Worst crash you have walked away from?

[Bren]

My mate crashed his mini into a wall.

 

His passenger was most alarmed when the still running engine was partially pushed through the bulkhead - he commented that "something spinning" was inches from their knees.

[EssDeeWon]

 

No-one was seriously hurt, just bruises and stiff necks in the morning 

 

Err hello do you never watch daytime TV? Claims Direct, National Accident Helpline, Injury Lawyers 4 U etc etc etc..

 

You could be minted by this time next week 

[Pete-M]

Integrale 16v I chucked into a ditch as the alternative would have been a head on with an oncoming Eddie Stobart truck. That was rather a large one.

 

My beloved SD1 Vitesse was written of when a woman driving an accident courtesy car pulled out of a stop junction in front of me, realised what she'd done at the last minute and stopped dead - blocking the road leaving me absolutely nowhere to go other than through the Corsa she was driving.

 

At least the (new) Corsa was also written off.

[bub2006]

My worst accident didn't cause no injury to me but i was lucky to escape with my life. I was 17 and driving a G reg Peugeot 205 diesel. Went to a wedding with the ex Mrs. Her uncle was a big bloke. Ex forces and worked on the doors. Very big and strapping chap. I happened have a mishap what ended up with the rear passenger side of the pug hitting the a pillar of a nearly new ford Mondeo. Knackered door,wing and a post buckled. It just happened to be her uncles car who was also the groom. A fair few big lads came out the club and was all baying for blood. Still look back and think how lucky i was to not end up in a shallow grave that night

[martybabes]

Mrs Martybabes was on her way to collect me from work when she was involved in an incident. Just a few moments beforehand, a motorist had collided with a cyclist causing the cyclist some injuries requiring an ambulance which was duly summoned. The motorist, on returning to his car following attendance to the cyclist sprawled on the road, failed to look before stepping into the road whereupon Mrs Martybabes sent him cartwheeling over the bonnet of our family hatchback. Justice was swift in those days!

[brickwall]

Merto GTa going round a hairpin when lorry struck we on the front quarter. Metro tipped up on its side, hitting a berm and then flipping head over heals 3 odd times into a field before landing upside down in a river.

 

Sore hand. Soggy combat trousers.

[Inspector Morose]

Hmm, let me think. Bent a Volvo 480 turbo over a raised concrete central reservation after pirouetting a few times when my mate decided to stick the handbrake on for a laugh. Literally bent it over with both sets of wheels touching the floor but the sill about 18 inches higher than it should have been. Ruptured the fuel tank and bathed the surrounding area with a fair bit of fuel. Walked away but suffered a bruised hand afterwards.

 

Slid a National into a flat bed artic while simultaneously demolishing the surrounding wall to Walsall arboretum. The back corner of the flat bed sliced into the cab and stopped about 1/2 an inch away from my right knee. Change of trousers for that one. Bus was finished.

 

Had a joy rider hit the side of the national I was driving side on and bent the structure of the bus. No injuries but killed the bus. (Ex Manchester SWB one too - was a good 'un)

 

The most frightening was clipping (literally was just a tap at below 1mph) a cast iron column in the garage with the back of a Metrobus. The column shattered and the rather substantial wood and glass roof of the garage landed on top of the bus with me inside. Crushed the upper deck flat and it took the fire and ambulance a while to get me to move. The cab was free but I just couldn't move a muscle. No real injuries but I won't work in bus garages again doing what I like doing and I still have flashbacks.

 

3/10 must be more careful.

[robinmasters]

...Hit a slick of farm slurry...

Bastard farmers. I hit a stream of slurry across a country lane, on a corner. The Maestro 1.3HLE didn't turn, I hit a telegraph pole. Tried phoning a recovery truck from the nearby house, but for some reason their phones didn't work. The car was a write-off, but my insurance was TPF&T.

