I would have thought that a failure to control would have been more logical than an unsafe speed. What year Bronco was it? Was it the fullsize one or the Bronco II. Nevertheless, thank God you were in a good hunk of metal!

 

I've had 3 major wrecks, and two stupid minor ones. First one was a minor wreck 2 months after I got my license. I was driving in my 97 f150 going to my g/f's from work. They've since changed this, but at the time, I had to go up and over the highway in order to get on. Well, right before you got to the entrance ramp to the highway, there is a Wendy's. Some woman pulls out, forcing me to jam on the brakes and proceeds to go onto the highway. She comes to a full stop at the YIELD sign. Now, it's 11:30pm. There ain't too many people on the road. Yet here she is stopped. Finally, she goes, and I take my foot off the brake and look back and BOOM right into the back of her car. She gets out and starts screaming, her husband/boyfriend (why he wasn't driving I'll never know) seems to be pretty calm, and now they're looking to see if there is any damage. I see none, but they claim that their trunk isn't closing right, so the cops show up. The first thing they say to the cop is "We called you because it sounded and felt a lot worse than it actually was." That was one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. The cop lets everyone go, and a few weeks later they call saying that the trunk is fine.
A month later, I'm in the f150 after it had rained, and took a merge from one road to another too fast, hit the curb, blew the tire, and bent the axle.
Father's Day morning 2000, I was late to coach a hockey game and was doing 45 in a 35 down a road that was the lowest road in town. It constantly flooded, and of course, it was raining. I took a curve, turned the wheel, but the truck went straight. Right into a traffic light. Knocked the light down across the road, a chunk of it went through the windshield, and I totaled the truck. They gave me Careless Driving, but I beat it in court.
14 months later I was driving up a hill which, unbeknownst to me, had a curve on top. When I hit the curve, four cars were stopped dead, and I was in a 90 Taurus with no abs and slid right into them on the wet pavement. Apparently, the first car in line didn't know how to make a left hand turn. That car turned off like nothing happened, but the others were involved in the chain reaction. The first car in line told the cop that she didn't cause it, the person in front of her was stopped dead. Again, totaled car, but no ticket.
And finally, lost down near school, again a rainy night, I was driving down a road that I knew I was on before, so I thought it would take me back to school. It was a main street type road, two lane, parking on curbs, double yellow lines. Then there is a road at 2 o'clock and a road at about 11:30. To make things worse, the double yellow lines disappear. I make the assumption that the road at 11:30 is the road I'm on, so I go straight and get broadsided. The road actually continued at 2 o'clock, so technically, I was making a left hand turn. My car (96 Sable) wasn't technically totalled, but my neighbor, who runs an autobody shop, said that the structural integrity had been compromised, so that one was gone too. Another Careless driving ticket, but again I beat it in court. That was November 03, and have been accident free since. (Knock Knock!!!).

 

Eh, maybe they don't have a statute like that on the books here. In any case, the citation was unnecessary. Having totaled my truck and hurt myself, I think I've been through enough. And I learned my lesson perfectly well without the ticket, thank you very much. No more iPod, I sold that SOB. And I think I'll set my music BEFORE I start rolling. Then again the highway cops here are notorious for being ******.

The Bronc was a full sizer, a '92 Eddie Bauer to be exact. Too bad, she was actually a good vehicle. I was dubious what with it having EFI and computers and stuff, but I think she acquitted herself well. Got it for a little below market price, she was reliable, tough, ran beautifully, got good mileage for a Bronco, had low miles and the coldest a/c known to man. In any case, I am grateful she was so overbuilt. Anything less and that could well have been a pretty terrible accident. I'd get another one in a heartbeat.

 

Almost got into another one tonight. Went with two friends to see the Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. We saw it at the movie theatre at the mall, which just so happened to be having a fireworks display and a Blake Shelton concert (country music). So of course, the fireworks end at 10 and everyone starts leaving, the movie ends about 10:05, so we get completely stuck in traffic. The parking lots are totally gridlocked.

