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YACT: Never bring a knife to a gun fight... See edit

M

Mookow

Lifer
and never bring the smallest car to a 4 car pile-up.

So, yesterday, on my way home from work, I'm driving down I-71 South, minding my own business, in the far left lane. Its raining out, lightly, but enough to keep the roads wet. Consequently, I'm alert, since there is always some idiot that manages to get into an accident. Traffic is flowing at about 40 mph, since its just before 6PM, and traffic is fairly heavy. My dad is visiting family in Ireland, and I am using his car, a 2000 Chevy Cavalier. The car in front of my is a Jeep Grand Cherokee, with what is probably a 3" lift kit on it. Not huge, but noticeable. That also pretty much prevents me from seeing past him at all. So, I pay close attention to him, and keep a fair bit of distance between me and him. Suddenly, he slams on his brakes. I see it, I step on mine, and am while I am not engaging the ABS or anything, I am forced, despite my precautions, to brake fairly hard. I could have stopped with ~25 feet between us, but I'm thinking about the people behind me, and so I stop at ~10' away from the Jeep. Then I take the time to look in the mirror, and what do you know, there is a pickup (later found to be a Ford Ranger), and it looks to be close whether or not he can stop in time. So I pull up another 8 feet. The Ranger would have been able to stop, if not for the Ford E-250 van that smacked into him. The Ranger pushed me into the Jeep, and the Jeep was far enough from the next car that it stopped there.

The results:
-the Jeep: Maybe, just maybe, I rubbed some paint off his bumper. Since he has a lift kit, my front bumper made no contact with his vehicle. My hood, however, hit his steel bumper and got pushed back, into my radiator. Very little, if any, damage
-the Cavalier (me): My hood is pushed back, into the radiator, which is bent. In the back, the Ranger managed to crush my truck pretty well. The back bumper is pushed into the right wheelwell, as is a part of the trunk (at least, I think thats where it is from). Quite a bit of crumpling in the rear. The airbags did not deploy, which I thought was odd given the amount of visible damage, but this was a pretty low speed accident. The car runs, but its movement was hampered by the chunk of metal pressing against the right rear tire. Initially I thought that the engine was screwed up, since it made an odd noise while the car was running, but then I turned off the AC (which comes on with the heater), and the noise disappeared. I'm fairly sure my radiator was punctured, though, as there was a lot of fluid coming out while the car was running, and it wasnt ATF, nor oil, nor window washing fluid. I'd be very surprised if the Cavalier isn't totaled.
-the Ranger: His front left bumper was bent into the wheelwell, giving him some problems moving. The walls of the truck bed buckled, and his tailgated is skewed out of position. Its a fairly old truck, I think its totaled. The occupant said he hit his head on the steering wheel, but he looked fine, not even a red spot on his head.
-the E-250: His front bumper has a little bit of damage, but its driveable. Not much damage at all.

So, I filled out the police report, the guy in the van was found at fault (big surprise), and we will see what the insurance geeks have to say about this. What are the chances that they will raise my rates over this? I'm 21 years old, so I'm already getting raped every six months when I pay for car insurance, and I dont know that I'll be able to afford higher rates. This is the first accident on my record (I got into a very minor fender-bender at a stoplight once, in which I was also rear-ended, it did not get reported), and I have never been pulled over, so I'm ticket free.

EDIT: My dad got a new Cavalier, LS, power windows/doors, 5 speed manual... at least its better than the old Cadavalier.
 
Man that sucks. I'm constantly aware of people behind me and people follow so frigging close that you have to gently brake for thei slow minds to catch up to what's happening. I see you did that, but then you got rammed. Not much you could have done. Hopefully it will be shown that the van in the back was responsible for all of it instead of each car responsible for the hit that they made.
 
Originally posted by: Skoorb
Man that sucks. I'm constantly aware of people behind me and people follow so frigging close that you have to gently brake for thei slow minds to catch up to what's happening. I see you did that, but then you got rammed. Not much you could have done. Hopefully it will be shown that the van in the back was responsible for all of it instead of each car responsible for the hit that they made.
Click to expand...

Well, the cops wrote it up as the van being "at fault", and he was the only guy designated as such. I think I'm safe there, but I also think insurance companies can (and sometimes do) raise your rates for an accident even when you are found to be not at fault.
 