[Albert Ross]

07/01/1999 Towing a Sierra on a heavy trailer with a Sierra..... Ahem. Southbound on the A46 between Lincoln and Newark before it was dualled. At the crest of Potter Hill, a white Escort Van overtook me on the Collingham junction, and pushed past me, forcing the trailer wheels off the tarmac. Thus setting a wobble up, downhill at about 35-40mph. I didn't recover, and jacknifed the whole rig under a Renault Magnum. Thankfully the truck's trailer had been modified the previous week to have the side protection bars fitted. 1 dead Mk1 Sierra 2.0i Ghia hatch, and a coughing blood Mk1 Sierra 1.6L Estate on the undamaged trailer. I removed the Estate from the trailer, removed the trailer from the Hatch, and attached it to the Estate. then drove the 27" out of line Hatch onto the trailer. Behind the Renault was a Micra with two young women and three tinies in it..... I can't imagine the outcome if I had hit the Micra instead. No injuries except to my pride. Traffic Plod were excellent, breathalysed all those affected drivers, gave us all a clean bill of health, insurance paid out, no quibbles, trailer hire company were fine, and it was my wake up call. I bought a house within a month, having been dossing on floors and using up goodwill. I have never looked back since. I am now happily married with good cars AND shite!

[forddeliveryboy]

One benefit of living in the sticks is there are very few other vehicles, although drops off the sides are measured in hundreds, not tens or units. It concentrates the mind, although not to the extent there weren't one or two bent hedges when I was younger.

 

Best* crash was recently-ish, with mate in 2cv in blow with A8 at speed, well 65-70, Will ask him to see if the pics still exist. He ended up spinning then rolling a few times and was surprised when he got out unscathed, physically.

[xtriple]

I've had loads of bike accidents, some of which I did walk away from but quite a few where I didn't so they don't count...

 

1987 and I'd just taken an Escort RS2000 in p/x on an XJS and was having a hoon about in it. Various friends had been out playing in it earlier so I was keen to show my 'prowess'.... Down in Cornwall on a back road to ST Germans lovely series of flowing corners and I lost it BIG TIME, ended up missing a wall but parking it on a bloody great big tree that I had just knocked down! It took two tow trucks, and two cars full of policemen to drag it out... it was a bit of a mess but me and the wife walked away completely unharmed.

 

I did have it repaired and drove it for a while, it had an interesting history as it was a 'Y' plate MK2 and it had been an Irish tarmac rallycar, it had cracks everywhere. Never did handle right...

 

Also spun a Honda S800 on ice going towards Loughborough, missed the artic coming towards me, and ended up down a ditch with the back about two inches from a wall and the passenger side about four inches from another substantial tree. Not the slightest bit of body damage to the car or me but the exhaust was several metres away from the rest of the car! It was the worst snow storm in decades but I had to get back to Uni for the next day or I wouldn't have bothered.

 

Rolled an early mk1 Spitfire into a field when slightly the worse for wear (in all of these, I was young and bloody stupid) and it ended up about a hundred metres from the road I had been on. Every panel was flattened and the roof just a shredded mess but me and the then girlfriend were fine. Bloody cold though as we had to spend the night in the thing as we were out in the wilds with not a soul about!  Got a farmer to drag it out the next morning and drove it a couple of hundred miles home. It got scrapped...

 

Borrowed my stepdads Skoda 105 as I had to get to Nottingham in a hurry and my car was u/s, drove it like a fookin' maniac (I really liked old rear engined Skodas and the old man had several over the years) and made it as far as the Lincoln ramper and slid off into a drainage ditch where it filled up with water and sank - that was scary! The old man returned the favour though as he wrote of my S800 by pulling out in front of an artic and demolishing the front - he was fine.

 

Had a lovely Datsun 260Z and used it to commute 130 miles a day seven days a week and never did any maintenance on it (no time, money or indeed, thought) and was driving from Loughborough to the other side of Birmingham, lost the right front wheel on a left hand bend and the car skidded into a wall on the outside. Of course I was driving way too fast and the impact demolished the dry stone wall and the drivers side of the car, apart from being aware that my space had suddenly become rather narrow, I was fine! The car was a right off....  It had been making horrible noises from that wheel for ages...

