How serious are you about driving safely? How many crashes have you had?
 

Most people here probably know I used to teach defensive driving (long time ago, galaxy far away etc.).

I like to think I still take my driving more seriously than average.

What got me wondering about this was hearing someone talk about a crash where she rear-ended another car: the light turned green, traffic started accelerating, then the cars ahead in her lane unexpectedly stopped. She didn't stop as fast as the car in front. Bang.

Her first response was to blame her 2 year-old car for not having better brakes.

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Ever watch the TV series Mayday? (Aircraft crash investigations.) I love how they dig down to root causes. Turns out aircraft rarely have "accidents" (a word that suggests unpredictability/the whim of fate). Pilots generally admit and learn from their mistakes (when it's their fault) to improve safety.

None of this "my car should have had better brakes".

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I have a "too close for comfort" driving situation maybe every other year or so.

The last one was just a couple of months ago. While leaving a parking lot onto a 2-lane road, I was talking to a passenger about a building off to our left (see where this is going?), I looked right before I went but failed to notice the car coming from that way, at about 40 km/h = 25 mph.

Lucky #1: I noticed him after I started pulling out, so I stopped short before I actually got into his path. Lucky #2: he had seen me start to go and was already hard on the brakes - he wouldn't have hit me even if I had gotten in front of him.

He gave me a well-deserved dirty look as he proceeded past (slowly), but thankfully didn't blast his horn at me. I didn't need to hear it - I was already well aware I'd just made a bone-headed blunder!

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I've never been involved in a crash with another vehicle.

But I've had a few minor solo incidents, and now that I think of it, they were all in the snow or rain (hello ditch / curb!). All when I was younger.

Fortunately, no worse outcomes than messing up an alignment, one time popping a tire off the bead, or scraping against an icy snowbank.

I never blamed my car's tires. Root cause: speed too fast for conditions/available traction.

If one day I ever screw up enough to be involved in an actual crash, I hope I'll be willing to learn something from it.

PS: happy most statistically dangerous day to drive in the U.S.A.


..

Haven't had any crash, not even some minor incident, for the last 12 years. None of them so serious at all anyway.

Lots of incidents due to my risk taking behavior.

Took a 90 degree corner going 45 MPH in a VW Bug the night before beginning my senior year of highschool. Ended up on the side in a farm field with a busted side window and a tire pulled off the bead. Lucky for Dan Simonton, we were on the way to TP his house. Had to crawl straight up to get out of the car, then push it back onto its wheels, then put the spare tire on.

Lots and lots and lots of close calls, stuck in snow (days of my life spent shoveling, putting chains on/off), stuck in ditches, high-centers.

Hit the front end of a Bronco with the rear end of my Subaru (pit maneuver on myself) once while emergency swerving to avoid a guy I couldn't see until the last second (lights off at night, in a rainstorm). I spun 360 and maintained my lane, the Bronco driver drove his car off the freeway, through the bushes, and into the safety wires. I shouldn't have been doing 85 MPH.

I'm a very skilled driver, mostly due to having pushed the limits of every vehicle I've had in my youth, in every environment I encountered. I was at higher risk of accident due to my risk taking in the past, but a lower risk now due to driver skill. You'll never hear me say I ran my car off the road trying to avoid a deer.

Bad brakes is a BS excuse, and I wouldn't let anyone get away with that. Modern cars can brake so hard they lock all 4 tires up, unless there is something seriously wrong with the braking system. Since brakes are capable of locking up the wheels, tire choice is what affects stopping distances.

Air crash disasters are my favorite thing to watch because the cause is so thoroughly studied, and often involves a series of very unlikely events that conspired to confuse the pilot.

EDIT: Do we include not at fault incidents? Been rear-ended twice and backed into once.

I don't know how people get into crashes while driving normally. Every single close call or crash has been due to driving at extreme limits. I've never had a close call when driving speed limits, and using normal acceleration and cornering speeds.

Can we consider per mile/kilometer?

Roughly 225k miles in 12 years I have had:
One single vehicle accident in the ice and snow
One rear end accident (i was rear ended)

I too, drive defensively. Employers really push Smith 5.


Edit: maybe more, that's just counting the cars I owned, miles not wrecks

I have rear-ended three vehicles in twenty-two years, sideswiped a teenager in a bus, and knocked another teenager (I hope!) into two other vehicles in another bus (I hope!).

What would be the odds of me hitting the same teenager twice in the same bus?

