Accident
 

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On Tuesday December 8th, my wife was driving our son to work in our 2014 Ford XLT Super Crew Cab PU truck when she had to stop quickly behind a school bus. The bus then proceeded to back up and before Lana could get the truck into reverse to avoid it the bus crashed into the front of our truck.

The truck is in El Paso right now being repaired. The collision center in Las Cruces, NM is busy with hail damaged vehicles so they farmed it out to one of their centers in El Paso, TX. We think most of the damage is just cosmetic but it won't be cheap to fix.

Needless to say this accident has not improved the aerodynamics of our vehicle. Right now we are driving a GM Terrain rental SUV. Not bad fuel mpg for what it is. Got 32 mpg on the hwy at 70 mph. Seen as high as 35 mpg at 55 mph. The average dropped to 22 mpg in town.

Glad that your family is okay aerostealth!

Hopefully the NM State Gov't will be paying for the damages. It sounds like the cause was the bus driver's failure to pay attention to what was behind them.

What idiot backs up a school bus? Luckily they just damaged some property and didn't kill a kid. We are ready trained not to back up our little mail trucks. If we have no other choice we have to get out and look before backing.

Backing anything larger than a pickup truck is a terrible idea without a spotter. Gald your family is ok.

That same thing happened to my pickup. The driver that backed into me had insurance, but the repair shop used substandard parts and now my lower apron is completely rusted out after 5 years.

Uhhh...My bus driver backed out of multiple driveways every day and never had an issue. It's fairly common here for them to use farm driveways to back out so they can turn around.

Was the bus long or short? Just kidding! How many times does the bus need to turn around in a day? Worst case it should be one time at the extent of the route to come back the other way. They should look for that spot to be some kind of point where the bus can do it without backing up. If they are driving the bus down each driveway rather then stopping out on the road then it must have been the short bus.
Even if they have to back up the bus 100 times a day they need to do it safely and the only way is by getting out and looking. You can't see a F150 you can't see a kid back there for sure.

Driver was not turning around. She was backing up on the main highway after stopping. It was not the smartest move a busdriver can maken.

Definitely a long bus. Had all the farm kids so it was backing onto a gravel road every time anyway.

I am glad that everyone is okay.

I drove a school bus for five and a half years. We were told to never back up, but sometimes it is unavoidable. Parents always parked in the bus-only area and then got upset when we boxed them in. At one school, we needed to do three-point turns in an area just big enough to turn around, because parents insisted on parking there.

Why was the driver even stopping on the main highway, let alone backing up?

He or she must need an unpaid vacation!

Did the driver admit to backing up? Hopefully the bus driver doesn't say that your wife rear ended the bus.

I will say - all of the close calls I have had when driving have been the result of irresponsible school bus drivers. Either running red lights / stop signs, trying to run me into guardrails when making lane changes without signal or driving down the wrong side of the road (this is a common occurrence).

Rule #772: Make the at-fault driver's insurance (or the at-fault driver directly) pay for genuine [Your Brand] parts. You had genuine parts before the at-fault driver damaged them; you should continue to have genuine parts.

Rule #1, get at least 3 quotes from repair shops and then accept no less than the average cost to repair. Collect the check and repair (or don't) yourself. Profit.

EDIT: Ouch, I didn't see the photo before. I figured damage to a full-sized truck would be cosmetic, but that is going to need serious repair. I'd still probably do the repair myself seeing that the hood and headlights took the brunt of the hit. Those should be relatively simple to replace.

Someone took out my mirror last Tuesday. This is the second time on my Civic. The first time, I looked up the part, showed the woman it would cost a little over $200, she wrote me a check for $240, and I bought a $35 mirror from the junkyard.

This guy gave me his business card and said that he would pay for it, but he did not have his checkbook on him. After over a week, I do not have any idea what he is trying to do. I gave him the part number and he keeps asking questions, some of which I already answered.

I really need to get my dash cam working again.

Accident Before and After
 

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ummmm :confused:

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perhaps
 

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Tried to post pics and gave up guess they posted. A school bus backed into our truck on Dec 8th. Just got the truck back yesterday $10,600 later. Nearly $3,000 in retal car cost. Insurance really came through here. No out of pocket cost.

That's an astonishing bill for what appears to be not so bad damage. :mad:

Go buy a new truck and have a school bus back into it hard and get back to me on that cost thing.

No thanks. It's not that I don't believe you. It's that 10k is ludicrous.

The plate on the front should say "Body Shop Stealers are the Pits".

When you drive a $40 K truck it is worth $10K toake it right.

Why was she so close to the back of school bus it backed in to her?

I remember a few years ago a CBR600RR ran into the side of a school bus 1 block from a stop light that he was stopped at and blamed the bus driver.