Originally posted by: Mookow
Originally posted by: Skoorb
Man that sucks. I'm constantly aware of people behind me and people follow so frigging close that you have to gently brake for thei slow minds to catch up to what's happening. I see you did that, but then you got rammed. Not much you could have done. Hopefully it will be shown that the van in the back was responsible for all of it instead of each car responsible for the hit that they made.
Click to expand...

Well, the cops wrote it up as the van being "at fault", and he was the only guy designated as such. I think I'm safe there, but I also think insurance companies can (and sometimes do) raise your rates for an accident even when you are found to be not at fault.
Click to expand...
Only if they have to pay out should that occur, and there are cases of them paying out even when you were not at fault. My dad was t-boned by a lady some years ago. Clearly her fault and she admitted as much to him. However her insurance company egged her into denying it. My dad's insurance company was not willing to go to court over a few k, so they paid him repairs on his car and upped his rate as a punishment for the claim.

Given that police statement I would hope you should be fine and probably will be. Hope that can had insurance 🙂

 
Some insurance companies are pretty low as far as morals. The better ones aren't likely to bump your rates since it's fairly odvious that there was no way you could've avoided that without having your car jump straight in the air 8'. I'm pretty sure my dad's didn't go up w/ AAA when he was sitting at a red light and some soccer mom ended up fragging some bones in his neck after forgetting that she was moving at 40+MPH.
 
Always been an avid SUV hater, always will be.

Anyway, sorry to hear about the accident. I had a fairly similar experience:

Driving on the FDR (NYC) late at night (not much traffic) and I have a considerable distance from the car in front. Suddenly the car in front brakes HARD! I see it in time and hit my brakes hard enough and tap it since I don't have ABS so I don't lose control. I come within a couple of feet from hitting him. Meanwhile, I knew there was a porshe behind me that was speeding and accelerating to overtake me. In the back of my mind I knew he this was going to be bad, but luckily, he missed me by a few feet after a sudden hard lane change. Luckily no cars were on his right. It would have been bad. This was all due to a stalled car in the fast-lane.
 
I hope you learned your lesson.... BUY the BIGGEST and BADDEST SUV and LIFT it 10 inches ... Hummer on 50" rims.
 
That had nothing to do with it being an SUV. The Jeep and Ranger weigh in at about the same as a mid sized car. The Jeep's even unibody. They just had stronger bodies than the compact car. The only heavyweight was the E-250 van which I highly doubt was bought as an image deal. 3/4 ton vans aren't something that's currently viewed as being manly. (they used to be though)

Edit: ...and it sounded like the Ranger got F'ed up pretty bad. What saved the Jeep was the tow package.
 
Originally posted by: Mookow
Originally posted by: Skoorb
Man that sucks. I'm constantly aware of people behind me and people follow so frigging close that you have to gently brake for thei slow minds to catch up to what's happening. I see you did that, but then you got rammed. Not much you could have done. Hopefully it will be shown that the van in the back was responsible for all of it instead of each car responsible for the hit that they made.
Click to expand...

Well, the cops wrote it up as the van being "at fault", and he was the only guy designated as such. I think I'm safe there, but I also think insurance companies can (and sometimes do) raise your rates for an accident even when you are found to be not at fault.
Click to expand...
Usually the insurance company won't raise your rates if you're not at fault unless you have a habit of being involved in accidents where you're not at fault. Say you've had 3-4 accidents in the past year in which you have not been at fault, the insurance company might then decide that you have too much of a habit of being in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and raise your rates. If it's just the one accident though, I wouldn't worry about it.

ZV
 
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
That had nothing to do with it being an SUV. The Jeep and Ranger weigh in at about the same as a mid sized car. The Jeep's even unibody. They just had stronger bodies than the compact car. The only heavyweight was the E-250 van which I highly doubt was bought as an image deal. 3/4 ton vans aren't something that's currently viewed as being manly. (they used to be though)

Edit: ...and it sounded like the Ranger got F'ed up pretty bad. What saved the Jeep was the tow package.
Click to expand...

I still see it as a SUV blocking visibility problem. You would understand that if you drive in New York City. Think about the situation had it not been a lifted SUV in front of him. He would have been able to anticipate what was happening in front of the SUV. The van behind him undoubtedly had his vision blocked by the SUV too. If the Jeep had tinted windows, it would make it even worse. So again, I hate SUVs, but I ain't a Cali-tree-hugging-hippy. I just find that there are more stupid dangerous drivers out there than good ones and they multiply the effect with SUVs.
 
