What was your first car accident?

[billc83]

Many of us have been in one or more. Statistically speaking, almost all of us should be involved in a car accident at some point of our lives. Car accidents happen, and often don't get much more frightening than your first time. With that in mind:

What was your first car accident?

To get the ball rolling: My first accident happened during a cruise along Lake Washington in my 1985 Cadillac Eldorado. I was stopped, making a left turn into a parking lot, and was rear ended by a red VW Jetta. I still remember the sound of crunching metal; I would've sworn my car's rear end was destroyed.

I pulled over to the side of the road to see if they were OK and examine the damage. The Jetta's front bumper was completely crunched in, and some red paint had rubbed off on my chrome bumper. On the way home, I bought a bottle of chrome polish for $3.25 and fixed it up the next day.

After my insurance company called me back a week or so later, they informed me they did $2,000 worth of damage to their car, but his insurance company would be covering the expenses. I told them about the chrome polish, and they offered to see if they could reimburse me the $3.25. I just smiled and said, "That's alright."

[Aron9000]

Never been in one(knock on wood). I have traded paint with one of those poles next to a gas pump in my first car, but that's about the worst I've done.

[hardrockcamaro@mac.c]

I turned into a parking lot way too fast in my Ford Focus, slid on some ice and therefore slid into a concrete fence post.
But that was good as if I had made it another 10 feet forwards I would have slid into the back of my future boss's new Jaguar S-Type...

Damage was limited to the front bumper, wing and headlamp and cost me £600 (about $1,100 at the time).


My first accident involving another vehicle was on a roundabout when a Jaguar decided to exit it from the inner lane, ramming the door of my car a sI was in the centre lane and continuing around to the next exit. He rammed my Focus off the road and I almost hit the guard rail that had two construction workers sitting on it eating lunch. I needed a new door which I got from a crap yard for £80 and he needed a new front corner on his brand new Jaguar XJ which cost £3,500 (about $5,000). As there were no witnesses the insurance companies split the blame (which really p***** me off) which put my insurance up 20% or so for the next 5 years...

[dirt_cheap_fleetwood]

My first car accident was in my Dad's full size van. I was coming home from work and some A-hole pulled out in front of me doing about 10 mph in a 45 mph zone. I swerved to avoid him and wound up clipping the right rear corner of a white Mercedes. It did absolutely nothing to the van but took a chunk out of the paint on the Benz. Luckily the owner's father did body work so I just cut them a check for the amount to have the quarter panel repainted (like $300). We didn't even file a claim with the insurance, not worth it. The butthole who cut me off just kept on driving, unaware what he had caused.

My second one was the one that totaled my DeVille. I got hit by a drunk driver at 1 in the morning. He blew a red light and I was traveling slowly. I saw it coming and whipped the wheel to the right, attempting to put the car in the ditch or minimize the impact rather than get obliterated in the side by the Blazer. The left front fender of my car wound up plowing into the side of the Blazer, caving it in and bending the frame. The DeVille fared very well but on closer inspection the uni-body had been bent. Worst night of my life. It literally happened 2 blocks from my house too and I was on my way home.

[V-Eight]

'90 Mazda 626, brother spun out on some ice and broke the controller arm. That's when we go the deVille because my grandparents were buying a new one anyway - so all in all a success story.

Not MY first accident, as I've never been in one....but close enough :P

[Red_October_7000]

I was heading towards Wang Towers in lowell, doing 35 or so, had the green light, and some jerk in a Sebring convertible follows one of those Mazda cab-over vans through the intersection through a left turn. I hit the brakes but still clobbered him in the right-rear quarter; spinning him about 270°, and because I hit the wheel, cracking the rear axle (both wheels were tilted in). I pulled to the side and got out to see if he was OK, and he just yelled at me and said he wasn't. I called for the rescue squad, who responded almost as quickly as his wife (who had been driving the Mazda van) who immediately began to yell at me that I had "paralyzed [her] baby". Fortunately by then the 5-0 showed up, and took stock of the scene, and told her to GTFO. I left my statement and went home while the Sebring was pulled onto the flatbed and the jerk got put in the meat wagon. I almost stacked up with some car parked right in the road on the way home, on a street near me where, at the time, people were parking in such a fashion.

