Your First Accident

samsamson

What was your first accident as a driver?

Whether bumping and damaging a parked car in a car park, or something more serious (hopefully not too serious!!)

Any lessons you learned from the scrapes would be nice too

EPM

Scratched the underside of my front bumper a couple of months ago. High kerb and my surf board half falling off the roof and then scrape...paint doctor job despite me being the only one that can see it...

PS-I haven't forgetten Owen. I'll be in touch when i get some time!

dougie-lampkin

My first scrape was about 3 months ago, my first time driving on the my own with the pink license, was flying it into a space in an underground car park, managed to drive my mirror into a support pillar, no damage done thankfully. My lesson there was that I was not Ken Block, and couldn't actually land into a space at 40 km/h and expect it to work

I had my first proper accident about 4 weeks ago though, I was driving home with a friend tailing me at night, when a car in front of me decided to do an emergency stop from 80km/h and throw on an indicator to turn right. It was downhill on a greasy road, so I had to lock up the brakes to avoid hitting him at 80, but I screeched to a halt millimetres from his back bumper. My friend behind, in a big jeep, wasn't so lucky, and slid the whole way into my rear end. I was lucky the car in front had taken a break in traffic at this stage, as I jumped forward a good 6 feet even with my foot on the brakes. There was no damage done to either of us though, so we took off again before anyone started asking questions :pac:

As long as I don't write this car off, I'm happy enough, until my own car is on the road

DO'Carlo/Wex

Newly driving, I misjudged the brake/clutch ratio & scraped her off the Side of Telephone Exchange/Power Box Less than a Year ago.
As I reversed back out of it, I could hear the Nails on a Blackboard.
Pride hurt. Slight dint in LHS of Car.
Selling her now cos haven't driven it much since.

JHMEG

Reversing my 14 year old Civic into a beaten up 405 and yer man getting out and saying "ah shur it's alright.. no-one'll notice"

Alanstrainor

Asides from tiny scrapes here and there i haven't had any. But i've had my fair share while cycling though!
I better not have just jinxed myself...

bigred1986

i was driving about 7 months at the time, the lights had just turned green traffic started moving, i looked away for a spilt sec, turned back to look at the road and the car in front had stopped and BANG, damn u expensive merc parts,

Senna

My first was when i was 14, i used to practice driving my mums MK2 escort around the house. I was reversing from the front of the house around to the side of the house, only this one day i forgot to straighten up and reversed into a low window sill. It left a 2 inch scrap under the bumper and i was frighten poo-less that my dad would find out, but as luck would have it the next day i came home from school and the car had been sold, so no one ever found out about my accident:cool:

Dartz

I got run over running to school once. Thud... bollox. Did more damage to the car than it did to me.

Run_to_da_hills

First RTA was on a motorbike, Triumph 200cc Tigercub, hit an uncoming car that didn't yield. First Car accident was the first day I was driving when I crashed a Renault 5 into my mates gate pillar, got confused between the clutch pedal and brake.

AugustusMaximus

Back into a light moveable metal fence.

Tiny scratch on the top of the boot. Not too bad.

Nothing major to report thankfully.

ottostreet

car...another car...me. all driving out of carlow town towards wexford. car 1 indicates right and pulls into feeder lane for an estate. car 2 and myself proceed to the left of car 1. car 1 decides to pull back out at the last moment onto the main road. car 2 manages to stop. i didnt. lots of damage to my car, none to hers cos she had a towbar!

wrote off the same car a few months later...50mph into a ditch.

OutlawPete

Was insured on my Dad's car and took it down the Jacko (Valley in Swords) for a spin many years ago. My mate has his Dad's car too and we were messing about impressing girls as you do.

I thought it would be a good idea to drive kinda fast at his car and then swerve ten feet or so from it and just swing around as we'd been doing for maybe an hour - this time however the wheels turned but car kept going in what must have been a swampy patch of grass and Smash!

We made up some cock & bull story that nobody ever believed about the two cars been robbed at the same time .. teenagers

L1011

Took a completely arseways angle in to a parking space in the ILAC centre, realised I'd wedged the car and stopped dead - lifted it sideways with the help of two other blokes I asked in the paystation area. Damaged the rubber bump stripping and got a little paint on the paintwork that cleaned off, replaced the bump strip from a breakers the next day.

Minor enough but I've made up for that since unfortunately!

OutlawPete

bigred1986 wrote: »

i was driving about 7 months at the time, the lights had just turned green traffic started moving, i looked away for a spilt sec, turned back to look at the road and the car in front had stopped and BANG, damn u expensive merc parts,

Same thing happened me as I came out of Beaumont Hospital after visting my brother. I turned right leaving the hospital onto Beaumont road (as did the other car) and was about 15 feet behind them.

I glanced down at the radio to see the volume control I was about to touch and looked straight back up to see that the car was stopped in the road with no indicator flashing, just stopped there.

Hit the breaks but was only five feet away now and bang.

Broke my reg plate and scratched their bumper but no dents at all. Everyone was fine. They apologised and said they stopped as they were looking for a pub to get something to eat. They were all from Sligo and were visting someone. Guards came and took statements etc and they were happy to take the blame.