1. I was distracted (and stupid).
2. I was distracted (and stupid).
3. I was distracted (and stupid).
4. I was accelerating from a stop sign and the teen ran a stop sign on the wrong side of the road. I did not have time to react.
5. The teenager actually knocked me into oncoming traffic with his pickup. I knocked him into two other vehicles when I swerved out of incoming traffic.

I do not know what happened immediately before I was involved in the pinball game, but I must wonder how hard his 3,500-pound vehicle hit my 30,000-pound vehicle, and how we ended up with three vehicles in two lanes.

Consequences:
1. The guy got out, looked at our bumpers, got back into his car, and drove off.
2. The bolts in my vanity plate gouged her bumper cover and I had my insurance pay for it. Having a dealership replace the bumper probably would have been cheaper. I would not have known how to look up a body shop back in 2002. I barely had a cell phone back then and the crazy thing didn't do anything besides place and receive calls!
3. The guy said it wasn't bad enough to worry about.
4. The police did not cite me.
5. The police did not cite me.

Two different people broke mirrors on the same side of my Civic. I looked up the part and the lady wrote a check for $50 more and then I installed one from a junkyard. The second one dragged it out as long as possible. At least thirty e-mails went back and forth, he asked me all kinds of irrelevant questions and I kept telling him "I gave you the part number. Pay for my mirror!" He finally ordered me an aftermarket one for about what I paid for the used one.

Then there was the full-sized work van that rear-ended me on the freeway when I stopped for the SUV in front of me. He replaced the bumper cover himself, but I am not impressed with his work.

I almost forgot, when I was in high school I must have started the car with my foot on the accelerator instead of the clutch. All that I knew was that I was suddenly on a curb and everything was wrong. I blew the tire and bent the frame. It turns out that changing tires is self-explanatory.

Also, I was hit by an elk while driving under the speed limit. I never saw him coming.

Edit: One time a woman pulled into my lane and scratched my car while both of us were turning left. I pulled over, she kept going, I called 911, and they said "You waved her on."
"I absolutely did not."

Another time some guy freaked out and flipped me off when I came to a full stop at a stop sign. A block later there was another stop sign and he rear-ended me. I pulled over, he yelled at me and drove off, I called in his license plate number, and they told me to wait for an officer. Half an hour later someone showed up and said "You got the plate wrong."
"Did you try..."
"Yeah, we tried."

I've been rear-ended twice, so nothing my fault. I prefer to keep risky driving on the autocross course, and I recommend everyone else do the same--you can't explore the limits of your car in a safer environment.

The first one, I was stopped at a light, and had been stopped for maybe half a minute, and the woman coming up behind me didn't even brake; she slammed my car into the BMW in front of me, and both her airbags deployed. I will say her insurance company, Progressive, was actually very nice to work with; they had me in a rental car the very next day and took care of everything with no hassle.

My first wreck happened when I was 8; riding with my dad, a drunk guy turned left just in front of us into a shopping center entrance. I remember my father saying, "Hold on!" just before we hit him broadside. My father always drove cheap compact 2WD Japanese pickups, so there wasn't enough crash energy to do much damage.

Las time in the ditch '99

Trading paint 02 (ranger reclip the front drove it home on field fixes and creek water) 35 in a 10mph unmarked corner hit some gravel that made me cross the yelow line. thank you sir for driving your same year make and model down the hill and meeting me in the corner. yeah cost me an insurance claim but it kept me from going off a 200-foot cliff( that part of the Sierra National Forest has people that have been waiting decades for them and their cars to be found had a tow driver tell me about finding three cars before you found the one guy he was after seatbelts don't always save lives but it makes it easier to find the parts)

Rearended 1x 06 I was even driving defensively in front I knew I had a left turn into a sharp driveway coming up I tried to get him to back off but he just kept hugging me from the back side ( AA traction rating out stops a B)

Near miss my fault . Usualy like red said testing.
Find the limit and the correction for going past it in practice instead of when it counts and there's other cars and lives on the line. I've never owned a car that I couldn't pull out of a slide, side effects of testing.

Growing up in the San Joaquin Valley fog, two colors statistically improve your chances of a crash due to being invisible white and gray daytime running lights reduced this. I would turn down my dream car if it was painted Gray.