Did I mention I had *Just* turned 18 at the time? I went to get the police report that night, and it turns out he had been injured because he had soft tissue damage in his lower back from a previous accident and to top it off he hadn't been wearing his safety belt! Recepie for disaster right there, folks! It got weirder from there; he had claimed I was ticketed when I hadn't been, and contradicted himself a number of times in his statements. The decision came down to him being so in the wrong that I got my deductible back!

[V-Eight]

Wow, sounds like that ended up well

[Night Wolf]

Minor, sideswiped a telephone poll:



Looked online for pics of the '79, they are all gone as my website host expired. They, along with everything else from my old computers/hard drives are all stored on DVD's that are laying around somewhere. Ah well.

First wheelin' boo boo on the trails, other then lots of underbody scrapes would be not paying attention and hitting a tree. Fender pulled out easily enough, the indent in the flare popped out on its out and the light lens poped back in.

[90Brougham350]

Was goofing with the radio. 85 Pontiac Parisienne. I was driving straight ahead (or so I thought) and crossed over into the oncoming lane, and went into the ditch on the other side. I wrecked the entire left side of the car when I hit a 'stop ahead' sign in the ditch. 2 inches to the right, and I would have missed the sign. 2 inches to the left, and I would have mowed the sign over with the bumper. As it was, from the front bumper to the rear bumper, not an inch of the body that wasn't smashed in. Knocked the door handles off, all the body molding, both hubcaps, side mirror too. I told everyone I swerved to miss a deer, and for over a year, the lie held up just fine. I caught myself goofing with the radio again in the 90 once, and almost ended up in the ditch again. I don't ever play with the radio now, just change the station quickly.

Brian

[I~LUV~Caddys8792]

It was a snowy night in 2005....December 14 if I'm not mistaken. We got an excessive amount of snow (8") that day and I was driving home from a slow night at work. On my route home, I passed a ski lodge, and as I was passing their entrance, I saw an old Subaru wagon sliding into the road (through the stop sign) and I swerved to miss. I should have just hit him dead on. I lost control of the deVille in the 8 inches of snow, swerved left, swerved right, then left again and back into a guardrail. I clipped it with my passenger front corner and spun sideways, almost hitting the passenger side into the rail.

Had I bought comprehensive insurance, instead of liability, it would have totaled the car out. I caused $3300 in damage.

Pics are on here:
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/753753/6

Eventually it was fixed up, but I drove with it marred for well over a year.

[gdwriter]

My first accident was pretty pathetic and entirely my fault. It was with my '74 Toyota Celica when I was in high school. My girlfriend at the time lived out in the boonies south of town, and we were driving around on some of the back roads.

I hadn't had the car more than six months; when I bought it, it needed new tires; they were practically bald, but I didn't have the money yet for new ones and my parents wouldn't buy them for me.

Anyway, there were some sharp curves on this road, and I was goofing around, trying to get the car to slide, which wasn't hard with bald tires. I had no trouble recovering from the first two skids, but on the third one, I slid right off the road and mowed down a barbed wire fence.

My ego suffered more damage than the car. There were a couple of dents on the rocker panel from the fence posts I mowed down, and several jagged scratches on the front fender from the barbed wire. I never did get in fixed in the six years I had the car.

[70eldo]

I was doing an internship in Costa Mesa, CA for my polytechnic in 1996. I bought a '77 Sedan Deville I shared with 2 fellow students. As we were from Holland we wanted to have a classic American car. We had been looking around in Auto Traders for 2 weeks and did a couple of test drives in various cars. Meanwhile dragging our groceries by foot and traveling by bus. I must say, the OC and LAC area is not very non-car friendly.
Finally we found a suiting freeway cruiser, the '77 Sedan Deville in tan/tan/tan. First thing I bought was car shampoo, polish, rain-X, leather polish, dashboard spray, etc and payed a day of work in making the car shine again. I ordered personal license plates at the DMV: "CHEASY"

A few days later I was lined up for traffic light for the ramp off to the 5 to drive my fellow student to Irvine. A red Dodge Caravan with a lady drove into my rear with the full 40 mph. She said she had a blackout. Anyway, my car was totalled: the rear was bent all the way to the ground and the doors were hard to open. 2 cars in front of me were also damaged.
That was the first car accident I was in.

