Car crashes- have you ever been in an accident/ had a near miss?

cazzer22

Over the last few weeks I've had two extremely close calls, which both would've resulted in a pretty serious accident.
One was at a roundabout I was trying to switch lanes and a man in the right hand lane cut across me doing serious speed and just drove on like nothing had happened.
Another which happened today actually, a man just pulled out from a space directly in front of my car, my car just stopped in time. Might not sound that serious, but did leave me very shaken up after.
My dad also had a pretty serious accident last year and is still suffering because of it (pain and injury wise)
Makes me wonder, how many people has this actually happened to?

FatherLen

I was once in a car on the n7 and the woman in front of us slammed on the breaks for some unknown reason. we stopped just in time behind her but the car behind us didn't and smashed into the back of us. car was fairly squished but luckily we all walked away without a scratch. 'twas fairly frightening.

Stavros Murphy

Wander into a scrapyard and have a look at all the crumpled, wrecked vehicles - and note how many have had their roof cut off by the emergency services. Then times that by the number of scrapyards there are. And shudder.

SouthTippBass

FatherLen wrote: »

I was once in a car on the n7 and the woman in front of us slammed on the breaks for some unknown reason. we stopped just in time behind her but the car behind us didn't and smashed into the back of us. car was fairly squished but luckily we all walked away without a scratch. 'twas fairly frightening.

Was the reason still unknown after? Why did she stop?

RayM

Yes, last week. A twat in an Audi tailgated me for ages and then overtook me while I was turning right. Had I been a bit careless with my mirrors, we would have had a pretty nasty crash.

AmberAmber

yea I was in an accident last year , head on at night on a bend.. pain,,,, too small a word for what the agony and torture of getting up , wash, eat, walk, sit, talk, listen or go back to be is on a daily basis . the tears, sadness and the pain it has brought me is mind bending and makes your life empty.
Be careful people , its 3 seconds of your life that changes everything. you never know.

errlloyd

Posted this in motors a week ago.


I was driving home on the N11 on Saturday, it had just rained pretty hard and it was getting dark, I was in the outside line as I was about to Uturn between Cherrywood and Cabinteely (just before the petrol station if you know it). I was doing 60 in a Subaru Legacy estate. We'd put new rear tyres on and serviced the breaks that morning.

Anyway, there are about 2 kids in the middle of the road, and one darts across from the left to join them about 100m in front of me. I remarked to the passenger that it was bloody stupid, if he'd slipped he would have been right in front of me. Anyway, no sooner had I said it a fourth kid who I hadn't seen before runs from the left. He can't have been more than 7 or 8, he was certainly less than 5ft tall.

He had his hood up, his head turned away from me, he was sprinting, completely oblivious to me. As soon as he put his foot on the bus lane, I hit the breaks hard, I felt them bouncing so I figure the ABS kicked in. There was a van directly behind me also doing 60, probably pissed off that I was only doing the speed limit while hogging the outside line. I knew he was close, so close that if it'd been a dog not a kid I would have just killed it. In those few seconds I was pretty sure I was going to hit the kid, and almost positive the van was going to hit me. I didn't beep or anything, I was afraid that I wasn't going to stop in a short enough distance and the kids only chance was that he got across ahead of me, so scaring him might have caused him to fall.

The car came to a stop less than a metre short of where he had been running, and the van probably got closer to me behind. I was scared ****less. I was close to home, so I took the Uturn drove into the drive and just sat in the car for a while. My passenger had advised I try give out to the kids but I honestly was too shocked to speak, let alone plan the best way to make a complicated point about road safety to a bunch of neglected brats.

Anyway, I guess I'm posting for two reasons. Firstly if you were driving a van northbound on the N11 near Cabinteely at around 7pm on Saturday and you managed to avoid rear ending a subaru estate who braked suddenly and without warning, thank you. If you hadn't been concentrating I was ****ed.

Secondly, when I was learning to drive people never stopped telling me "always concentrate on the road, you never know when someone might jump out in front of you" - I kinda dismissed it. While I don't assume other drivers are of a good standard, I did tend to assume that most people had some element of self preservation, and would never run in front of my car, I was wrong to assume that. On another day I'd take that road 10 clicks faster while playing with the radio and I dunno the legalities of it, but at the very minimum I'd have killed a child, but I guess there is every chance I'd be going to jail.