Near miss other people, stoped keeping track
On 1 such event my ex wife once was harassing me because I was stopping on a ice covered roadway me just stopping in the middle of the street for no apparent reason and then she saw the car slide by in front of us all four locked upabs going nuts doing about 25 miles an hour the Jeep Cherokee built momentum as it slid down the hill and I knew it wasn't going to stop; (I could stop safely or get t-boned in her door. ) . As they went by I gently nodded my head and waved saying I understand as the other driver went by saying thank you I don't know what I would have done if you had not stop. and she asked me how I knew that that was getting ready to happen and prevent it. You pay attention to anything that's moving when you drive the rear gun truck. the side effects of PTSD are not always undesired
it's nice when you make a blender and the guy that caught you doesn't make a big stink of it , and just acknowledges incidents occur and accidents are made to happen.
Metro is it only a major if the hook is called? If so then only 1 crash and 3 stucks life time

February 17 1986 Mom was driving us in her Toyota Corona wagon. A truck slammed on his brakes and she did not stop in-time. I am sure that car would have been much better than the Plymouth that replaced it.

I crashed my first car when I was 19. Bald tires on the back, going around a tight corner on a canyon "highway", back end lost grip...my fault for trying to keep up with traffic, rather than driving at what I felt comfortable doing. Car was totaled, I was very lucky to be able to walk away. Lesson learned.

I haven't crashed since. I did rear-end someone in my mid 20's because, rather like your example, I didn't expect the car ahead of me to stop suddenly when the light went green. No damage done except the imprint of the bolts that held on his rear license plate on the bumper cover of my car. Don't really consider it a crash since there was no real damage, but it was a nice little lesson/reminder.

I've had the occasional close call when I misjudged the situation. Like I almost rear-ended someone when I came in too fast behind them and they stopped for the light, because there was grit on the road and slamming on my brakes only made me instantly skid. (I steered out of that one instead). Had similar issues in the rain, once in a blue moon. My "new" daily driver has ABS, thankfully, so that shouldn't be such an issue...I hope.

My usual, patient driving style means I don't have to worry about such things. Don't drive angry or impatient. Chill. Get home safe.

I blew a corner once on my bike, but that was because I didn't heed the "bump" road sign. Usually bump means you can barely feel something in the road. This bump was more of a ramp, and the sign should have read jump instead of bump. The bike went airborne, and the suspension had not settled by the time I got to the corner, no time for braking. Tried to make the corner and lowsided. Slid to to about 15 feet from a cliff into the river below.

Accidentally covered the left side of my rear tire in oil once while riding home from getting oil for an oil change. I had dangled the bag off the rear of my bike, and the rear tire rubbed a very thin hole into the bottle, which then coated the left side of my tire. I found out after taking a left turn from a stop sign and did a 360.

Wanted to test the theory that new tires were slippery and should be ridden gently the first 100 miles. Made a left turn and got on the throttle a bit to see if it would get loose at all. It got loose alright, and I put the bike down.

Didn't put the kickstand down once. *facepalm*

Various lowsides on the track nearly every time I go. Didn't crash the time it rained, miracuously, even though the bike threatened to let loose with nearly every corner.

Really, normal traffic was taking corners beyond the capabilities of your vehicle? I would think something was very wrong with the handling characteristics of your vehicle if it couldn't handle what traffic was doing.

I've never seen anyone take corners as fast as I take 'em, and I don't push the cornering limits of my Prius. Maybe 80% of the limit, tops. Most people get uncomfortable using more than 30% of their cornering traction. They don't like lateral acceleration for some reason. I find that I don't like the absence of lateral acceleration.

There are two ways to drive from Phoenix to Show Low. One is significantly shorter and is through a canyon. If I keep up with traffic and there are not any semis we easily go 50 - 55 in a 35.

We always drive the other way. It does not have any fun corners, let alone dozens and dozens of them.

That is two stories of license plate screws damaging the bumper of another car. Is there a way to cover the bolts so they are safe for bumpers? :)

What I can remember:

Around ~21, first time I was driving my sister's car, I slid into the car in front of me in a rainstorm. It bent her hood a little but did not damage the car in front of us. Her front tires were badly out of alignment and completely bald, rain had just started after weeks of sunshine (fresh oil, slick asphalt), and I was following a bit too close. Avoidable.

At age 19, my first time driving in snow I spun off the road and ended up on my side in the ditch. Looking back on it, the key factor was probably cruise control, but driving a little too quickly (peer pressure), a lack of snow tires and a RWD SUV certainly contributed. Avoidable.

I once did a 360 in my previous Honda taking an on-ramp too quickly during a thunderstorm - ~age 20? No harm done, it was the middle of the night and I pulled away a bit shaken but laughing. Definitely avoidable.

I don't think I've had anything of note in the past 8 or so years. I know how to drive in snow now, but more importantly keep a longer follow distance and adjust my driving patterns to conditions.

