Please recount your brushes with motorised related death here...

Number 1.

Was once a passenger in car that was turning right, onto a busy trunk road. The sun was bright and was shining in our eyes, but as we started across the road, I spotted the unmistakable shape of a Ford Transit heading straight for us - or more coreectly - Me.

It's true that things like this happen in slow motion - I turned and shouted "WHAT THE FU..." and that was all I manged. The transit hit us right where the passenger door meets the front wing, and I can remember seeing the wheel arch coming straight for me. The footwell was getting a lot narrower and all I could think of was "broken legs, broken legs". The car did more than 180deg spin (A talbot Horizon of all things), and while I manged to walk free from the wreckage, I didn't escape uninjured though, as the car was in mid-air doing it's spin, I was flung against the door pillar and injured my shoulder.

The driver then looked at me and said "Sh!t. erm...sorry..."

Number 2.

A section of road near me has an S bend and most people take a straight line right through the middle. A friend was doing this one day, as was someone else coming in the opposite direction. BANG! my mates car rolled over several times before coming to rest in a small road-side wooded area. He was totally injured until he nettled himself climbing from the wreckage...

Number 3. Very lucky escape...

A chap I used to work with drove one of 740 Volvo's that were built like a tank. Of all the things to have a head-on collision with, he chose a Stagecoach bus. The bus attempted to use the volvo as a ramp and went straight up onto the bonnet. The fire crews looked on in disbeleif as they cut the volvo driver free - the wheel was on the dashboard, which was taking the whole weight of the bus. He was lucky not to have broken legs, nevermind any legs at all...

and did speed play a part in any of the above?


no so when are the stupidity cammeras going live :D

[Edited by pugoetru - 11/21/2003 1:15:55 PM]

PMSL :D

Closest one for me was this: in a mate's Opel Ascona 1.9, late 80s, A63 towards Hull. Cav loses OSR wheel, and does a lovely slow 180-degree pirouette, stopping in the middle of the inside lane facing the oncoming traffic.

All I saw was an artic locking up as it headed towards us. It missed ....

The wheel fell off 'cos of loose nuts :rolleyes:

Overturned a Reliant Robin and cut my finger.

Went through the rear windscreen of a Ford escort whilst looking over my shoulder at a gorgeous girl I had just passed.
I was on a motorbike and had blue b0llocks and a limp for the next month.
Thank God my visor was down.

a limp what? ;)

yeah had a drunk hit me head on a few years back, he overtook on a blind bend and hit me in excess of 100mph, yeah everything does go into slow motion, I spun 360 degrees finally coming to rest up a lamp post which came out of the ground, the bit that will always stay with me is the lamp post going out and the glass chinkling onto the roof, and how good the airbag was, sadly I did not walk away, it took the fire brigade over 2 hours to get me out:(
Cheers
Colin

messiah Your a jinx.......... Stay away from me.

eh? what?

You were driving that Transit were you?

I've had the head on crash with the drunk too. Barsteward.
Actually thought I was dead and was trying to work out which end I'd arrived at.....until I suddenly realised I needed to breath and the massive pain in my chest convinced me I was still of this earth.

What surprised me most about the whole thing was the slow-motion aspect - the time it took him to hit me I'm sure I should have been able to do a three-point turn and drive off - and the noise.

Yeah must admit the impact noise was unbelivable:(

Only had one crash so far, but it was major enough for me not to drive a car without side impact bars now :o

Old volvo 440, at the time the only thing to have side impact bars (saved my bacon too), got hit side on by a merc going particularly rapid. Got out passenger side with a couple of small cuts, and some bruising.

The police and ambulance people re-assured me by saying "good job thats a volvo, if that was an escort, fiesta, or metro or something you would be dead, and then your body would have crushed your missus to death too"

lovely...

Was driving a DAF van about eight years ago, turned right into pub car park..... well made it across the road before some nutter in a lotus came careering over a hill on my side of the road whilst overtaking a lorry, hit the van about 60-80mph, right on the rear wheel hub which bent and flattened my tyre. Got out and this bloke was literally sitting in the chassis as most of the front of the car was strewn across the road... He got out unhurt and we noticed his sparc racing overalls and then began to rip the piss out of him for driving like he was at brands, no due care dangerous driving etc...also it was totally his fault and his car was a write off. Servers the bugger right for endangering the life of my brand new van..

Yours dirty white van man (well used to be...still dirty though :)

I was once involved in a drunken collision with a car!! Luckily for me (I think) I was not driving, I was not even in a car!!

I was soo drunk I thought I could hurdle an Omega, so approaching from the back I built up an awesome sprint and jumped as high as possible.........next thing I remember I was being pulled out of the back screen by my feet, I actually opened my eyes to find my head jammed between the front seats!!

My friends tell me I clipped my foot on the boot and went head first straight thru the back of the motor!!

Bloody funny + Lucky!

bet the owner didnt find it funny

Whoa, some nasty near misses there.

Kinda destroyed my first car through a combo of inexperience (had been driving 4 moths after passing test when 17), not knowing the road and....well it was a beetle. Rolled the car a several times on the S-bend near fairoaks airport down here in surrey if anyone knows the road.
Got out without a scratch and my mate who was in the passenger seat only had a few cuts from broken glass flying around believe it or not.
Needless to say that was an immediate lesson in road safety i'm glad to have learned without seriously injuring or killing someone and i'm a little more reserved in the scoob nowadays:)
http://www.knowlson.org/images/bugcrash0002.JPG

Its only when you've been involved in a RTA where someone didn't have a lucky escape, that you realise that talking about your own lucky escapes isn't all its cracked up to be.

Easy tiger, I was run over myself by a hit and run driver in a Volvo when I was 10, he was doing 80ish and i was sverely injured, I also know other people who have relatives that didn't survive RTA's that they were involved in tragically.
I know very well that it's horrible for the not so lucky ones but that doesn't mean I can't say that I was happy to be lucky to escape.
I wrote off the beetle through a mere few seconds of lack of knowledge of the roads and hence going too fast for them, I admit the mistake but don't start judging before you know the details. Sorry if you've lost someone, been injured or a loved one has been injured but I was just sharing a story as was everyone else.

I've lost a mate to a car accident (had a head on collision in his peugeot with a "lost" dutch truck driver on a back road) and another mate who had a lucky escape after hitting another truck with another peugeot.

It's strange how people can walk away from some pretty "spectacular" sounding accidents and yet a relatively low-speed minor knock can result in fatalities. My own preference is to take the view "In a few years you'll look back and laugh...".

Once did a stupid thing myself, was travelling down a country lane which was icy and I thought "wonder what would happen if I slammed my brakes on?" and for some stupid reason I did it. The car went sideways down the road and bounced of the dykes on either side of the road. My mate tells me the only thing he heard was "**** **** **** **** ****......"

Don't get me wrong, its good to share experiences. Just that once involved in a fatal RTA your own story of surviving that RTA pales into insignificance. All IMO. Sorry to bring a downer on a thread

No worries Jay m A, I know what you're saying.
Hopefully people read these threads and realise just how dangerous cars can be when not driven responsibly.

In my case I got told someone had died in the accident, although I was not to blame, It still did not make me feel any better, gladly this was not the case, but on saying that the guy that nearly killed me I wish he had died, because he does not know the pain and anger that he caused, all because he was pi55ed up, and the courts treat them so lightly, in my case he got a 15 month ban £375 fine and £125 in costs and I will be in pain for the rest of my life:( I hope the cnut dies a very slow and painful death.
Cheers
Colin