FatherLen

SouthTippBass wrote: »

Was the reason still unknown after? Why did she stop?

no idea to be honest, there where no cars in front of her or anything.

FatherLen

I also got hit off my motorbike by a driver that ran a red. I was lucky because he missed my knee by only a few inches. I rolled over his car and landed on my back. I had all the gear on so only suffered a little bit of whiplash. Bike was destroyed.

cazzer22

Another story that just came to mind when reading your posts was about two weeks ago.

I was on the way from Cork to Dublin and just joined the N7. I was chatting to a guy I was giving a spin to in the driver's seat and needed to make a phonecall, but he was telling a story and it kinda kept going on and on and I remember thinking 'I need to make this call, come on and finish the story'. Anyways, my phone was in my lap and I was listening to his story and for whatever reason I looked left. There's an Esso garage on the left hand side of the N7 and I glanced that direction to see a lorry pull straight out of the garage without looking, a car in the third lane (nearest the garage) pulled straight out in front of me (in the middle lane) and had I not looked left, I wouldn't have seen him approaching. I just stopped in time and it made me seriously think, what if I had been on the phone when this happened? there's no way I would've noticed the car in time and I would definitely have hit him. Scary stuff.

I have a Bluetooth car kit, so wouldn't have been on the phone or anything, but would needed to have pressed a button to activate the call.

Sam Kade

Everybody they are brakes not breaks

Jawgap

Not recently in the car.

But on the bike, you get to see all the idiots. The most recent near miss was this morning.

Plus, the ignorance of roadcraft, rules of the road and road traffic legislation among so-called 'professional' drivers such as taxi drivers, private coach drivers and select Dublin Bus routes is astonishing!

Sam Kade

FatherLen wrote: »

no idea to be honest, there where no cars in front of her or anything.

Tbh seems as if you were tailgating her.

danniemcq

meeting a car coming the other way on a closed road when we were battering through the stage to be dropped off for marshalling was a but clenching experience, so lucky our driver was top notch

The Backwards Man

I'm very lucky, for all my time on the road I've only been in a couple of minor(ish) crashes and the worst injury I've ever sustained would be a bruised ankle or a cut arm that turned septic.

I've witnessed a couple of fatal collisions, I don't know of any words that could properly convey how that affects me, as I'm sure anyone that has experienced the same will attest.

Ken.

Dash cam saves your ass have a look at this thread in motors. Some right dooseies in here.

Galwayguy35

Went through a wall when I was 23, learnt a harsh life lesson that day because I was drinking, I was arrested and served my ban which I fully deserved.

Not long after my brother was crashed into by a drunk driver, the neighbours came out and told him not to report the driver because he had a young family and needed his license, my brother did the right thing and called the cops.

FatherLen

Sam Kade wrote: »

Tbh seems as if you were tailgating her.

If you read carefully you will see that we didn't hit her car.
It was in fact the car behind us that hit into the back of us and push us into the front car.

Pinch Flat

Had a guy come up the wrong side of the m7 just pass Kilkenny with full beams in October 2012. Moved left and thankfully he passed me on his moronic way. Because he had his beams on, he completely blinded me. Only spotted the woman in front of me who'd stopped dead on the motorway at the last moment - as it turns out she was in complete shock with children on the back of the car. Slammed hard on the brakes. Only had a set if brand new bridgestones fitted a few days before - these no doubt contributed to saving my live.

There's not a day goes by where do you do not see the most moronic driving - my pet hate is using the left lane to go straight on at a round about - invariably some t!t will come up the right hand side, cut in front of you and go straight ahead.

Motorway behaviour here also appalling - developing countries have better driving standards.

McChubbin

Once, when I was around 14, I was travelling with my father, brother and stepmother down to some place in the country. We were speeding along a quiet and narrow country dirt road when, out of nowhere, a camper van came ploughing down the road coming in the opposite direction. It was a near head-on collision but luckily my father slammed on the breaks in time. The jolt threw me forward despite wearing a seat belt and I ended up with a severe case of whiplash that still gives me problems to this day.
Moral of the story: Always check which way the traffic is going when going down old country dirt roads... still shudder thinking about it.
My life flashed before my eyes that time.