I find lateral acceleration pretty thrilling, but lateral grip is pretty variable. Go across a patch of sand or gravel in the road and the back end comes out from under you and kills three people in the other lane. I tend to only push it when there's nobody else on the road. :D

Rear ended by a motorcycle once, scratched bumper, totaled the gold wing. 35 years 1,000,000+ miles. In the ditch 3 times snow/ice. 2 deer hits, one took off mirror with his face wrinkled rear quarter where the rest him ran into. Other standing in my lane slowed down to 10-15 got in other lane and it ran into me, head light and rear quarter.

Dropped 83 Nighthawk 650 screwing around in the rain, hit 3rd still spinning the tire and it got away from me, got back on and rode it home, bike was already totaled by my brother so no new damage.

Dropped my 2001 FZ1 when I got to work, shoe string came untied and wrapped around peg, came off peg on the way down but couldn't completely save it, mirror barely touched ground but did scratch it, ordered riding boots. 100,000+ on 2 wheels (off road drops don't count).

None my fault. Was hit head on by a drunk in my lane when I was seventeen. That hurt for a couple years. Later that same year I was rear ended while sitting at a stop sign. One near miss that would have been my fault: checking out the babes and not watching traffic. Car stopped in front of me, I slammed on the brakes and somehow twisted my car perpendicular to traffic so that the front end of my car was facing the curb. Then I gassed it and was somehow able to end up parallel to and on the right hand side of the car that was in front of me. Mind you now this was all over forty years ago. A few close calls from sloppy drivers but nothing bad and no accidents since then.
JJ

I won't push corners anymore either, but consider 80% acceptable for known corners to the outside with safe run out. Inside corners I might take 5% easier.

In my youth I spun a 180 twice in the same exact corner under the same weather conditions (rain). The second time the car stopped just as the rear hit a concrete bridge pillar.

Finally getting enough money to afford track days was what slowed me down on the streets. The thrill of driving fast on the street couldn't hold a candle to the track, so I lost interest in using the street to constantly test the performance limits of my vehicles. It made me a vastly better motorcycle rider as it became an extension of my being rather than something I ride on.

When I was twenty-one I heard that you could race your street car at a local track Friday nights. I tried several times to put a group together, but nobody else was willing.

None in over a million miles, many of those miles with a 1982 Diesel Suburban pulling a trailer in my teens.

Now when my cars are parked good lord, My cars have had dozens of accidents sitting empty in parking lots, heck some jackass with a long trailer dented my front fending in my own driveway, I didn’t realize anything happened till I got up to use my car the next day

I am not sure that we have time to talk about all of the occasions someone damaged our cars while parked. I definitely would have a much longer list.

I apologize, I missed two accidents. I will go back and add them. One time I turned left and a woman in the other turn lane pulled into my lane and scraped my car. I pulled over as soon as I could, she kept going, I called 911, and they said "You waved her on."
"I absolutely did not."

Another time some guy freaked out and flipped me off when I came to a full stop at a stop sign. A block later there was another stop sign and he rear-ended me. I pulled over, he yelled at me and drove off, I called in his license plate number, and they told me to wait for an officer. Half an hour later someone showed up and said "You got the plate wrong."
"Did you try..."
"Yeah, we tried."

Been rear ended twice by people driving on a provisional license while they were driving outside of the provisions (to/from work, not at night) but I've never caused one. Had a few close calls from people slamming on their brakes coming to a full stop on 45-50mph roads though. Was not following the two second rule.

It's ok to throw your weight around sometimes. If your story is as you say, you're justified to be more aggressive.

Someone crashed into a fence post once and was trying to start his vehicle again, and I opened his door and took the keys from him, saying he isn't going anywhere. The guy told me he fell asleep at the wheel. It was around noon, and the neighborhood he was coming from is 1 min or less from our house. Only people falling asleep in 1 min at noon are narcoleptic people. I questioned and observed him to see if he was on drugs, but he seemed straight. I gave him his keys back and told him to have a good day.

Police are last responders, not first. We're the first responders.

My dad did that once when a besotted neighbor managed to land his car in their front yard, which is no small feat.

My son's father-in-law had his ancient, minty Nissan pickup totaled by a neighbor at 11am. They live in a very tightly populated development, all twisty little streets and cul-de-sacs, one of which they live on. And yet she managed to hit his poor truck hard enough to bend it almost in half. She was also stinking drunk.

I'd talk about all of the accidents I've been in but there is really only one that matters. I pulled onto a road in front of an oncoming car, which flipped onto its roof. I stopped, I looked, but I just didn't see the vehicle. To this day I thank my stars that there were no injuries beyond scrapes and a bruise.

