME.

[WindAndConfusion]

I just realized something:

Shithead Secunda had (and was prominently displaying) a taser on his holster.

Decent Human Being did not.

This face alone speaks volumes about their personalities.

[Antares]

    * Two out of three police officers can go to Hell. (Third guy, I'd say 'God bless you' except I'm an atheist.)

As a law enforcement officer one might expect me to be outraged by this, but I'll say that you're generally right.  (For what it's worth I don't carry a tazer).

[Quemaqua]

And there's a difference between a highway patrol dude, a sheriff's deputy, a beat cop, a desk jockey, and a career detective.  I think a lot of cops don't promote for a reason.  I'm generally supportive of the police, but the lower you go, the more shit you see.

[idolminds]

So...first car accident. Are you planning a second?

[Cobra951]

The situation seems like a dream for an ambulance chaser.  The car company should be sued, and maybe whoever else does maintenance on the car (assuming you've properly maintained the car).  The police department should be sued for aggravating or perhaps causing your medical problems as a result of the serious accident, something they knew or should have known.  You should be able to find someone to do it on commission.  Money is not even the main point.  The point is to dick the people who dicked you, on your turf.  You're powerless against them on theirs, as you just experienced.

After driving for 37 years, what I find about passing people on a highway at a high difference in speed is that I need to keep an alternate route in mind.  Lines painted on the road don't matter in emergencies.  A shoulder, an oncoming but open lane, the lane the other car is in, if alone (since if he swerves in front of me, I'll instantly swerve to where he was), even an empty row of parking spaces will suffice.  As long as there are enough avenues of escape, I don't need to back off the gas.  If all paths are blocked except the lane you're on, and you're going 40 mph faster than everything else surrounding you, yes, absolutely.  Back it off big time.

How fast were you were going?  My brother found out that 120 mph is unsafe even alone on an interstate.  What was once his car ended up as abstract art suitable for The Iron Giant.

[Pugnate]

I am glad you are OK! Also, take Cobra's advise.

[WindAndConfusion]

The situation seems like a dream for an ambulance chaser.  The car company should be sued, and maybe whoever else does maintenance on the car (assuming you've properly maintained the car).

Based on my seizure aura, I got hit near the left angular gyrus, which is consistent with my head striking the driver's side door (but not the steering column). In that situation, the airbag probably wouldn't have helped, and may instead have caused injuries.

The police department should be sued for aggravating or perhaps causing your medical problems as a result of the serious accident, something they knew or should have known.

The officer responsible should be retrained. Suing the police department will only cost them money, which would be removed from a budget that might otherwise be spent on proper hiring, training, and investigation.

You should be able to find someone to do it on commission.  Money is not even the main point.  The point is to dick the people who dicked you, on your turf.  You're powerless against them on theirs, as you just experienced.

My car was eminently survivable in a severe accident, so I won't blame the manufacturer. One cop was a dick, but the other seems to have done his job correctly, and anyway, suing the highway patrol isn't conducive to the goal of having better highway patrol officers.

The guy that towed my car said he found blue paint and scratches on the right side of my right front bumper. I'm almost positive they weren't there this morning, when I filled my tank and washed my windshield. This means I may have been side-swiped in a hit and run, but I honestly don't remember if that's what happened.

If I'm going to sue anyone, it will be Shithead Magnus, the guy that hit me and then ran off like a coward.

How fast were you were going?  My brother found out that 120 mph is unsafe even alone on an interstate.  What was once his car ended up as abstract art suitable for The Iron Giant.

I was getting passed on the right, so evidently I wasn't the fastest car on the road. (The real problem was that I didn't hit the brakes for whatever reason, maybe sudden head trauma.)

[ScaryTooth]

Damn, dude. That sucks. But it could have been worse.

[gpw11]

So, apparently driver's side and curtain side airbags actually do come in handy.  Taking seat covers off.

[gpw11]

How fast were you were going?  My brother found out that 120 mph is unsafe even alone on an interstate.  What was once his car ended up as abstract art suitable for The Iron Giant.

It's interesting because we rarely think about how dangerous the things we are doing are when driving.  Wind&C passing at that speed is something we all basically do and figure it's totally fine because as long as nothing unexpected happens we can maintain control of the car.   Yet, at the same time when we're alone on a stretch of road we tend to drive a bit more dangerously because we figure there's no one else to fuck us up.  It's interesting how mentally so many people do this - when other people are around few people take what they may do into account unless they can use that as a reason to feel safe when speeding like demons by themselves.

I used to be all about "the speed limit is waaaay too low" and all that, but I've kind of come to the point where I realize that the limit isn't really there as the estimated threshold of safety, it's basically way below it to account for the times when the guy in front of you spins out and blocks both lanes.  I don't know if it's because I'm older now or what, but I've kind of found myself looking at exit routes and such while driving lately as well.

[Cobra951]

You can't anticipate everything.  I've never had a serious accident, but I sure have had my share of near misses (or near hits, to George Carlin).  I once saw a car drift slowly off the interstate into the median, bounce off an angled guard rail very quickly across the bridge in front of me and fold up like a cardboard box against the concrete wall on the right side of the bridge.  The girl driving had fallen asleep.  If I had been 40 feet further down the road, she would have t-boned me on the driver's side door full-speed after the bounce.  No way in hell would I have anticipated that, or probably even seen any of it.  Another time, an oncoming car somehow ended up on the snow-covered grass median at full freeway speed, fighting to maintain control.  It was approaching at dizzying speed, skidding left and right.  He managed to keep it straight and steer it back on to his side of the road.  It was one of the most impressive feats of driving skill I've ever seen, not to mention the blind luck of not hitting anything in the median.  And it all happened in a flash, to be analyzed later, and only suffered in wide-eyed impotence as it happened.  So much is out of our control.  We're lucky chaos is so infrequent on the roads.