Stavros Murphy

FatherLen wrote: »

If you read carefully you will see that we didn't hit her car.
It was in fact the car behind us that hit into the back of us and push us into the front car.

By Motors logic, it is still all your fault. For some reason.

kiffer

I witnessed a near miss incident earlier... a man and a small girl on bikes broke the lights and luckily the two cyclists that had the green light managed to break moments before they would have crashed into the little girl.
The man felt that the other cyclists where at fault because they were going too fast... I told him that he broke the lights and put his child in danger,
He felt that didn't make a difference. I repeated that he was at fault as they had the lights and he should have set a better example for his child... at which point he just started making cat noises and cycled off.
I hope that some else teaches that child some road safety before she gets much bigger.

poundapunnet

Yeah, when I was 12. Me, my parents and my brother and sister (and the dog) all in the car on the way home from a trip to Dublin.

My dad was indicating to pull over to a petrol station on the right hand side of the road, just as the traffic cleared and he started to pull out a car going about 60/70 (later, as we found out, driven by an off-duty gard who was on the phone) slammed into the car behind us. She'd tried to swerve at the last minute but it didn't work, we ended up on the other side of the road facing back the way we'd came, with the biggest impact taken on the passenger-side back seat. If there'd been anything coming the other way one of us would have been killed.

It was chaos! Most of our windows smashed and of course the fecking dog panicked and jumped out, almost strangled herself on her lead. I'll never forget seeing my dad lifting my unconscious ten year old sister (who'd been in the back on the passenger side) out of the car and not knowing if she was dead or what, he was roaring at the other two drivers and just looked like he'd absolutely lost his mind. Also I'll never forget the staff from the petrol station running out to us and taking me and my brother (who was only six) and the dog into the shop and then not really knowing what to do so just leaving us stand by the ice-cream freezer.

Also try and imagine how much craic the insurance process was seeing as the guilty party was a gard.

bockeys jollocks

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I've witnessed a couple of fatal collisions, I don't know of any words that could properly convey how that affects me, as I'm sure anyone that has experienced the same will attest.

My daughters 10 year old friend was killed outside the house a few years back by a speeding car. I didn't sleep properly for weeks, my daughter was devastated. I can still hear the screaming when I think of it.

I have to say that paramedics are the most under-appreciated people. I couldn't do their job and witness horrors like that on a daily basis.

Sam Kade

FatherLen wrote: »

If you read carefully you will see that we didn't hit her car.
It was in fact the car behind us that hit into the back of us and push us into the front car.

She stopped sudden you stopped sudden but the car behind you pushed your car into hers which would indicate you were traveling too close.

kiffer

Sam Kade wrote: »

She stopped sudden you stopped sudden but the car behind you pushed your car into hers which would indicate you were traveling too close.

It would indicate that the car following them was too close...
The lead car randomly breaks, the posters car breaks in response and is far enough away to stop with no impactand the final car is too close and fails to break in time.

@ errloyd, that strip of road is 80kph - only 60 in the bus lane. As well you weren't doing 80 anyway by the sounds of it

I was the front seat passenger in a car which was hit by an articulated truck. Two of my family were killed. I broke my breast bone (seatbelt did its job saving my life!) and the driver was in hospital for a month with all of his ribs on one side broken, a collapsed lung, and subsequent pneumonia.

dharn

The word is BRAKE.....

errlloyd

Deleted User wrote: »

@ errloyd, that strip of road is 80kph - only 60 in the bus lane. As well you weren't doing 80 anyway by the sounds of it

Yeah I was only a hundred and fifty metres short of the U-turn so I wasn't in a particular hurry. If I'd been heading into town rather than home I'd probably have been doing 80.

Gmol

Yeah got rear ended thought I was fine but within the hour the whiplash kicked in. Pretty bad whiplash for a good while after, and still affected by it over a year later, at the time I would have considered it a minor accident so I would shudder to think about a head on.

kiffer

dharn wrote: »

The word is BRAKE.....

Their is know kneed to capitolize it.

mdwexford

Written off a Polo and then a Focus.

First one a van didnt stop at an intersection and came flying into the side of me.
Van driver split his head open due to not wearing a seatbelt.
Went to court and I won because the incident had been caught on cctv.