 

On the M5 (or M6, I get confused) in a Jag mk10 4.2 I lost the rear wheel as I had fitted a new rear wheel bearing (I had learned from the above) but I'd done it wrong and the wheel came off complete with hub,  surprisingly drama free and the car was fine but I was a nervous wreck. Learned my lesson then and, touch wood, have been good ever since.

 

Bike accidents, now there's another story (how many months in hospital have you spent after demolishing a MK1 Transit with a Kawasaki KH400?)....

[AndyW201]

1995, and I was in my Rover 111i, blatting along the Cowpen Bewley back road, near Billingham, on my way to work. Its a NSL road, so was doing a fair rate, came round a sweeping right hander to find a VW Transporter attempting to do a U turn into a turning, and back the other way. I hit the brakes and pulled it to the right a bit, cannonned into the side of the van and bounced into the turning. (Which was lucky or else I'd have been into a field via a high kerb). The impact ejected the cassette I was listening to out of the player, and onto the rear shelf...

The Metro/100 series was renowned for not being very good in a fight, and mine was a bit bent. Engine and box canted over to the left, gearbox borked, subframe bent, NSF wheel pushed back about 6" into passenger footwell and bent A pillar with ns door jammed shut. 5 months old as well...

 

Only injury was a slight bruise on the side of my left leg where the gear lever smacked into it.

[danthecapriman]

Only had the one myself and it wasn't a very big deal.

My old Volvo 740 saloon got rear ended at a funny angle by a Pug 607. The 607 lost big time! My car suffered only a very slight scuff to the bumper, crack to one rear light lense and a slightly bent (but still usable) exhaust tail pipe. The 607 was almost a right off, only being saved as it was so new at the time! The front end was wasted, and all down one side where he tried to swerve at the last min. It was a right state! Funnily enough I didn't really feel the impact much either!

 

My Grandad had a few! The worst was in Cyprus in 1973 in a nearly new Marina. He lost it on a corner and ploughed head on into a sharp turn sign which sliced into the car finishing up between both front seats! Could of been much worse! I should mention my grandparents had been to the Cyprus wine festival that evening!! I don't think drink driving was that big a no no back then as it is now.

The other bad one he had was in a mk1 Fiesta in this country. He went round a bend and a lorry coming the other way shed its load of concrete drain pipes which hit his Fiesta head on, throwing it up in the air and into a ditch at the side of the road!

 

One of the guys I work with was a passenger in one of the company's Dodge 50 vans. He was asleep and the driver went under a low railway bridge, which totally ripped the roof off the van! He said he woke up covered in broken glass and the cab was strangely bright and fresh air blowing in! The van was a right off, and had only just been repaired from a previous prang not long before! The driver was sacked not long after!

[Bren]

My Xr4i got rear ended by a transit delivering papers to newsagents.

 

Straight into the back of me at 25 mph - my seat snapped and even the back of the roof was distorted.

 

Transit was also fucked. Paramedics were not happy that I had not remained in the car - I told them I was'nt going to sit in it waiting for it to catch fire.

 

My royale was also written off by a transit - maybe they are driven by myopic wankers?

[Louise2cv]

Funnily enough I was only talking yesterday about a couple of accidents where 2cvs had rolled and the occupants were unharmed. One was hit by a beemer, she got herself out of the 2cv which rolled a couple of times I think and the beemer guy had to be cut out and sent to hospital.

[SambaS]

What was story with that mess of a Marina!

[Lankytim]

I must be the odd one out on this forum as the worst smash I've been in was being T boned on a roundabout by an escort van in my MK1 fiesta. Bent wing and door but no other damage, van lost it's bumper and wrecked it's headlights, bonnet and both wings. Christmas eve 2000 IIRC.

 

My Dad told me about a smash he had in the 70's. He was driving a brand new Mk1 Cavalier, approaching a Rover P6 which was travelling in the opposite direction. The driver of the P6 reached around to put his belt on as he was driving and as he did he pulled the steering wheel over to the right. The P6 crossed onto the other side of the road and crashed into my Dad's Cav head on causing stacks of damage, apparently the engine was pushed back and the tunnel bent. The P6 was a write off.

