"Lomac" (lomac)
10/20/2014 at 10:13 • Filed to: None
1
11|
"Lomac" (lomac)
10/20/2014 at 10:13 • Filed to: None | 1
| 11 |
Some people are lucky enough in life that they can go their entire driving life without experiencing a single incident. Most people, however, will likely get into one, maybe two, incidents in the same time frame.
Me... not so lucky.
There's a joke that's trended from my family, to my friends, and finally to my car club about everything that I touch, everything that I do, will go up in flames. Or broken. Or written off.
Let me explain.
It started out innocently enough. A simple break-in while out for dinner in downtown Vancouver. The thief managed to get a book of CD's but was chased off before s/he could manage to snag anything else of value.
Then came my first real accident.
I found myself caught in the middle of a snowstorm a month after winter had officially ended. I tried to stay off the roads long enough to allow snow plows and sanding trucks to work the highway before I attempted the drive home. Smart move, I figured. However, on my way home, a drunk driver decided he wanted to be in the lane that I was in, in the exact same spot where I was. I reacted by braking and swerving from the middle lane to the right lane. Only problem is that the right lane hadn't been plowed and was full of slushy goodness.
So into a bridge support pillar I went.
That accident managed to mess my shoulder up badly enough that it still hurts to this day.
Amazingly a couple years passed without any incidents. At this point I had gotten out of Volkswagen's and was busy highly modifying Mazda's.
Which didn't turn out too well.
We suspect that the alternator was malfunctioning and allowed the battery to overcharge itself, though it is only a theory. The fact that we had just replumbed all the fuel lines with braided steel hopefully was a nonstarter for this inferno.
A little while later resulted in the only (so far) at-fault accident of my driving career. Some woman ahead of me pulling off the highway decided to not merge onto the side street and I was too busy shoulder checking to notice that she had decided to stop dead in the middle of the merging lane.
The most alarming incident is probably the following.
I had brought the Pathfinder to a shop to get a fuel injector replaced because it was in the middle of winter and it was too damn cold to pull the intake runner apart myself. The mechanic had ended up leaving an oily rag on the exhaust manifold after putting everything back together. Because I took this thing onto the highway right after leaving the shop, it managed to keep itself cool enough until I pulled off and went to gas up. Once the wind blowing through the engine bay stopped, it flared up. Luckily I now carry a racing rated fire extinguisher with me at all times, so I managed to get the fire out before anything bad could happen. Scared the shit out of the gas station attendant on duty, though.
And then only last weekend my new Saab 900se Turbo decided to go for a tour by itself through my weekday townhouse residence. No damage except for a small scuff on the rear bumper. Oh, and that's a "No Parking" sign it's up against. I think I should have left it parked that way for the night.
Not pictured, but worth mentioning, is when my Blazer's e-brake deciding to snap while parked on the top of the hill where I live. Went for a nice jaunt down the hillside and into a bunch of trees. Luckily nothing mechanical was damaged and only the front skin and bumper needed to be replaced.
Now, I'm sure I'm not the only person on this website to have bad luck when it comes to vehicular incidents. Let's hear your stories!
thebigbossyboss
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 10:13 |
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Lolvo?
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thebigbossyboss
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 10:16 |
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Totaled 1st car. Totaled 2nd car.
On the first week of owning 3rd car someone hit it in a parking lot. I had a curb to my back and a curb to the entire right side of the car in the last parking space of the lot. Someone hit it from the left side.
Eventually totaled 3rd car. Repaired 3rd car anyways because I could not send ANOTHER vehicle to the scrap yard. Still drive car #3.
Leon711
> thebigbossyboss
10/20/2014 at 10:21 |
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Lolkswagen.
Dwhite - Powered by Caffeine, Daft Punk, and Corgis
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 10:26 |
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I know one person with close to the bad luck as you. Someone I went to high school had a company car from their Dad as a first car, a decent Ford Fusion. First someone in the parking lot rear ended her at low speed. They got the car fixed and then just out side the school in traffic a girl who was texting hit the gas instead of the brakes and she got hit again, this time much harder. The car was totaled when she was driving on the highway and a chunk of the overpass literally just fell off and crushed the roof.
Sn210
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 10:36 |
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That's some shit luck, I share your pain...
First car was a wrangler, i was hit twice in it, totaling a Jetta. it was also broken into twice. Second car was a Saturn, I got rear ended in that. It looked like no damage so I never got the guys info, plus it wasn't his fault as a lady had stopped short in front of us and then drove away. I also backed into a retaining wall on the day I traded it in. I bought a new civic to replace it. I took awesome care of it, even if it was just a civic. It got backed into when I was in college on a night I usually didn't go to school, in a parking lot I never parked in. Then my mother inlaw backed into it years later. After getting that fixed, it got keyed last fall. This past winter a pickup truck with a snow plow slid right through an intersection in front of me. I swerved and drove it up a snow bank. After that I bought a TL early this year. So far that's just been broken into...
Bad luck and good luck at the same time I guess, all of these things could have been worse!
Coachrotte33
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 10:40 |
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I did this in a saturn once and the whole wheel popped off and went 75 ft away. Maybe I should have listened when dad said buy a volvo instead.
Spoon!
