Something Bad Happened Today

"lorem ipsum" (nothing123456789) 10/22/2014 at 17:41 • Filed to: None

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The keen observer may be able to discern from the above picture that today, I dented my car— just a little dent, on the roof.

The Scooby is down for good, and my insurance won't cover it. I do have one consolation, though— the tree I hit when the car rolled is damaged, and, if the owners of said tree come knocking looking for reparations, my insurance will cover that. My car insurance covers a tree, but not a car.

Anyway, I'm in a bit of a pickle— not least because I'm stranded on an island off the Coast of Maine where there's no public transportation, no sidewalks, and massive distances between everything. I'm in a pickle because, for the first time in my life, I'm suffering a crisis of confidence— does this accident make me a bad driver?

I will relate my story to you in an effort to determine that question. I got off work early today— about 1:00— and decided to drive to the next town over to deposit my paycheck and visit some friends. It had been raining the whole day, and, when I stepped into my car, it started raining more heavily. I have only just found out that a Nor'Easter has hit, and the constant flickering of the lights in my house tells me I could very well be without power tonight.

Anyway, I was driving the speed limit, or so (about 45-50 mph), and, exiting a downhill left hand curve, found that the rear of my Subaru had burned its bridge with the road, and was no longer on speaking terms. I corrected with a dab of Oppo (referencing the website name, eh?), and, at that point, the computers decided to give the front wheels a load of power, which pulled me into an embankment, led to me rolling over, etc, you get the story.

I understand my failings as a driver in this instance— I was going too fast, and I wasn't quick enough with my reactions on the steering wheel to stop the slide. I know I didn't hit the brakes, but I don't remember how much, if at all, I lifted off the throttle. So, what say you, kind, empathetic, not-prone-to-self-righteousness members of Oppositelock? What would you have done differently? Would you trust me with your car? Am I a bad driver, or merely very self-centered for writing an entire column about myself?

Mr. FiSTer of Team FiST Fetish > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:43

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HOLY SHIT.

Are you alright? Anyone else involved?

FireSpittingV12 > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:46

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No, your aren't a bad driver. Your Subaru's stability/traction control computers failed you.

PS9 > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:46

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FUCK MAN

Everyone's still not-asploded, right?

MonkeePuzzle > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:47

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wowza!

can possibly recover some of the value selling the engine, they are pretty plug and play across several platforms so might have interest

lorem ipsum > Mr. FiSTer of Team FiST Fetish 10/22/2014 at 17:48

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I'm just fine, walked out, not hurt at all. No one else involved, just me.

Blue 300 > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:49

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This photo is kind of sad because it's a photo of a lonely road that you photographed, but there's some one driving away. Hope you get home soon.

lone_liberal > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:49

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'Tis just a flesh wound. Nobody is perfect. Sometimes we get away with our mistakes and sometimes we roll our Subarus in to a tree. What shape were your tires in? If they were worn out then it was more of a mistake in judgement than in driving. If they were fine then you were probably going too fast for the conditions.

Moves-Like-Senna > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:50

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Firstly, I'm glad that from the sounds of it you're okay. I wouldn't say you're a bad driver based off that. We all make mistakes and well now you know for next time. you were lucky with this case and it's okay.

I've never had a serious accident on the road myself but I did destroy three RX7 shells (please don't kill me oppo) and chassis on a track while the LS engine survived all three. All three times happened in my first year of racing and were attributed to driver error by my self or another driver not accounting for the other cars, weather and speed. It's a mistake that anyone can make and anyone does, what's important is to learn from it.

My first piece of advice is to get in another car and drive immediately. That's what I did following all three crashes to ensure I wasn't scared of being in a car again.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:50

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I'm gonna blame this on the traction/stability control system. You tried to correct it, the traction control screwed up your correction by shoving all the power to the front. Don't be too hard on yourself. This is a case where it was system failure and not operator error.

You're okay though right?

lorem ipsum > PS9 10/22/2014 at 17:50

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It looks like the set of a Michael Bay movie (least tasteless analogy I could come up with)

lorem ipsum > lone_liberal 10/22/2014 at 17:54

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My tires were fine, I was going too fast. Well, now I know, and now I've learned— I just wish the learning process didn't feel so shameful, and, more importantly, expensive

lorem ipsum > Logansteno: Bought a VW? 10/22/2014 at 17:55

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Totally fine, thanks for asking!

CAR_IS_MI > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 17:59

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Well, I might give you a lesson on driving in wet conditions in fall in New England... but; I can't say the same thing wouldn't have happened to me. I'm not trying to brag that I am a good driver, but I know how to handle a car, and all these new cars with their aids that take control of all sorts of things because the computer assumes you to be to pedantic to do so yourself... Well lets just say I have found my self trying to correct the computers corrections a few times as it tends to be off putting when you actually know what you're doing.

At the end of the day, just glad everyone's okay, even the friendly tree.

lorem ipsum > Blue 300 10/22/2014 at 17:59

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Hahaha I just noticed that— the guy in that car had stopped to check with me for ten minutes, he was very kind! The cop drove me home, nothing to do but get high (on life, of course) and bake pumpkin pie!

Blue 300 > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:03

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Good to see that your spirits are up. NEW CAR time!!!

lone_liberal > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:03

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Did I ever tell you about the time I tried driving my '72 Camaro to work in a snow storm? Did I ever tell you about how I only put snow tires on the rear wheels? Do you know how well the little chrome bumpers on an early 70s Camaro deal with a telephone pole? Not well. That's why I now have a '71 Camaro. [Expensive] lessons learned.

lorem ipsum > Blue 300 10/22/2014 at 18:04

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I was planning on a new one in a few weeks anyway— same car, different color, and, horribly— with a slushbox. The one redeeming part of that boring old Subaru was the extra pedal on the left!