Second I lost control coming from Carrick towards the roundabout in Waterford.
Car went into a spin and went across all 4 lanes onto the other side of the road, luckily it was 2am and no other cars were on the road.
Car hit the railings stopping me from going into the water, windscreen smashed in and car bounced back out onto the road.

I somehow got out of both without a scratch, lucky lucky human.

pablo128

I probably have a near miss once a week on average. You would wonder just what is going through peoples minds as they're driving, because it's not concentrating on the road, that's for sure.
Last night I was coming up to a roundabout in the left lane, indicating left and intending to turn left. There was a people carrier slightly ahead in the right hand lane, indicating right. Just as I drew alongside, the idiot came swerving into my lane for no apparent reason causing me to stand on the brakes. The gas thing is he/she still turned right at the roundabout!

tayto lover

Was in a fatal accident as a passenger years ago. Was lucky enough to survive. My two friends died at the scene. We hit a parked lorry.
Slow down people.

JamBur

I was driving a rental car in Romania a few years back, and had a spin. It was mid summer so extremely hot and dry, but there had been a little rain which left the road greasy. Going up hill in an overtaking lane, past a truck. The road was twisty, I span 180 degrees in front of the truck, I could see him coming towards me! I ended up hitting the barrier, and he trundled on past.

mitosis

McChubbin wrote: »

Once, when I was around 14, I was travelling with my father, brother and stepmother down to some place in the country. We were speeding along a quiet and narrow country dirt road when, out of nowhere, a camper van came ploughing down the road coming in the opposite direction. It was a near head-on collision but luckily my father slammed on the breaks in time. The jolt threw me forward despite wearing a seat belt and I ended up with a severe case of whiplash that still gives me problems to this day.
Moral of the story: Always check which way the traffic is going when going down old country dirt roads... still shudder thinking about it.
My life flashed before my eyes that time.

And maybe travel at an appropriate speed.

cazzer22

pablo128 wrote: »

I probably have a near miss once a week on average. You would wonder just what is going through peoples minds as they're driving, because it's not concentrating on the road, that's for sure.
Last night I was coming up to a roundabout in the left lane, indicating left and intending to turn left. There was a people carrier slightly ahead in the right hand lane, indicating right. Just as I drew alongside, the idiot came swerving into my lane for no apparent reason causing me to stand on the brakes. The gas thing is he/she still turned right at the roundabout!

This is very similar to what happened to me. I was in the left hand lane and realised I needed to go the whole way around (one of the bigger roundabouts- not well signposted) and there was a car in the right hand lane (not indicating) so, therefore assumed he was going the whole way around. I slowed down and indicated to tuck in behind him when all of a sudden he swerved into my lane right across me. So terrifying!

bee06

I was in an accident about 7 years ago when going through a junction the car coming the other way turned to go right as I was approaching the junction. I almost stopped in time but was going down hill so she caught my front bumper. Then tried to claim on my insurance after and held up my claim on her insurance when that didn't work. Luckily, no one was hurt.

Had a near miss coming out of an intersection and turning right ... A car coming from the right along the main road had it's indicator on to turn into my intersection so I made my turn. He wasn't turning though, just never turned off the indictor from a previous turn. I'll never forget seeing the car coming straight for me but luckily they stopped in time. Since then I never trust that another driver will do what they are supposed to do or what they are indicating to do.

akura

I crashed on the 4th of July last year. Lift-off oversteer going around a bend on a road I wasn't familiar with in the pouring rain. I tried to correct it but ended up crashing into a wall and spinning about 20 feet up the road. The car was fairly crumpled but I was fine.

Rasheed

Yep I was a passenger in a crash. Broke 8 ribs, my breast bone, my collar bone, 7 vertebrae , two punctured lungs and about 30 stitches all over the show. Horrific isn't the word for the fall out from it. It has impacted every single second of my life since, mentally and physically, and will continue to do so until I'm facing the rising sun.

Mind each other as best you can.

