My wife was driving out 4 kids home tonight from church and a friend of the kids and in a construction zone a semi going 20-30 mph over the limit (45 mph limit) pushed her off the road where she ran down several contruction arrow signs, and then she tried to pull back on the road once he passed and started to get sideways in the gravel and another one came and smashed into her front end and drove the side of the trailer over her front end.

It ripped the front bumper off quite brutually, and did a fair amount damage to the front end (amazingly enough the hood survived!) but all of them were ok. I am guessing it isn't gonna be cheap to fix, and the most wonderful thing is both semi's ran and didn't even stop. Some professionals eh? By the looks of it the second one had to suffer damage too, but never even cared to stop. She ended up sideways blocking the lane with cars jamming on the brakes to keep from broadsiding her.

I'll see if I can post some picts. Considering all that happened, the truck survived well. Just due to parts costs and labor it might even up being totalled, which would suck, we just sunk new tires and brakes all around into it, new shocks on the rear and a 9.5" 14sf conversion.

I am thanking God they are fine. Just a little shaken, but ok.

Damn! that sucks. at least everyones alright... was it the fleetwood?

No, her 1996 K1500 Suburban. The family truckster....

Caddy was with me racing 80 miles to the rescue. Fortunately the Ill state patrol took good care of her.

Oh thank god, I was seeing visions of sad twisted fleetwood everywhere, not a pretty thought. hehe.

You can't tell, but the left side of the bumper was bent all the way over on the right side. It is held up by a ratchet strap right now.

Holy crap! I'm glad to hear everyone's okay! Jeez!

Ouch. I'm glad it wasn't a lot worse (when you're dealing with 80000lbs it could've been.)

What really pi**es me off about this is that the truckers didn't stop.

At least everyone else's ok...

It's good to hear she and the other in the vehicle are safe. Cars can be fixed or replaced. It sucks the truckers didn't stop, were there any witnesses who might have ID'd them ?

Glad to hear all is well....on a related note, my wife got hit by a huge semi tonight as well. I nailed her from behind with my semi-hard junk! No damage, only a huge grin.


F

One witness stopped, but they didn't get plates, they just wanted to make sure they were ok and called 911.

We can only hope someone got plates and called them in.

It was the first semi's fault, it is possible he never even noticed (probably did), the second semi without a doubt knew, he hit hard, had to have done damage to his front end, dragging all down the pass side of the truck.

This was a construction zone where semi's were mandated in the left lane and the car traffic actually drives on the shoulder for a couple miles.

There is the tar line between the old real lanes that and the white line, the state patrolman thinks the trucker followed the tar line and not the white line, so he just did a squeeze play truck and concrete barriers. She fortunately didn't hit the barriers (that might have did a rollover) and when she got sideways in the gravel the second semi nailed the front end.

Glad your family is fine. Also glad it wasn't your Caddy.

Thanks guys, I appreciate it.

We were talking about it, and I noticed when I got there that the rear bumper was bent up on the left side. And a black left/right scrape. We are talking about why she lost control, it didn't make sense, the car is more stable than that.

I think the trailer spare tire might have caught the rear bumper and pushed her around. That might explain why she lost control so easily.

Don't worry, they'll get what's coming to them.... No one escapes karma....

Don't worry, they'll get what's coming to them.... No one escapes karma....

Especially when the Karma Police are on your side! I'm very glad to hear no-one was hurt, thank God for Surburbans! Imagine a Kia or Hyundai in the same situation! Don't worry about the truckers getting away, regardless of the damage to the tractors which might and are probably owned by the driver, the trailer sure as hell isn't, and the way I was taught to go over trailers, you'd know if someone even spat on the damn thing! It's really a shame though, that they drove off. It's guys like these that really piss me off, because my father owns an intermodel company here in the cities, and guys like these give truckers a bad image, something my dad's company can do without. Driving 20-30 over in any situation is a no-no anyways, but in a construction zone? Still, it seems really odd that neither of them bothered to stop. Bunch of *******s if you ask me. Regardless, thank God nobody was hurt! That's the most important thing.

The zone is common for people to run 65-70 in, and they are NARROW lanes too. There isn't much room once you are in the lane, but she were before the lanes as the were narrowing, so it is actually the most dangerous part of it. The trailers dragging over the lines if they are being sloppy. There is room, IF they are paying attention.

My wife says she will never drive anything BUT a Suburban now! She doesn't even want a car. If they total it, I am going for a 3/4t, which is what we wanted anyway.... Bigger.... Better brakes, and a 454....

Wow.....

That Suburban held up nicely, glad your family is doing well and why the **** didn't the truckers stop???

Probably a risk, stop and it could hurt thier job and CDL for sure, run and see if they get lucky and not get caught.

My respect level for these professional drivers has really taken a nose dive. I held them in high reguard until now. My grandfather was a Teamster and supported them highly, as did I because of that. I am starting to rethink that.

No integrity, if you screwed up, stand up and face the music, don't run like a coward and see if you get away with it.

I serve a just and mighty God, and He DOES know who did it, and I know I will be taken care of. I would not want to be on the wrong end of my God!