To cut a long story short PMPA insurance gave them £97,000.

Yup, they all put in whiplash claims a week or so later and as I hit them from behind the fact the driver said he stopped with no indicator didn't mean squat as it was my duty to look were I was going in the eyes of the law.

The amount of mates I know that have crashed while tuning in the radio is crazy. I honestly think it's the one of the biggest causes of accidents out there.

cregser

Nico22 wrote: »

Same thing happened me as I came out of Beaumont Hospital after visting my brother. I turned right leaving the hospital onto Beaumont road (as did the other car) and was about 15 feet behind them.

A similar thing happened to me too. I was doing the sensible thing by driving to Limerick the evening before a job (instead of the morning of the job) when a circus truck broke down outside the Garda station in Mountrath, causing 45min tailbacks.

I finally got to 1 car behind the truck when the Garda signalled us to stop just as we were overtaking it. The truck had been repaired and began moving off. As myself and the car in front were now in the middle of the road, the Garda instructed us to move off once the truck had cleared.

Just as I moved off in 1st gear I noticed in my left mirror, some exasperated woman driver mounting the kerb in an effort to undertake 3 cars and turn left into a driveway. Curiosity and bemusement got the better of me until I heard that terrible crunching sound. The Honda Civic in front of me felt this erraticly driving woman behind him reason enough to stand on his brakes causing €1400 of damage to him and barely a dent on me (Mazda3 FTW!).

Being the driver behind, I accepted the blame despite feeling hard done by.

Nico22 wrote: »

Yup, they all put in whiplash claims a week or so later and as I hit them from behind the fact the driver said he stopped with no indicator didn't mean squat as it was my duty to look were I was going in the eyes of the law.

Despite the fact a Garda had a statement saying the other driver accepted the blame, you got blamed? :eek:

ART6

Many years ago before seatbelts became compulsory, driving an Escort along a country road faster that I should have done. I came up to a bend that I knew well, but what I didn't know was that our worthy council had been carrying out what they laughingly called "road repairs" which involved leaving chippings scattered all over the bend. The car took off sideways at 40 clicks, but the oak tree on the corner stood its ground and refused to get out of the way. Front of the car demolished.

The next day I visited the wreck in the garage the cops had sent it to. It was virtually in two pieces, and the streering wheel was bent to the dashboard on both sides. The guy at the garage remarked that the driver must be in some state, and was astonished when I said the driver was me, and I didn't even have a bruise. The tree had lost a bit of bark though, which was what it deserved for being stubborn...

The Big Red Button

I've been driving about five years now and no accident, major or minor, so far (touch wood and all that!)

I did once come within inches of running over my future mother-in-law with a tractor though ... kind of confused the brakes with the clutch

Mr Benevolent

chatterpillar wrote: »

I did once come within inches of running over my future mother-in-law with a tractor though ... kind of confused the brakes with the clutch

This thread is about accidental incidents, not 'accidentally-on-purpose' ones

Duiske

1st Crash - Hit another car while doing my driving test.
Lesson learned - You can't fit a 5ft wide car into a 4.5ft gap.

2nd Crash - Rear-ended a car outside the Stillorgan park hotel.
Lesson learned -Plug in the ipod before you start driving.

3rd Crash - Went too fast over a soeed bump, hit a parked car.
Lesson learned - Airbags look soft, but they fcuking hurt !!

4th Crash - Lost control on an icy road. Wrote off car and spent 4 days in hosp.
Lesson learned. Double check that insurance covers Fire service call out charges

cascade35

Lost control of a hillman hunter many moons ago, hit the ditch and a tree, the car still reversed out and drove away with just a small dent on the bumper.
Nick named it the hillman grunter after that. cos al, it did was grunt after the shunt and drrive on.

Sofiztikated

Had just gotten my first car, a classy 97 Punto. Had gone to get chips, with herself along for the spin.

Went down to Borza's in Donneybrook, and was on my way back to the house. Literally just outside the house, on Haddington Rd, when I saw a car pulling out of a space, so I went around the block again.

I was pulling out of Percy Lane, turning right onto Haddington Rd. Couldn't see, due to the wall on my left, and cars parked, so edged out. Traffic lights on left went red, could see everything to my left, edged out more to see right, couldn't see anything coming, so proceeded to move. Was not even halfway out on the road when I saw something barrelling towards me, I stopped hoping he would either stop, or go around me, he whacked on the stoppers, and screeched about 50 yards, thudding into the front drivers wing, spinning me on the road, and parking me nicely in front of a house, missing a Honda Legend by inches.

He was delivering pizza, with another guy in the car, who got out and gave it legs. We were in shock, I could barely move, just kept going over in my head, if I had been another foot out onto the road, he'd been into my door.

The front of the Punto was twisted in ****e, sitting at almost a 45 degree angle to the rest of the car, gear stick was bent over to passenger side, where it thumped her leg. Not a scratch on me though. Ambo on the scene and the Gardi. They were very nice, gave him a talking to, made sure I was ok, and gave me a producer. Next day went down to station, I had insurance, but tax book wasn't back, and when I checked my licence it was out of date by a year! Was ****ting myself, but they never did anything.