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 10:43 |
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Similar to yours, I had just brought home my brand new 2004 Pontiac GTO, had it in the garage removing bits of shipping plastics and tinkering. Heard the mailman way up my wooded drive, walked out to get it. On the way back I see a car parked off to the left of my drive in the trees... an Impulse Blue car... my brand new GTO car. Apparently my garage floor has just enough slant that the breeze of my walking out of the garage was enough to slowly draw it out and get it rolling. Once it hit the edge of the garage the ramp down was quite a bit steeper. Yes, it was in neutral, yes I had not set the parking gear. It had been sitting that way for over an hour as I worked on it, only deciding to go for walkies when I left for 5 minutes. The car rolled back and across the drive, tucking itself neatly between two pine trees with literally an inch to spare on each side, coming to rest on the piled up pine needles. No damage at all, but damn did that make me a firm believer in parking brakes at every stop.
jariten1781
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 11:04 |
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Man, we've got the same luck...though my only fire was from a power steering line developing a pin hole at 70 mph on the interstate causing me to drive a flaming 80s suburban to the shoulder with no visibility. Good times.
Not pictured, but worth mentioning, is when my Blazer's e-brake deciding to snap while parked on the top of the hill where I live. Went for a nice jaunt down the hillside and into a bunch of trees. Luckily nothing mechanical was damaged and only the front skin and bumper needed to be replaced.
Had the e-brake cable snap on my Mazda 6 on what looked like a flat surface. I was in a store, but from what the witnesses described there was a loud pop followed by the car just barely moving. No one stopped it and it picked up enough momentum to run through a whole parking lot somehow missing all the cars, jump a curb, go within a couple inches of a bus stand that had a family in it, then roll out into the middle of RT 1 where it was hit by a MetroBus. I was very lucky no one got hurt that day.
Mercedes Streeter
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 11:14 |
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I have equally bad luck...with both women and my car. I get heartbroken while my car gets broken (it's been shot, paintballed (twice), keyed, gouged, spat on (twice) and kicked)...
Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 11:27 |
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Nooooooo! I hate seeing destroyed MX-6's.
WesBarton89 - The Way to Santa Fe
> Lomac
10/20/2014 at 12:57 |
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Man, I can relate. I've had BAD luck when it comes to cars, some of the earlier ones are just plain stupidity and being a new driver, but it's also mixed with good luck.
First, while I was on my permit, I was driving my uncle's minivan, and made a poor turn, got flustered and plowed into the back of a parked car. I was barely 17 when that happened. (March of 2006) I was driving a 2002 Ford Windstar, and I was going maybe 20mph, if that, and did over $2k damage to the front end of it, and the other car was an XJ Cherokee, and I busted out their taillight, which wasn't too bad.
Second time, I had just gotten my license, I was about 20 (September of 2009), and I was driving my mom's '99 Olds Intrigue, and on my way to work. I was turning into the parking lot, but made the dumb mistake of making the turn too wide, at about 50mph, went on a high curb, the wheel folded under the car, which likely kept me from flipping, but the whole suspension was wrecked, airbags deployed and everything. Terrifying experience, but no injuries.
Third wreck was my Infiniti J30, when I was 21, my first car that I paid for myself. I was coming back from Baltimore, in the area between Frederick and Hagerstown, MD, still about 70 miles from home, and I had a tire blowout, spun out into the concrete median barrier, and the guardrail, at about 70ish mph. Luckily, it was later in the evening on a Sunday night, so there wasn't really any traffic. Again, airbags deployed, and again, no real injuries with this one.
Fourth (and relatively minor) incident, I was headed back to my house in my '99 Ford Taurus wagon, this was a couple months at most after the Infiniti wreck. My power steering was out, and I was on a narrow road, a '99 Mustang comes down the other way, and I can't get out of the way fast enough, so our driver's side mirrors make contact. The 'Stang loses the entire mirror, I just lose the mirror glass. We exchange info, but nothing ended up being turned into the insurance.
Fifth time, February of 2011, we just had gotten hit with a nasty snowstorm, and my fiancé was driving my Mazda Millenia, which we had just bought a week earlier. Coming down a mountain, the entire wheel fell off, denting the fender, and rolling into the road, but luckily didn't get hit. The lug nuts were somehow stripped out on it. I rigged it back on, and drove slowly and carefully, the remaining mile and a half back home over lots of twisties. We got a new wheel for $50, which did fine.
Sixth time, my Mazda Millenia had a battery cable short, so when we went to start it, it ignited, and the entire engine burnt up. No fire extinguishers were around, as we were in my mother-in-law's driveway. That was frightening, as well. This was August of 2011 or so.
Seventh time, September of 2012, and the most recent involving myself directly. I was driving my Cavalier to work, and I went to switch lanes. My idiot self didn't check my blind spot, and I merged into the side of a gorgeous 2010 Hyundai Genesis coupe. We exchanged insurance info, but nothing ever came of that either. Nobody was hurt, and the damage to her Hyundai was far worse than the damage to my Cav.
Eighth, and final, not me in the car, but my car. This was just this past January. My fiancé was driving my '98 Olds Cutlass, and hit a patch of black ice, and couldn't stop, and slammed head on into an older woman's car. I think both cars were totaled. Still fighting with the insurance on that one. My fiance hurt her (already bad) knee pretty bad, and my daughter, who was almost 2 at the time, got a busted lip, which thankfully was minor, but the other driver had some fractured vertebrae.
So, yes, myself, and anyone driving my cars, seems to have pretty luck when it comes to vehicles, as well as electronics, but that's all boring. Thankfully, no incidents with our Durango so far. Hope it stays that way.
Though, I am a much better driver than I used to be. I've definitely learned a few lessons the hard way, though.