 

As the Cav was virtually new, the insurance company sent it for repair. With the repairs nearing completion my Dad was informed of a day to go and collect it. Unfortunately a careless mechanic doing some last minute work somehow set fire to it and it was partially burnt out. Although written off it was apparently repaired again and found it's way back on the road!

[Ghosty]

I can't do better than about 2001 when someone in a turquoise Cavalier with a towbar cut my mum up. New radiator, bonnet, sad face grille and bumper. The courtesy car was a Ka - old man ended up with it while mum went back to her old mk2 Fez, then the old man's, for the week.

[mat_the_cat]

Not much of a crash, but I was very lucky with this.

 

 

 

Lucky, because it was such low speed I didn't bother with a seatbelt, and made my (involuntary) exit through the passenger window mid-way through one of the rolls. I don't recall it clearly, but apparently I very narrowly avoided being crushed. Still gives me the chills several years later

 

Annoyingly it was only a few months after a several day weldathon on the front end, and a month after I'd done a top end rebuild of the engine, but to his credit the guy I let behind the wheel did buy a (newer) replacement.

[trigger]

I posted this back when it happened (4 years ago now) so sorry to those who have seen it before, this was my worse crash, I was going to look a Mitsubishi Celeste in Nottingham at the time.

 

I got onto the M11 near Stansted, I'd been travelling along for about 5 minutes thinking to myself that the car in from was weaving all over the road and tailgating in front, next thing i know she ploughs into the car infront of her, comes to a sudden stop and and i slid on the wet road, tap her bumper and then get rammed by the car behind that ploughs me into the girl some more.

 

 

 

 

Bloody 4 car pile up, The wife collapsed from shock and get sent to hospital and i had a bad back for weeks. Plus i lost a lot of my no claims as it couldn't be proved that i hadn't hid her first, (I did but i was almost stopped at the time)

 

 

 

This was the car that hit me, we think he was doing about 30-40 at the time, It doesn't look that bad, to moved the axle on the Ibiza!

 

 

Bollocks.

[chaseracer]

Bent a Volvo 480 turbo over a raised concrete central reservation after pirouetting a few times when my mate decided to stick the handbrake on for a laugh... walked away but suffered a bruised hand afterwards...

 

From smacking your "mate" upside his empty head?

 

[J-T]

The worst one I had was about 5 years ago on the M62 in an 08 Focus (company car). I was on my way to a xmas party on a friday night and was running late so I was bombing down lane 3. I was just about to overtake a Polo in lane 2, when the car in front of that braked very suddenly for no apparent reason. By this time I was level with the Polo, who braked but also decided to swerve into my lane. Her front wheel hit mine, which made my car drive up her tyre and ripped mine off the rim, so I was on the bare rim when it hit the floor. Somehow managed to get it over to the hard shoulder without hitting anything else. The tyre had mullered the wing and the edge of the passenger door. Looking back, it looks like one of those set up crashes, but it wasn't particularly known about then. The car that braked didn't stop.

 

My dad managed to do this to a Corolla twincam around 1991/92ish, showing off to his mate, who was sat in the back with no seatbelt on. His mate flew out the back window. Rolled it twice. Somehow both of them walked away. I remember him saying the roof knocked him out and when he woke up again he thought he was dead, as it was pitch black and everything felt totally abnormal. Then he remembered it was the middle of the night, he'd been driving like a dick and managed to figure out he was upside down still in the car, in the middle of a field.

 

 

 

[Inspector Morose]

From smacking your "mate" upside his empty head?

 

Erm, possibly

 

Then again, he did have a fit of guilt and bought me an early 924 as a replacement. (Look, we were both single and living at home. How else are we going to piss all our money away if not on cars and the occasional pint?)

[HillmanImp]

I crashed my Imp into a bollard outside Sainsbury's in Rustington. Mate headbutted the non laminated windscreen and nearly lost his eye. Was left with a big scar. Scary arsed shizzle.