Insurance paid out €4k for his ****ty 97 Corolla saloon.

I only had the car 4 days! Lesson learned. Still wary pulling out from side onto mains.

KamiKazi

Fell asleep after a 24 hour shift, woke up in a ditch

JohnCleary

Was knocked off my motorbike, car drove over me and I broke my spine - Nice introduction to RTA's at the tender age of 17 if I may say so myself :pac:

mp22

wrote off a fiat 127 sport and a xj 650 yamaha in the space of 4 days between skerries and balbriggan.May 1982 i think:(

OutlawPete

cregser wrote: »

Despite the fact a Garda had a statement saying the other driver accepted the blame, you got blamed? :eek:

Yeah, solicaitor said the insurance company didn't want to fight it as their solicitor would win as it is not ilegal to just stop in the road.

I kind of agree because your car could just die on you and that doesn't mean someone should smack into you. I should have been looking. It's just crazt how important 1 second with your eyes off the road can be.

My gripe with these guys is there wasn't a bother on them :mad:

OutlawPete

cascade35 wrote: »

Lost control of a hillman hunter many moons ago, hit the ditch and a tree ..

Dad??? :eek:

razorblunt

First scratch was driving my Dad's Scenic going up St Patrick's Hill in Cork City, car in front of me couldnt take the peak and started free wheeling down toward me, I just managed to reverse into the street parking scraping the step (they're about 2 -3 feet high in parts), gobshoite refused to pay, so i had to call the Gardai, he ended up in a load of trouble in the end.

First proper crash was on the South Link Rd heading to the Magic Roundabout, someone cut in about 10 cars ahead all cars stood on their breaks I was 2nd in line coming in from a side road and just managed to stop id say withing inches, the woman behind me didn't. Think she wrote off her car, she managed to hit the door lock of the rear door in the (same) Scenic and push me into the car in front that had a towbar, nice claim for her I'd say.

triple-M

:PI reversed fast down a side a street and a lamppost got in my way and it crashed into me :P

cascade35

sorry no im not your dad lol

cascade35

Nico22 wrote: »

Dad??? :eek:

No lol:cool:

itarumaa

I have been driving since 1996 and never crashed, well at least not for my own fault.

Once my car was rear ended in 1997 but after that I have not crashed ever since.

List of close calls is endless tough:) Specially in Finland in winter my goal was to drive at the limit all times and many times I was sideways but always lucky enough to correct the slide. That did teach me left foot braking and lift of oversteer and all the tricks, but it could easily end up badly.

Graham_B18C

hristmas day 2006, took a bend at a normal speed but the car skidded and slided really slowly and hit into an oncoming car, was a 1998 Ibiza so it was pretty wrecked, not much damage to the other car. Really made me see that ya aint invincible on the road

Cutie18Ireland

First was mounting a very high kerb, went to far up the road to turn.. nt a mark on the car though. Other was undergound carpark, im dangerous in that place, swung the car the wrong way and hit a pillar, the noise.. thought half the car was gone.. only a scratch. All reversed into a van good thing I only drive a micra.. not a scratch only hit the bumper.

Oh and another bang that wasnt my fault. Guy stops outside a house in front of me so I indicate and overtake.. idiot never looked in his side mirror and flings the door open fully... wing mirror nearly ended up in the passenger seat and a mark the whole way along the door which eventually faded so must have just been dirt

Just remembered another.. parked outside the chipper for a good ten minutes come out and car in front of mine is reversing I step back and thud he goes into the car, said he never saw the car!! Lesson learnt: Micras are sturdy little things oh and never walk behind a reversing car could be your legs stuck between them.

lintdrummer

First major accident was when I was on my provisional, driving on a dodgy road in a down pour.

Came into a sharp bend too quickly, braked and skidded 360 degrees in the middle of the road back to the left side into a wooden fence post.
Mangled the front passenger side of the car altogether. Drove it home but when the insurance guy came to have a look he wrote it off, said the chassis had been damaged under the strain of the spin.

Lesson learned was don't brake while turning, especially on a greasy road.

I was lucky there was nothing coming either way or could have been much worse.

Only one scrape since with a man in a van so nothing major!

brendansmith

DO'Carlo/Wex wrote: »

Pride hurt. Slight dint in LHS of Car.

Could people stop calling it a 'dint' as it hurts my pride.

thethedev

Driving down an unfamiliar road at a nice easy going pace in a bedford rascal. A car pulled out of a side road right in front of me.
Braked, swerved, managed to get past your man before swerving back to avoid the ditch, back end came out, over corrected and put the van on her side.
The other bollocks just drove off.
A few seconds later a lad in a loader came and put the van back on her wheels for me.
Only lost a wing mirror and some petrol.:D

Bogger77

First Crash, wasn't my fault
Woman drove straight into the back of my car, while checking the flowers growing in a roadside garden. Seems she forgot she was driving. End result was her car written off, my car with front and rear damage coming to about 4K euro, car in front of me billed her insurance for about 2K euro.
Cops warned her about dangerous driving.

6months later, same car was hit head on by a stolen taxi and written off, with the jaws of life used to remove me from the wreck.