My citroen won't start > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:07

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Not your fault, the traction control fucked up. Glad you're ok!

Suuuubaru > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:07

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I once drove into my own house so no, you're not a bad driver

Blue 300 > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:08

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Suuuubaru > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:09

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also, coudn't you just throw the spare donut on and limp it into a town?

JGrabowMSt > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:12

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If there's a pickle to be in, you've found it and made yourself at home it seems.

I just see two things:

1) You were going fast. Too fast? That's a matter of opinion. You were going fast and you either did or did not have the visibility required to travel safely.

2) You should probably take the rest of the week off. Two reasons: 1) you rolled your car. 2) You don't remember all of your actions between the tires leaving the road, and tires reconnecting with the road. Unless you left foot brake, you just know you probably didn't lift, but you aren't quite sure. You may have walked away from all that, but that doesn't mean it walked away from you.

Would I trust you with my Wagon? Probably. The SL? Nope. But then again, considering the SL needs some TLC, I don't really trust anyone with it.

Your reaction times are rarely diminished outside of specific intervening reasons (DUI or some health condition). With that in mind, your speed was a factor only considering the road conditions. Does that make you a bad driver? No, you made a mistake, and people do that. The tough part is paying for your mistake. Unfortunately, no amount of buffing is going to fix that subie.

I would do two things: 1) start looking for a car and 2) re-evaluate both your coverage and your insurance company. Shit happens, but having some form of coverage one way or another is better than none.

Hit the sack early tonight, and wake up to a fresh mind hopefully. It already happened, hindsight is 20/20, all you can do is pick up the pieces and keep moving forward.

thebigbossyboss > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:18

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That will buff out.

jvirgs drives a Subaru > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:25

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why wont the insurance cover it?

It's a "Porch-uh" > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 18:58

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Yes, you're a bad driver. You were going too fast for conditions and could not maintain control. AKA: You were driving past your skill level.

That being said, I don't think any of us here can say we've never been a bad driver, and this is just an opportunity to learn and improve. There are also varying levels of "bad driver," and it doesn't sound like you were doing anything too egregious, like texting, drinking, or "recklessly" speeding. I've personally put several cars into a guard rails and been in a few on-track collisions because I was driving past my ability to maintain control.

Autofixation > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 19:17

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I just drove home from work in the same storm here in southern New Hampshire. And I gotta admit. I was a bit nervous because of the combination of traffic, leaves on the road, and how black a lot of the new pavement is around here.

I would say that between the storm, the leaves on the road, and your going too fast, things were not in your favor. Once you lose traction on the kind of conditions in your picture, you're in pretty big trouble. I would say that the car was toast once you started sliding, the only thing I say you could have done was to try to steer straight ahead off of the road to prevent the flipping, but in turn probably hitting a ditch and ripping out your front end, but again, attempting to prevent the flipping.

P.S. I flipped a car on a perfectly sunny day, on smooth pavement, 400 feet from my driveway, just because I was driving too fast and my 87 Sentra tried to drive up a hill at 50 mph. The hill wasn't too happy about it and I ended up on my roof.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 19:30

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Glad you're not hurt! That's a win. Wrecks happen.

G_Body_Man: Sponsored by the number 3 > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 19:34

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The dent doesn't look too bad over the driver's and passenger's seats. I say El Camino it.

RallyWrench > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 19:42

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You're ok, and no one else is hurt, so be thankful for that. It's just a car, and it did its most important job well.

I drive the same era Outback. When I was in my 20s, I rolled my old bugeye WRX wagon for stupidly trying to avoid a deer & catching a wheel off the pavement. In hindsight, I should have just put both feet into the clutch & brakes ("In a spin, both feet in") with no steering inputs & hoped for the best, but it happened much too quickly for me to process it & before I knew it I'd wrenched the wheel over, hooked the ditch & was hanging upside down in the belts.

Unless you completely ignored your tire pressures & condition, anything you or anyone else thinks you could have done differently, other than maybe driving slower, is just conjecture at this point. Lifting off the throttle may have exacerbated the loss of rear traction, but who knows. If you were still on the throttle, the car mechanically sent power to the front wheels because the center viscous coupling was spinning uselessly to the rear. No computer assist. If the car had VDC, all it does is grab brakes to prevent slides. Once rotated & past the limit of grip, there's really not a damn thing it can do, and no stability or traction control system can beat the laws of physics, GT-R fanboys notwithstanding. Newton's First Law is a bitch.

A hero driver may have been able to save it with a split-second boot of the gas and an armful of lock, but that's almost nobody here, so don't get too down on yourself with analysis paralysis. Shit happens, and wet roads are never the same twice, so if you take anything away from this, slow it down a bit and remember "Both feet in." Glad you're ok, and take it easy on your neck & back for a bit. You might not think you have whiplash, but you do.

Dr_Watson > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 20:14

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A tree eh? In a Subaru... Hmm gotta say you should have gotten the Cobb shifter.

http://jalopnik.com/5786877/how-a-…

glad you're ok, gl car shopping

jkm7680 > lorem ipsum 10/22/2014 at 20:41

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Ouch, glad you're alright man!

Tohru > lorem ipsum 10/23/2014 at 11:23

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You're generally not supposed to counter-steer with AWD's - they tend to dart the direction the front tires face.

Philbert/Phartnagle > lorem ipsum 10/23/2014 at 18:11

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Sometimes letting off the gas pedal while in a slide will cause a car/truck/SUV to immediately hook up and momentum makes it go directly and very quickly in whatever direction the front wheels are pointing when it happens. I wouldn't say you are a bad driver, because sometimes shit just happens. Glad you are ok.