 

Imp27 by Afalseicon, on Flickr

 

 

[jakebullet]

It took 4 goes to kill my series 2 landrover 88". Dry stone wall = new wing. Black ice into a golf coming other way = new chassis dumb iron. Brake fail into pug, undamaged.

 

Then I got a giffer in a micra pulling straight onto the main road and T bone round the passenger bulkhead area. Got knocked across the road into a handy lamp that stopped it from rolling. Drivers door was the only panel not to be damaged. Drove it home, ended up scrapped after I realised the chassis was banana'd.

[maxpower]

I was a passenger in a mk3 cortina in early 80's there was 4 of us in the car we  must have been doing bout 60 over the erskine bridge... coming up to the booths/tolls.. the driver shouts the brakes are not working, we all thought he was pissing about until he swerved left and we hit a kerb which took the sump/bottom of engine off the car and we ended up on a grass verge.... all injury free

 

but the worse one that still chills me was in 1970's i must have been 12 or 13 and i was going fishing on a sunday with a mate, his dad & uncle.... but being a heavy sleeper i overslept and missed the trip... anyway they had an accident (drink related) the dad and the uncle were killed outright and my mate spent a few weeks in hospital. he was never the same again... i just thank god i was a heavy sleeper that day .

[Richard]

pulled out of a stop junction in front of me, realised what she'd done at the last minute and stopped dead - blocking the road leaving me absolutely nowhere to go

 

People seem to do that. Years ago I was "making progress" along here in my 1500 Allegro when somebody pulled out of that farm right in front of me. I did lots of braking and prepared to overtake but they stopped dead across the road and I was forced to try for the gap between the nose of their car and the verge- all with one wheel locked up and the car lurching all over the place. Sadly for the purposes of this thread I actually made it and managed to get the car back on an even keel eventually.

 

On-topic, my friend had a Mk2 Capri to which, for reasons best known to himself, he had fitted a stock car type front bumper. Despite not having a full licence he was a very confident driver and particularly liked rallying down a local single-track road with me or another mug as the supervising* driver. One frosty night he decided to go on his "rally track" and was doing 70 on the approach to this corner when the laws of physics asserted their authority and we ploughed straight on into the scenery. The only injury any of the four of us sustained was when I was walking around the car after we'd recovered it and I bashed my knee on that stupid nudge bar, which was now horizontal.

[Junkman]

Worst one I walked away from was Panzerplatte 1983 during the Deutschland Rallye, where I nixed our Commodore GS and was knocked out for over five minutes.

The impact was such, that one of the concrete cuboids was launched 20 metres into the same group of trees where the car completely disintegrated.

My co-driver was unscathed, but under shock, and I had regained consciousness when the ambulance arrived.

We were both released after a quick examination at the local hospital.

 

There were two incidents I didn't walk away from, both in Stockcar F1s, followed by several weeks in hospital.

There were several non car related incidents I didn't walk away from. This week, it's 10 years, since the last nail was removed from my body,

which of course will be celebrated with intoxicating liquids.

[Partridge]

I'm not sure if mine counts because I wasn't driving when it happened

 

It was in my cousin's Accord which he had only had for about a week. He drove me down a well known rat run in Southampton, clipped a curb nearing a roundabout doing god knows what mph. The front wheel got ripped off and we ended up on the roof, on the wrong side of the road. We both crawled out of the windows which were thankfully already open without a scratch! (Although my cuz did later gain a lovely bruise on his face).

And he did loose his mobile and sun glasses-they probably flew out of the window.

 

I called for recovery, and with help of a couple of passers we righted the car to make it look less serious when the truck arrived...

 

I'm amazed that nobody called the cops.

[Caffiend]

Before I learned to drive, I used to take National Express for long distance (cheaper than the train). I don't sit in back seats of coaches or buses any more, because I was sat in the rearmost seat on the nearside when another coach at one of the stops hit mine, and I got showered with glass from the resulting broken window. Could have been much worse if it was summer (bare arms/shoulders) rather than autumn/winter so I was wearing a couple of layers. Not a scratch on me: didn't half shake me up though.