We are talking about a school bus on a 55 mph speed limit high who threw on the brakes overshot her stop, threw the bus in reverse, and backed up without looking and ran into my my wifes truck before she could get it in reverse and avoid being hit. She stopped in plenty of time to avoid hitting this clown. Don't assume just because it was a school bus the driver was not at fault.

It's really not. The core support/radiator/headlights/hood and front bumper at a minimum needed to be replaced, not to mention the paint is probably 3-stage paint. On top of that it's a brand new truck. I would have guessed closer to 15k. Probably would have been if the fenders would have gotten damaged.

I've been forced onto a banked gravel shoulder on 2 different occasions from school buses that pulled out in front of me. Scary in a Dodge Ram van going 65 MPH. The drivers were probably used to people slowing for the corner, but I could have done 85 and been fine.

Regarding the damage; I'd have pushed the hood back the best I could, replaced the headlights, and pocketed the $10k. I know I'm the weird one, and I understand most people would rather have the shiny truck look shiny again, but I spend very little of my time looking at the exterior of my vehicles.

The repair looks perfect though.

This was my previous ride prior to being rear-ended and totaled.

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Hard to say from the pics. The radiator and coolers and condenser may be OK; the bumper is unscathed; the core support perhaps needed to be pulled back out. Can't see the gaps at the fronts of the doors so can't assess how localized the damage is. But to go out on a limb it looks to me like hood/grille/fascia/lights replacement, probably pull the core support a bit, done. No frame rack work.

The Coupe got sandwiched between two much larger vehicles resulting in similar(?) damage. Maybe could have saved the hood but found a free used one. Radiator was pushed back into the engine- rad and condensor themselves survived but fan got hurt. Made several measurements from an undamaged Tempo to see where the core support should be and pulled it out until they matched. Priced fascia and lighting; after recovering from the heart failure made an alternative- not that I'd do that on a new vehicle. Paid $6 or $7 for a new sealed beam.

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But the point was the cost. It's ridiculous. And it makes insurance premiums for everybody ridiculous.

Kind of have to make assumptions due to the dearth of information provided in the first place. :rolleyes:

I don't know what you're talking about. We had a car in the other day with no power steering. It was fresh out of the body shop with, among other things, a new pump and rack. The insurance company was thinking "parts failure warranty."

The invoice from the body shop was stapled to the RO and one of the things I looked for was whether they had the right parts in the first place. They were, but then I saw what they had charged the insurance company: the rack was $175 over factory list price and the pump was $140 over. The body shop got the parts at a discount from the dealer... You can get to $10k without even trying.

Aerostealth, I hope that you are happy, and glad that your wife is (apparently) okay.

Human here, it is never our fault.

As a bus driver, it is never never never never never never never never never never never never ever our fault either.

Was that annoying? :)

Driving for the Guard, if I ever need to back up, I usually have a Lieutenant who has nothing better to do than make sure that I do not back into anything. I might trust a Private more, but I have always had a morbid curiosity regarding the consequences of a commissioned Officer ground-guiding me into their own personal vehicle.

It is possible the driver's passengers said she was clear. I had students doing that when I drove a school bus.

Who trusts kids, though? :)

Redpoint, would you purchase a new truck in the first place? I wonder how many of us own $10,000 vehicles.

Charlie, do virtually all shops mark up parts? A mechanic told me that when I order directly I skip the store mark-up and the shop's mark-up also.

I also shop for the best price!

Then take ten times as long to fix it! :D

Win! :)

John - hope you don't mind I combined the two separate threads about this into one.

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A friend of mine does commercial driver safety training for waste management companies. They generally have horrid collision rates.

The first thing he does in the case where there are 2 people per truck is implement a "both people get fired if there's a reversing collision" rule.

Suddenly reversing collisions are no longer an issue.

Looks good. I agree though I would have pocketed the $10k and fixed it with junkyard parts, just pulling the core support back to close enough so nothing rubs and the headlights aim. My friend just had a $13,000 deer strike on a Jeep Compass which was only $22,000 new. My brother just bought an aluminum 2015 F150 with a $55k MSRP. With the aluminum parts not common in the junkyard I would probably just let a pro fix it, but then again I have never spent more then $23k on a car. My 45 year old pastor says he hasn't spent more then $23k on ALL the cars he has ever bought combined.
On a side note I was amazed at how quick my brother's truck is, then I saw one of the road tests got a 14.3 sec 1/4 mile with a 4x4 crew cab. I believe it, it felt much quicker then my Hemi Aspen or my 360 powered 2wd Dakota R/T I used to have. The 3.5 ecoboost is much better then the V8, especially at our higher altitude.