That'll buff out....Or maybe not. Post your wreckage.

[Ben_O]

Coming to work a few years ago, a scaffold lorry pulled out directly into my path and I ended up sliding straight under the side of his cab.

Wasnt sure what to do with it so it sat for 6 months and then a donor car in the same colour became available so I repaired it

But j never finished it so it sat another 18 months before I ended up selling it for £200.

The guy that bought it finished off the last jobs, got it mot'd and then fitted new tyres all round and is using it daily.

He has just had it professionally valeted

Although I dont know why, its pretty scruffy!

To each, his own and all that

[Ben_O]

Ok.... so how do I put images up now?

 

[tobyd]

@Ben_O

Just paste the URLs directly (need to be https ones) and the forum automatically does the rest.

[inconsistant]

A couple of years ago my wife and the Versatile 40 got shunted across the road into a ditch by a Transit van driver who hadn't noticed she had stopped and was indicating to turn right.  

Front wasn't a pretty sight,

 The back was worse though.

It was a write off obvs, creases up the side, front and rear doors wouldn't open properly, and there was damage in the boot right up to the rear seat   

Fortunately the umbrella survived the incident.

 

[sdkrc]

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

[chompy_snake]

16 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

Erm no ..... Nearly died, enjoyed driving countless smoll tin boxes since. 

If ya numbers up it's up is the way I look at it.

 

[Pieman]

I don't know how you lot can just carry on as normal after some of the massive shunts in this thread.  I've had three incidents while driving in my lifetime (one write-off when a Mercedes pulled out on me in my Metro when I was on my way to uni, and two minor shunts a few years later) and after each of them I didn't leave the house for about a week afterwards.

[Jerzy Woking]

No photos as years ago, when I got hit whilst stationary in my 1988 Fiesta van. The impact shoved me onto the car it front, and that then hit the car in front. Five cars damaged in all, and my van was a real mess. I was lucky, just hurt myself bracing for the impending impact.

Police closed the road as my van could not be moved by pushing it, plus there was about 7 gallons of diesel from my ruptured tank/fuel lines all over the road. Fire brigade cleared that up.

For a long time after I got a bit scared if I saw in my rear view mirror a vehicle approaching me fast. 

 

[inconsistant]

56 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

 

For a while we felt a lot of mixed feelings, and for her about a year of physical after effects. If there was traffic coming the other way, as there was moments before (which is why she'd stopped to turn right),  then she would have been shunted into it's path and it's a 60mph road and it was rush hour so it could have been horrific, even fatal. The call I got that she'd been in an accident could have been from the Police  to tell me she'd died.

On the plus side all the safety things that should have worked on the car did, like crumple zones, seat belt tensioners etc. And the other guy stopped, admitted liability and gave a statement to police. Other drivers/witnesses stopped too, helped my wife out of the car, called police and gave statements too. So it actually re-affirmed our believe that people, strangers, can be awesome at a time when everyone seems to have an instinctive distrust of strangers. I felt very vulnerable for a while driving the 924 realising that if my wife had been in that there wouldn't have been much of it or her left. I was watching the cars behind me a lot more at junctions. My poor wife had to drive past the same place every day. 

Although I think what Chompy Snake said above is kind of true, you just don't know what's about to happen. We're not really into that 'live every day as if it's your last' stuff but I think being reasonably risk averse but also realistic about the statistical chance of these things happening is helpful. It's very unlikely to happen to anyone, but there are lots of accidents because there are lots of drivers who make lots  of journeys. We did replace it with a bigger Volvo though.

[New POD]

On 26/11/2020 at 13:42, tobyd said:

@Ben_O

Just paste the URLs directly (need to be https ones) and the forum automatically does the rest.

Or click on Add files. 

Then click on files. 

Then select the picture.  

In this case a screen shot. 

[Billy - Medhurst]

3 hours ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

If I am right in remembering the Morris minor crash that hubnut or his wife did have then I would assume most dont.

[Cento16v]

4 hours ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

I got punted backwards through a wall in my Cinquecento when I was 18, took 3 hours for them to cut me out of it, then a month in hospital with a shattered femur and internal bleeding.

Other people walked away in the other car.

I bought a Seicento Sporting to replace it 😂

[Three Speed]

4 hours ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

Yes. Every time.

[Zelandeth]

5 hours ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

Back then I really didn't have an option.  We lived 16 miles from the nearest town (zero public transport options, a taxi to the nearest shop - a country filling station - was a £45 round trip) and our financial situation was such that I did honestly miss days of college because I couldn't afford to put fuel in the car, and we did cook dinner over a camp stove more than once because the credit on the electricity meter had run out.