Did she or any of the kids get licence plates or the trucking lines?

Glad to hear everyone is alright. Those 88-98 Chevy trucks are tough as nails, I bet there is minimal to no frame damage to it. I can't believe the truckers didn't stop, most all of them around here are really nice and drive very well, but I have had several nearly take my mirror off passing on the shoulder.

The adjuster I talked to on the phone (not the one who did the truck) said the midwest is REALLY bad for that. Down south is much better.

All she got was white truck. So much happened to fast. Probably 10-15 seconds from start to finish, and she was more worried about the 5 kids in the truck.

Well they have estimated $5400 damages and that is what they can see. They have transferred it to the totalled vehicle team for evaluation of if they should total it or not.

The bumper horns (that is what the tow truck driver called it) were both bent, but the frame seemed fine. The right rear door though seemed to be popped out a little bit more than I think it was on the top. Hard to prove to the adjuster I am sure. It closes ok, all doors do, but that one seems popped out slightly more. But there is no other body or frame impact that I can see other than the bumper and front fenders. The left rear bumper was impacted slightly, but the adjuster claims it was prior, it wasn't. That was new. It bent the bumper up slightly (1/2" or so)

So we are already looking for another one. She won't have anything else. I want a 3/4t 454 now. The 3/4t's have much larger brakes and a better engine for met to do my own version of DOD on. (Yes, if I get it working guys, I will share the idea! I just need guinea pigs when I get it down pat, just has to be a PORT fuel injected engine like a late 4.5, 4.9, LT1, L98, TBI's won't work without a ton more creativity that I am not ruling out though, sorry).

Thanks for all the kind words guys! My wife and I appreciate it.

We even are toying with buying back, sooo many good parts (14sf rear end I just put in, new brakes, new tires, good body except for front clip, great running Vortec 350 and 4L60E, good transfer case, etc), I hate to part with it. I at least have the old rims and tires I will swap to save them. Load Range E 265 75 16's are $$ tires!

Glad to hear all is well....on a related note, my wife got hit by a huge semi tonight as well. I nailed her from behind with my semi-hard junk! No damage, only a huge grin.


F

wtf... dude... lol





on topic: I'm glad they're ok, you had me scared

Glad to hear everyones ok. Sure nobody has any whiplash or anything? You better think about that! Better get checked out. I mean really, even if you think youre ok, you might not be. Something similar happened to my mom. Get checked out.

Damn, N0DIH, that sounds harrowing. Glad to hear nobody was hurt.

This is one of the reasons why many people—no matter how high gas goes—won't drive anything less than a Suburban. They are tanks. A couple years ago, a friend T-boned a Sable that turned in front of her. Did $6,000 worth of damage to her '96 Suburban. They scraped what was left of the Sable off the pavement.
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If I had known this is what friends are for, I would have signed up as an enemy! — Ethel Mertz

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Truck drivers are the worst. I don't about where you guys live but everyday on the news there are at least one or two tractor trailer accidents around here. I live a block away from I-95, I can't even count how many semi-trucks I've seen wrecked over the years. F***ing coke heads, if I were a state trooper or highway cop I'd target them exclusively.

Well after looking at it closer, it looks to be some stress at the frame ends, you can see that the surface rust fell off. So that and the fact that both front fenders at the firewall are just shifted 0.2" to the pass side. They said that they think the core support is possibly bent some. It doesn't look it to me, but honestly, they are the experts, I doubt they would est that there is that much damage if it isn't.

We are hoping to find a K2500. But we did find a sharp K1500 so far. We'll see what the insurance company says tomorrow.

We sent them all to the dr, he looked them over and thinks they are ok. But it is documented. My wife's neck is still a little sore, she went to a chiropractor today, she kept putting off, but she got sore over the weekend.

She should be better. We were on the phone with the dr that night and he seemed ok with her not going in right away. He was willing to see her at 10pm at night to be sure if he thought so, that is one good Chiropractor, he is more concerned about the patient than "sorry, I am closed", how many would call you personally from home?

Thanks Rob!
Glad to hear everyones ok. Sure nobody has any whiplash or anything? You better think about that! Better get checked out. I mean really, even if you think youre ok, you might not be. Something similar happened to my mom. Get checked out.

If you guys saw my pictures, I got the offer on the truck today.

I am going to keep it and sell. $1300 obo as is. (sorry, put the wrong price in the title)

1996 Suburban K1500 with 9.5" SF rear end from a 1994 K2500 (has only 115K on the rear now), new front and rear brakes, could use tires, but we can work something out, just ask, has L31 Vortec 350 and 4L60E in excellent running shape. Has AM/FM Cassette/CD, barn doors. Newer (lifetime warranty from Autozone) alternator and battery only 18-20 months old.

She runs and drives fine as is, just munched. The frame has some damage, but might be able to be fixed easily (they only said it needed 1hr frame straightening time) and I found a front clip same color for $1000 on car-part.com.

PM me. I'll post more pictures of the it if people are interested.

Pictures of it afterwards.
http://homepage.mac.com/n0dih/FileSharing2.html

The bumper is off now. Perfectly drivable.

Thanks!