I was in the front passenger seat, and my girlfriend was driving. We were waiting in an intersection to make a left turn. Light turns yellow, nobody's coming, we begin turning. But a car comes barreling towards us, trying to beat that same yellow light, just as we're turning in front of his path. I look out the window, and it's coming straight towards me, and we're in the middle of a slow turn. One second the car is about to collide with my door, and immediately the next thing I know there's a loud crash and something hit my head HARD, and the interior of the car near me was detached and hanging over me, and the air was filled with white dust, and I was terrified and disoriented. It took me a few seconds to realize that all that hit me was the side air bag, and that I wasn't dead. What happened was my girlfriend saw the accident about to happen and PEELED OUT so the other car ended up hitting the rear of the vehicle instead of me. If she'd frozen up, it probably would have hit the middle of the right side of her car (and at the time it looked like it was gonna hit the front right side, so who knows). Completely terrifying. Her car isn't drivable; they had to tow it. But we think it's fixable. It's just that there's a dent, and some of the frame is bent over her rear tire. Other than that, the bumper's off, the trunk won't close, and the interior on the front right side is slightly out. Only the side airbags were deployed. She JUST bought this car and is in the process of switching insurance, so she's terrified it'll be totaled, but I'm convinced it's fixable. But nobody got hurt. The other car must have grazed off and been fine; the other driver was able to drive off after the cop finished dealing with us. No injuries, somehow. And it hit us HARD. We convinced ourselves he was speeding (and may have run a red light to get there, because we did NOT see him coming), but it is coming out of my girlfriend's insurance, because she was sitting ahead of the white line you're supposed to wait behind. Everyone pulls ahead of it anyway, expecting to be able to get a better chance to turn, but there's technically no law for that; you still have to yield to oncoming traffic. We didn't get any witnesses and don't really know for a fact that he was speeding, and yeah, pretty much my girlfriend's first thought was "****, this is my fault". But yeah, we're just grateful nobody was hurt. She keeps apologizing for almost killing me, and I kept thanking her for accelerating and saving my life. Maybe we can call it even, heh.
-- bokonon get your sense-making the **** out of this topic now - Cat1001 Brawl FC: 1461-9803-2942 /// X-Box Live Gamertag: AGGGH
For some reason this is cracking me up right now. I'm still a little shaken up (this happened last night), and I've been latching on to anything remotely funny since then, lol.
-- bokonon get your sense-making the **** out of this topic now - Cat1001 Brawl FC: 1461-9803-2942 /// X-Box Live Gamertag: AGGGH
Oh, nah, I didn't tell the whole story about the cop taking care of matters and everything, because that part of the story is boring.
But yeah, the cop was on the scene really quickly. He came over and made sure we were all right. I was searching for my glasses for a while, and actually the other car was nowhere in sight for a minute, so we were really pissed off. But it turned out he just kept driving so that he could park down the street and not be blocking the intersection. The driver then walked back towards us and was very cooperative and stuff. The cop was friendly, helpful and nonjudgmental, and he dealt with things very quickly. The driver stuck around long enough to give the cop his info and hear that it'd be coming out of my girlfriend's insurance and not his, and then the cop said he could go.
-- bokonon get your sense-making the **** out of this topic now - Cat1001 Brawl FC: 1461-9803-2942 /// X-Box Live Gamertag: AGGGH
Hmm, I can't say for sure whether the puns have happened before or not. But this is definitely the first time I've actually almost died!
I can see having nightmares. I've actually always been kinda frightened of cars. I once had this weird psychic sorta feeling that the way I'm gonna die is getting hit by a car while on foot. But now I'm extra jumpy about loud noises like horns, motorcycle engines revving, and tire squeals.
I took a half day at work today, needed to get home and clear my head, couldn't focus. I definitely replayed the scene in my head a bunch of times. I wouldn't say it's that much of a life-changing experience, though. Doesn't really change my outlook on life or whatever. I'll get over it.
-- bokonon get your sense-making the **** out of this topic now - Cat1001 Brawl FC: 1461-9803-2942 /// X-Box Live Gamertag: AGGGH
MZero11 posted... Unless the other driver was speeding which almost certainly was.
And I'm not an expert on driving laws but at least here you're supposed to stop for the yellow if you can
Yellow means slow down/prepare to stop, not stop. "Stop for yellow if you can" definitely isn't a driving law.
And you realize that city streets aren't all like, 25 mph, right? I don't think you realize how hard it can be to stop if somebody turns in front of you when you're going even just 45.
Not that I'm saying this guy WASN'T speeding, but it's silly to assume they were just because it was a city street.
Besides, even if you do hit somebody that turned in front of you while speeding, the accident itself is still their fault. You'll just get written up for speeding.
-- SEP Nash, Smelling Like the Vault since 1996 Step FOUR! Get Paid! http://img.imgcake.com/stevenashgifpu.gif
This must be a terrible day for driving, because I almost got into an accident on the way home today. ... Except it was my fault >__>
And of course one of my co-workers happens to be driving right behind me so I look like a total jack ass. The stupid thing is I'm usually a really careful driver.
Anyway, glad you're ok. That s*** is scarey.
--
http://img.imgcake.com/crimjpgpe.jpg Mo' buildings mo' problems ocean kinda grew on me like a flesh eating ...fungus. -BIGPUN9999
The case of "Speeding vs. turning in front of oncoming traffic" basically depends on different factors, such as by how much the person may have been speeding/if they could have been seen coming or not.
The thing is that you can't really prove somebody was speeding, anyway, so fault still tends to lie with the person turning.
Not that I'm at all trying to throw Bok's girlfriend under the bus or anything, so I apologize for even debating this.
-- SEP Nash, Smelling Like the Vault since 1996 Step FOUR! Get Paid! http://img.imgcake.com/stevenashgifpu.gif
Well her first thought was "oh ****, it's my fault", we aren't planning on trying to dispute the blame officially or anything. Also this wasn't in a city really, it was more suburbia. Now, yeah, we personally believe the other driver was being reckless, unsafe, etc... But that doesn't mean my girlfriend wasn't at fault. The other driver was making things difficult, and my girlfriend understandably messed up. Doesn't make her a bad person, and no one's throwing anyone under the bus by talking about it. And yeah, the reason we think he was speeding is because she didn't see him coming and he hit us pretty damn hard. And we recognize that it's just speculation; maybe he wasn't. This thing isn't really a sore subject for me or anything. Would've been nice to flag a witness and see if we were right, but really, like was said, the person turning has a responsibility in this situation, so she was content to just get it all over with.
-- bokonon get your sense-making the **** out of this topic now - Cat1001 Brawl FC: 1461-9803-2942 /// X-Box Live Gamertag: AGGGH