BetterThanThou

A few years ago I was in the car with my mother on the M50. The car in front of us slammed on for seemingly no reason, my mother reacted quick enough and had enough distance to stop, but upon stopping, the car that was behind us hit into the back of us. Luckily, no one was injured, despite it being fairly high speed. My mother's car wasn't too badly damaged and was fixed for around 1k, I believe. But the other guy's car was severely damaged, I'm not sure if he could even drive it away afterwards.

Santa Cruz

SouthTippBass wrote: »

Was the reason still unknown after? Why did she stop?

You are trying to find a reason why a woman would do anything!

Temptamperu

I got hit by an old lady who cut a red light... i was cyclist scum at the time so it wont count here

poundapunnet

Temptamperu wrote: »

I got hit by an old lady who cut a red light... i was cyclist scum at the time so it wont count here

Oh my god you probably traumatised that poor old lady you cycling bastard!

Samsgirl

FatherLen wrote: »

I was once in a car on the n7 and the woman in front of us slammed on the breaks for some unknown reason. we stopped just in time behind her but the car behind us didn't and smashed into the back of us. car was fairly squished but luckily we all walked away without a scratch. 'twas fairly frightening.

Almost exact same thing happened to me. Was on N7 driving into Dub one Friday evening. The car two cars in front of me stopped to look at a crash on the opposite side of the dual carriageway. I stopped without hiting into the back of the car in front of me. I remember looking over the bonnet thinking phew, that was lucky. Seconds later a car slammed into the back of my car, shunted my car forward into the back of the car in front.
I hurt my back pretty bad & 12 years later I'm still sore from it.

herisson

when i was 15, a learner driver pulled out in front of us on a busy stretch of road. We hit them at my side, the side completely crushed up. Thankfully, i escaed lightly.

Smashed knee cap, a large cut from the seat belt, from my neck down my chest and my entire torso was bruised as a result.

Could have been a lot worse.

Pedro K

Not in the car. I ride a motor cycle as well though, and have idiots pull out in front of me at junctions, or change lanes without checking on a daily basis.

Haven't been knocked off my bike yet though. You learn to spot when an idiot is driving and adjust your own position.

alrightso

I was driving a narrow country road around a bend at night time and came across 3 horses spread out over the road.. by the time I spotted them it was too late to stop and it was either veer off the road and into a wall or keep going.. hadnt much time to think or do anything so I hit 1 of them, one of the horses legs came through the windscreen smashing all the glass in on top of me and he rolled over the top of the car bringing the roof down on top of me... scariest moment of my life to date, I sat in the car not moving out of shock for a good half an hour until a car passed and stopped. They were travellers horses and couldn't be traced the gardai later told me.

Waking-Dreams

Back in January 2013, at about 4.30am, as I was coming from Dublin, making my way Northbound into Gormanstown (between the two Applegreen petrol stations), this lorry driver heading in the opposite direction flashed his lights at me.

“Strange”, I thought, as it was far too late for a Garda checkpoint so I just reduced my speed (I was already adhering to the 80km limit) and kept going around the corner, approaching the second of the two Applegreen stations.

I was trying to figure out what the driver had warned me about. I couldn’t see any accident up ahead or obstruction and then suddenly, these two human shapes just appeared in front of me in the middle of the road – two idiots had decided to walk up the middle of the left side of the road (as if deliberately walking straight towards my vehicle), staggering, pissed drunk probably and dressed in black. This is not a stretch of road you normally require your high beams either.

Luckily, I had reduced my speed and had enough time to swerve onto the other side of the road and avoid them. Had I been doing the speed limit, there’s no doubt I would not have had the time to avoid a head-on collision and an absolute disaster of a motor accident.

I am so grateful to the lorry driver. They obviously spotted them on the road in passing and then saw me headed towards them. It’s mad how such a small effort such as flashing your headlights can alter the course of events.

Mars Bar

A bus I was on that was bringing students to college was ran into by a fella in a van. The van driver and our lovely bus driver died at the scene. My face took a hefty slap off the seat in front of me. I had a massive bump on my face and my upper body was in bits.

That was nothing compared to the mental anguish though. It took the best part of 8 months to get out of the funk and my final year in college suffered hugely as a result.

I'm driving now though and I've been fortunate so far. *touches wood*

LynnGrace

None as a driver, <touch wood>
In one as a passenger, I took the worst of the impact, but thankfully, all was well in the end. No long term injury.