We did get the benefit situation for my parents sorted out eventually which helped us get things straightened out a little, but it really wasn't until I managed to move out in late 2006 that I was in a position to really get control of my own finances as they were suddenly no longer at the mercy of poor decisions by my folks.

Back then though...I had a choice between another £250 car and missing a week of college, or a £100 car and getting back there tomorrow.

It didn't really make me reconsider my automotive choices though, but it DEFINITELY made me a more vigilant driver, and I've almost definitely avoided incidents since that I'd have been in the middle of if I'd not been hit that day.

[Talbot]

5 hours ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

No, but you unconciously do change the way you drive and how you percieve risks.  When driving at night (especially in rain) I often "see" things in front of me that aren't actually there.  Most often it's oncoming vehicle headlamps and fence/gantry legs making shadows that move across my carriageway.

I also can no longer trust at night that the road ahead being dark means it's unoccupied.

When you learn to fly a light aircraft, you have to do a seperate night rating to be able to fly at night.  I am absolutely convinced that the same should be true of driving.  Night-time driving is significantly different to daytime.

[Inspiral_Mondays]

Back in 2017 I was “making progress“ in my 330D GT company car on the A9 autobahn towards Berlin. It was a typical Summer afternoon, the autobahn was empty and driving conditions were pretty much perfect. However, at 250km/h you cover a kilometre in about 14 seconds, and I suddenly realised I‘d driven into a summer squall, and the road was very wet. Fortunately I had time to back off before I aquaplaned so I was probably under 200km/h when I side swiped the crash barrier on the offside. Lost the back end and the car spun before hurtling towards the crash barrier on the near side which I hit almost head on before spinning again and demolishing a further 100m or so of crash barrier and then coming to rest on the hard shoulder.

I remember being terrified the whole time of flipping over the crash barrier and landing on the roof. As a testimony to the crashworthiness of both the BMW F34 and autobahn crash barriers, after coming a stop I was able to open the driver‘s door and get out, without any apparent injury. The police closed the road to clear away bits of BMW which were strewn everywhere. I don’t have any pictures, but the front of the car was more or less gone and the whole nearside was, well let’s say it definitely wouldn’t have polished out. I refused the offer of an ambulance, collected a rental car and carried on my business trip.

The next day I had aches in places I didn‘t know existed. I also got a hefty fine and points as the German police don‘t like you breaking their crash barriers. I discovered that bit of autobahn was a known accident blackspot and when I drove past 6 months later it had had a 120km/h speed limit slapped on it. The accident also achieved what 15 years of nagging from my wife hadn’t and actually caused me to slow down and stop treating autobahns like a racetrack.

[4wheeledstool]

May 2012, some tit pulled out of a side road without looking first.

Didn't look to bad at first glance, but alas, the door didn't fit the aperture any more.

[taranaki]

10 hours ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

Fortunately, Iwas the only person in the car when I got hit in a high speed head on. Was dragged out through the tailgate by two truck drivers, no broken bones. Went out the next week and bought a later model similar vehicle, it had airbags, but to be honest, that wasn't a purchase factor, the air conditioning was.

[bunglebus]

I've never really thought about safety when buying a car, although I've told the other half she's not having a (proper) Mini having seen what happens when they crash. If I had a 60s car with no seatbelts etc I'd drive it accordingly, well aware that you can't know what other drivers are going to do.

I think the biggest change to my driving has been getting a dashcam, and watching dashcam videos, think it's made me better at predicting when someone's about to do something stupid.

Granted I've not had a massive crash, but it was pretty scary going sideways through a sign and into the hedge. Didn't put me off driving, just crashing again

[Soundwave]

Mercifully I've never had a major accident, and I hope to keep it that way.

I must admit to getting a sudden feeling of dread sometimes when I'm out in the MX-5, where I suddenly realise if anything goes wrong I will probably die - no airbags, a tent for a roof and the fact the car will go under the front of most modern SUVs leaving my face as the first point of contact in a head-on crash. Also have recurring nightmares about cars coming the opposite way round blind bends on my side of the road at 60+, really hoping they're not premonitions...!

Mind you, I also have recurring nightmares about uncontrollable lactation despite being a man, and my head being full of bees. Sometimes both at the same time.  So maybe not worth looking too much into them...

[Dan_ZTT]

12 hours ago, sdkrc said:

For anyone who had a nasty shunt: 

Did you make a conscious effort to try and drive safer cars after your crash? 

I don't think it affected my choice of cars at all, but I do think having a major accident in my first year on the road definitely made me a much better driver overall in the long term. You're just that bit more aware of what can happen, experience is worth more than a lot of words and pictures.

 

Whenever I visit my parents' house I drive a stretch of dual carriageway where a close friend was killed in an accident that wasn't even her fault, must be 10 years ago now. Think about it every time. You can't get away from that stuff, you just have to do your best to learn from it.