My first accident I was fault was only 2 years later than that. I was looking for a news paper box for the OC weekly at shopping areas. Driving down Harbor Blvd (Costa Mesa) in a rental car (sunfire) I missed the car stopping for traffic light in front of me. I was to late with the brakes and steering correction and slid into his right rear corner. I paid cash for his damage. That was the beginning of my bad luck for 7 years...

[Sevillian273]

I was rear ended in my seville by a chevy silverado while sitting in traffic. Im lucky that I just so happened to be looking in the rear view mirror and saw that he wasnt slowing down. I got on the gas just in time to keep the impact of the full size truck from destroying my car and possibly putting me in the hospital. He still hit me hard enough to do $2200 in damage. He was watching some guys load an entertainment center into a truck when he hit me. He didnt even slow down. Luckily I saw him coming and we both got to drive home.

Now Im going to go find a large piece of wood and knock on it for a while....

[ewill3rd]

Being in the car business, I have some pretty good stories but I'll stick to a couple.

My FIRST accident was pretty bad damagewise but everyone was okay. Me and my buddy in high school did one of those all night deals where we just stayed out goofing off all night. In the morning we had taken on an obligation to deliver some papers for this guy or something and we were delivering them in my '73 GMC half ton pickup. (the first one)
We drove onto this road that had just been built, it was a beautiful 3 lane concrete residential road. We came up on an intersection but the road crews had not taken down the signs along the street even though it was open. A large panel sign that said "road closed" on it was blocking the center lane of both sides of the intersection. We were on the road that had the right of way (I was driving of course) and I pulled into the center of the intersection. I sat there for a minute trying to decide if anyone was coming because I couldn't see a thing. I turned to my buddy Tony and said "well I can't see a thing... hang on... here we go".
So I started my turn figuring even though the sun was up it was still early as could be and no one would be out. Much to my chagrin someone was, this dude in an old Dodge was coming at about 50 mph the other way and just as I nosed out from behind the sign our cars were introduced to eachother.
I instinctively hit the brakes and locked up all 4 tires but it was too late. The impact pushed my truck back about two feet and then sideways about 8 with the brakes locked up. It left some cool marks on the road to say the least. The frame was bent from front to rear and the front end was completely annihilated. Tony didn't have his seatbelt on and he was bouncing all over the place like a ping pong ball, I had a lap belt (that's all she had) on and I almost broke my nose on the steering wheel when my faced bounced off of it. Sadly it was my fault and I got the ticket... my first at 17. One week later to the day I got a speeding ticket in my mom's Celebrity wagon doing 60 in a 30 and from there it went downhill.

I've had scarier wrecks than that, most of them didn't turn out too bad. I almost t-boned an Escort doing 60 (that is a good story) and I took a Barracuda backwards through a 5' deep ditch at about 50 mph and flew back out out onto the road still spinning. I had a high side and two low sides on my bikes over the years too but nothing too crazy. My wife has been rear ended in her Dodge pickup like 5 times... usually the only thing I have to do is replace the rear bumper, which I have done twice so far.

My mom got rear ended by a state trooper in MO. She was lucky to live through that. She also got sideswiped in our Impala when we lived in FL back when I was just a pup. Lots of stories about wrecks in my family.
You might not want to ride with any of us... lol. My sister was the worst. We had an old Buick that was wrecked 5 times, twice by my sister. We kept fixing it and my dad drove it until it quit running.

BTW, I would caution you guys that haven't been in wrecks to use this phrase.... "I haven't been in one YET".
If you use "never" it is like tempting the fates.
My friend said that once and he didn't last 24 hours before he had his first wreck. And the retard backed up and drove away!! (oh yeah he got busted... don't worry)

[CIWS]

I took out a "Slow curve ahead" sign with the left side rear quarter panel of my 1972 Grand Prix, which in the process blew my left rear tire as the car hopped the curve to kill that sign. The road was wet and I gassed it at the wrong moment.