Two days ago I avoided being rear ended by pulling off the road as the folks ahead were slamming on their brakes. It made enough space to ease the pressure behind me and give folks a little more reaction time.

You did not see the vehicle on its roof? How did you find out about it?

I did not see it before pulling out. I sure as shootin saw it after it spun me around 180 degrees.

I've only gotten in two accidents that I consider my fault.

One, when I'd just gotten licensed, I pulled out at a green light from beside a truck and got tagged by a guy beating the red light coming the other way. He was in the wrong, but I should have known better than to pull out without a clear view of the intersection.

The other, I flipped a car taking a sharp turn over a crest around 80 mph. We skipped over the bump, understeered out to the shoulder, the road jinked the other way, understeered towards that shoulder, hit a patch of dirt, went crosswise still doing 70, spun, slid across a fence backwards for a few hundred feet, came to a near stop in the grass with everything intact...

Hit a rock buried in the grass with the spare tire well... at 5 mph. The car flipped in Hollywood style slow motion.

Not my finest moment.

I did drive the car home, though.

-

It was after that I started taking high performance driving seriously. Take it to the track, not the streets.

Afraid I'm in the boring group. Only time I've ever bent anything on a car was when I was rear-ended in a left turn lane (with half a dozen cars ahead of me). Unless you want to count a coulda been when I was a teenager. Driving the family Chevy at about 50 when the left front wheel came off. Not just the tire & rim, mind you, but the whole steering assembly. Don't know how, but I managed to keep it right side up and going straight, and came to a stop on the shoulder.

Not sure if this image follows forum rules, but it's one of my favorites.

https://i.imgur.com/6Teie6a.jpg

Here, a version that might better appease the site's Canuckistani owners:

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-v...57-6teie6a.jpg

I haven’t had anything with any other vehicles, but have had a couple of loss of control incidents in my early driving years related to driving too fast for the conditions, and have had numerous near misses related to the same...

Honestly the fact that I hadn’t crashed so far is quite shocking... since taking up hypermiling, I haven’t had near the incidents, with exception to the deer that come running from nowhere...

Take off, ya hosers!

What is the term for a hard clump of snow? A friend thought she was running over a snowball, but she decided it was a snow-covered rock.

It was not kind to her 2000 Civic. Curiously, she claimed her cruise control automatically braked down a hill. I have never driven a car that did that, just trucks that downshifted.

I have given one and received two parking lot scrapes.

I had someone change lanes into the side of me and dented the whole side of my car.

That's all in 23 years.

Wow, I must be an anomaly as I have never hit anyone and I have been driving for 30+ years. I was rear ended once at a stop light after having been stationary for a few minutes, there was nothing I could have done to avoid it.

Old Mech said he pulled through intersections twice to avoid being rear-ended, but the police said he should have taken it like a man.

Old Mech, come back!

I was surrounded by cars, there was no escape route.

Last Thursday I escaped death, when someone who had probably just stolen a Renault Captur was running away through the sidewalk.

Youthful indiscretion caused me to oversteer (!) my first car, a Ford Focus, into a barbed wire fence, and with some shame, I also got drunk enough to run my '92 Bronco into a tree.

Since my idiot days, I have backed into one concrete post, costing me a mere $80 for a rear bumper on my Mustang, and ironically enough, last month I had someone back into me and cause my crumbling portion of exhaust pipe upstream of the muffler to kick the bucket, at a $40 charge to have a fresh piece welded in. Sounding like a ricer and knowing the front pipe off the muffler is riding on your rear control arm kinda sucks for a 100 mile commute home.

Hypermiling does really force one both to take your actions slow and to keep your wits about you. Driving classic cars similarly forced me to be deliberate.

Oversteering a normal FWD vehicle out of control takes a fair amount of dumbassery (in my experience)!




What, he didn't have his lights on? :D


I've nearly been t-boned by a couple of deer at night, but so far have avoided that, touch wood.

We used to teach this unconventional rear-crash avoidance technique:

1) IF when you're stopping there is no escape route to either side, and,


2) IF nobody has yet stopped behind you,

3) Then leave 3-4 car lengths ahead of you.

4) Blink your brake lights as cars approach from behind.

5) Imminent collision: you may be able to move ahead and use your front buffer to avoid contact when the idiot behind finally locks brakes/activates ABS.

6) Worst case scenario, and you're going to get hit: you avoid being the meat in the car sandwich and only have one end of your car to repair.


7) Or, as non-idiotic cars are slowing to a stop behind you, creep ahead and close the 3-4 car buffer.