[Quemaqua]

I've seen a few accidents since I started commuting by car to my new job site.  Saw somebody totally spin out on Friday on my way home, spun around several times and slammed into the guard rail.  Burning rubber was in the air really thick, smoking up the whole place and making it hard to see.  A couple weeks before that I saw the aftermath of another crash, where a car had flipped over completely and some shirtless dude who looked like a teenage punk was lying on the pavement outside it.  Couldn't tell if he was dead, if he was fine and just laid himself down after the ordeal, or if he'd been dragged out by someone.

[gpw11]

Yeah, I've seen quite a few from when I used to work on the highway in the summer.  It's a really fucked up stretch of highway because there's an exit to a large ferry terminal, 2 exits to a small suburb, and an exit to another highway going up to Whistler all in about 500 feet of each other on a 2 lane highway.  As you can imagine, this leads to all sorts of chaos that around 3 engineering revisions has failed to fix over 20 years or so.  I saw a fair amount of car to car, car to median, and car to cliff side collisions but strangely enough the worst thing I saw was a guy who somehow got his leg caught in the chain of his motorcycle (or something).  Apparently, he just went down and slid, but that doesn't really matter.  What matters is how disturbing it was when he woke up and realized his leg was now attached by nothing but some stringy shit.   This killed my desire to own a motorcycle.

I do, however, remember driving through the pass between BC and Alberta on my way to school at the end of one summer and the buddy who was driving at the time made some comment about the guy behind him.  I looked back and this guy was being a dick, tailgating, recklessly pulling out of the lane to see if the passing lane was coming up and all that.  We had a rule going through the pass that you hit 120 k/h and you stay there. We found this avoided retarded arguments.  Anyways, like two min later, the guy swerves out to see if the lane is clear, and as per usual he pulls way too far out, except this time there's a car maybe 100 feet away.  He pulls back into the lane too hard, loses control and swerves back out into the oncoming lane just in time to hit the oncoming car head on. That the car in the far lane hits that car as it spins and all three lanes are blocked, leading to what looked like total chaos.  We kept driving (fuck you, the people behind can stop and help), but according to a friend of mine who was previously about 20 min behind us (soon to be about 3 hours behind us) there was like a 6 car pile up.

It's dangerous out there, you just never really think it is. A couple friends of mine were in a 3 car convoy with rotating drivers coming back from university in Ontario and one guy ended up going off the road.  They had two ways so one guy kind of figured something was up and pulled over.  A trucker came up and told him he just saw a car go off the road and my buddy ran back and followed the chaos down this massive bank.  The driver was another friend of ours (basically this guy's best friend) and the car was the guy doing the searches.  He saw it in a lake or something like that, jumped in and started diving to look for the driver.  He did that for like 20 min. until he gave up and heard sirens.  Luckily, Jordy (the driver) had been thrown from the car and wound up in a bush pretty much scratches except for he was missing half his tongue.   I believe some of this story to be exaggerated, but the reason I find it interesting is that the kids are still best friends and Ben (the car owner) was just kind of pumped that Jordy wasn't dead while the parents (who used to be good friends) are now like mortal enemies because of the incident for some reason I don't understand but probably has to do with money.

[scottws]

Interesting story, Wind.  Hopefully you come out on the other end alright.  I don't get the off-duty cop's role in this.  He took your cell phone?  Why?  Did you get it back?  Why did he make something up about you throwing something in a bush.  I don't get why someone would do that.  I feel like part of the story is missing.

I've never been in a major accident, aside from rolling a heavy straight truck over on its side.  It made a big mess and totaled the truck but I was completely unhurt.  This past winter I was driving to work the morning after a heavy snowfall.  The road crews hadn't quite caught up to the storm yet, and there was basically some thick, packed snow all over the highway.  My car (an Escort ZX2) sucks in the snow, but a guy in a Civic flew past me so I figure if it was alright for another guy in a light car it was alright with me.

So I'm following him for quite a ways going almost normal highway speed then all of a sudden we get to a patch were the crews basically stopped plowing our lane.  All I see is white snow in front of me, where the other car was.  I mean snow was like 30 feet in the air in all directions from this car.  At the same time I'm thinking "Shit! I need to get out of this lane or I'm toast!"  That's when I see headlights amidst the flurry of snow.  Then taillights.  Then headlights.  "Shit! The guy is spinning!"

He ended up coming to a stop sideways in the same lane.  I had managed to aim just left of where he stopped and miss, but it almost ended really badly because I think he realized he was sitting sideways with a car barreling down at him at 60 mph (~97 km/h) and he tried to gun it forward.  Luckily the wheels just spun and the car didn't go anywhere and he realized I was going to miss him so he stopped.

[WindAndConfusion]

Interesting story, Wind.  Hopefully you come out on the other end alright.  I don't get the off-duty cop's role in this.  He took your cell phone?  Why?  Did you get it back?  Why did he make something up about you throwing something in a bush.  I don't get why someone would do that.  I feel like part of the story is missing.

You'd have to ask him, but judging from his behavior, my hunch is that he's an asshole with an addiction to authority.

[Ghandi]

You'd have to ask him, but judging from his behavior, my hunch is that he's an asshole with an addiction to authority.

A cop with an addiction to authority who's an asshole? No way.