Originally posted by: J0hnny
Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
That had nothing to do with it being an SUV. The Jeep and Ranger weigh in at about the same as a mid sized car. The Jeep's even unibody. They just had stronger bodies than the compact car. The only heavyweight was the E-250 van which I highly doubt was bought as an image deal. 3/4 ton vans aren't something that's currently viewed as being manly. (they used to be though)

Edit: ...and it sounded like the Ranger got F'ed up pretty bad. What saved the Jeep was the tow package.
Click to expand...

I still see it as a SUV blocking visibility problem. You would understand that if you drive in New York City. Think about the situation had it not been a lifted SUV in front of him. He would have been able to anticipate what was happening in front of the SUV. The van behind him undoubtedly had his vision blocked by the SUV too. If the Jeep had tinted windows, it would make it even worse. So again, I hate SUVs, but I ain't a Cali-tree-hugging-hippy. I just find that there are more stupid dangerous drivers out there than good ones and they multiply the effect with SUVs.
Click to expand...

bullshit. In my Neon i cant even see through the windows of RAV4s, let alone a stock Grand Cherokee. At a far enough distance, what was happening would not have matter because he could have slowly braked or switched lanes.
 
Johnny: And if it were a delivery van? Or a truck? Or if it was raining and tire spray obstructed vision? If you feel that the SUV was somehow the cause because it wasn't a glass bubble, get off the road. If you slam into the back of a semi because you couldn't see through him, you'll get no sympathy from me. I've driven everything from a 2 door hatchback, to a 24' Ryder truck to a 3/4 ton 4WD pickup w/ 35' 9000LB travel trailer and everything in between. I've driven on freeways, city streets, and back roads that are so narrow and twisty that they don't have room for a line down the middle. Blind curves are the norm, large vehicles towing trailers are common, and visibility is far from ideal. NOT ONCE have I ever been in a pickle where the cause was that I couldn't see through the person infront of me.
 
It is important to define distance because driving distances change depending on the type of road and assuming there is another lane to change to. Remember, he was in heavier traffic so distances are smaller so an SUV exacerbates the problem of visibilty, thus going back to it again, SUV's should be banned (unless you have a commercial license)!
 
Originally posted by: J0hnny
It is important to define distance because driving distances change depending on the type of road and assuming there is another lane to change to. Remember, he was in heavier traffic so distances are smaller so an SUV exacerbates the problem of visibilty, thus going back to it again, SUV's should be banned (unless you have a commercial license)!
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm not so pissed about the Jeep, since he had mudding tires on it, and I'm 90% sure that it actually was used off road often enough to justify those tires and their cost.
 
Uh oh, thread being hijacked. Anyway, SUV's should be banned for a HUGE number of factors, not just visibility dude. You will never change my view on SUV's.

I fight a losing battle against SUV's but I will win the war!

Back to topic:

Any pics of damage?
 
Originally posted by: J0hnny
Uh oh, thread being hijacked. Anyway, SUV's should be banned for a HUGE number of factors, not just visibility dude. You will never change my view on SUV's.

I fight a losing battle against SUV's but I will win the war!

Back to topic:

Any pics of damage?
Click to expand...

I'll try to get some before the car gets scrapped, but even if I do they'll be crappy, the only digital camera I have access to is my dad's old POS.

I really think the car will be totalled, but I wont know till this evening at the earliest
 
Your rates being raised is pretty much dependant on whether or not one of the other drivers tries to file a claim against your insurance. The thing is that they don't even have to have a successful claim, they just have to file one, which really sucks. If the driver of the van (or his insurance company) has any ethics, he will most likely have 3 claims filed against his policy, and make no claims against yours. Depends on the state though too. I think in Missouri you're around 10% at fault legally just for being on the road, so your rates will rise a bit if they get, or again, even file a claim for that 10%.

Good luck, but the crappy reality is that everyone involved in a traffic accident looses something even if they are totally not at fault.
 
sorry to hear that Mookow. the same thing happene to my friend on 71 south in columbus this morning. exact same thing
 
Originally posted by: drum
sorry to hear that Mookow. the same thing happene to my friend on 71 south in columbus this morning. exact same thing
Click to expand...

what make/model car was he driving, and what cars sandwiched him?
 
he drives, well, drove a black 94 honda prelude. there were 2 wrecks on 71 this morning i believe. i can't remember what cars were involved i think he was the second car in his particular pileup
 
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