Me and one of my friends are in my Ranger, and my other friend is in his Chrysler Sebring. He backs out and goes across the parking lot and I jump the curb and berm in front of me out onto one of the main roads and about 10 minutes later am on the highway. My Sebring driving friend somehow ends up passing me in the right lane (mind you traffic is just creeping along, if at all). Well some kids in the movie decide to play rice burner and drift from one of the streets onto the highway, which is stopped and the intersection clear. Right as they get down to the street and start to slide, the cop waves us all on and we start to move out. They get broadsided by a Chevy 3500, totally tears their car apart. I'm the second car behind the Chevy and slam my brakes on. The Chevy had a bull bar and screwed the car up really bad. The driver and rear driver-side passenger were taken to the hospital, the other two were ok best I could tell. The people in the Chevy were of course ok. Good testament to (dare I say) Chevy and even moreso to the frame mounted bull bars, those things are nice.

Of those of us who ran up to help right after it happened, we learned the guy driving had has his license for all of six days, it was his friend's car, and he still had his restrictions (in Texas for the first six months you can't have more than one non-family member in the vehicle). I'm sure he's gonna hear a great deal from the cops once he's fine in the hospital.

Anyways, interesting night. I now see why they have that disclaimer at the end of the movie, which 20 minutes earlier I had been making fun of...

RP
Zach

 

never been in any major wrecks..just put my dads 86 yota 4x4 on the side rallying down the mounting to see my gf at the time. Been in tonnes of fender benders....like the time I backed into a hindu, chinese and white guy in a Jaguar in a line for a road block. My worst incident has to be the time I drove into a road block totally pissed, 15 months no license, criminal record, and $1200 in fines. Screw crashing, getting busted is worse...no longer do I drive after drinking.

 

my first wreck was a month after i got my license. I was with a friend in the 93 escort i used to have and we were zipping around on backroads. I come to this corner marked for 15mph and i hit it at like 45. I skidded off the road and hit (of all things) a speed limit sign. It crinkled the whole right side of the car and as punishment (and since i couldn't afford to have it fixed, and its a 'scort why bother) i had to drive it around like that for a couple years.

My senior year a bunch of my buddies and i were two tracking up north (michigan) and late at night after we all had a few drinks in us this guy goes out in his ranger and flips it on its side. About 12 of us jumped in the back of my buddy's chevy and take off. He hit a tree head on going probably about 40. No one was hurt and the only damage the truck saw was to the bumper. It had a perfect U in it where the tree hit and that was it. We flipped the ranger back over and it fired right up.

 

Hardly an accident but an entertaining story:

We had a party out in the woods about a month ago, just after school ended. A guy who had just graduated was going into the Marines and wanted to get rid of his car. It was an '88 or '89 Honda, little POS, barely ran.

Well...we got this entertaining idea, let's hang it in the tree. So we busted everything we could, all the windows, beat the hood and doors and stuff in, then a guy brought his Chevy over there (most people around here drive GM). It was an '03 with the Duramax, 4x4, and a good lift on it.

A tall tree + flexible climber + lots of chain = Honda 15 feet off the ground.

RP
Zach

 

my first and only wreck came in feb. it was a snow day and there was about a foot and a half of snow on the roads everywhere. i had just gotten my 02 civic. and i had a few of my friends over at my house. one of them went to go to work and he locked his keys in his car. so all of my friends got in my car and drove, it had snow tires on it and i wasnt driving very fast. so i pulled onto this residential street and was driving down the cener of the road becasue there were cars parked on both sides when out of nowhere a f350 hit me in the driver side door. he hit me so hard i did a cookie and stopped about 10 ft away. my hat flew off my head and landed in the back seat. (i did keep the manual car running though:-) so the cop comes and he listens to the guys story then mine. he shows me the tire marks in the snow f my car and says that i was sliding sideways and he thinks i was showboating for my friends. i told him i wasnt and i was probably trying to dodge the truck. anyways after about ten minutes of talking to him and almost wanting to punch him in the face(i couldnt make a fist) i ended up with a $200 wreckless driving ticket and a court date. so i talked to my local resource officer and he told me it was the other guys fault becasue he came out of a privat driveway onto a main road and is supposed to yeild to me. so my court date came and i told the judge what happened. He looked at me and said "and why are you here, the other guy is supposed to yeild to you and you should have not gotten this ticket. who was the officer?" so i told him the name. he dismissed my ticket and also the accient was changed from my fault to his fualt. o btw my civic had $4,625 worth of damage, good think i still had full coverage. but ya thats my first and only wreck ever.

 

1st wreck was back in 1996, when I was 17 and living in Phoenix, AZ. I had an '85 Ford Ranger Single Cab Longbed 4X4 2.8L.

I was making a left hand turn when a 1995 Galant ran the red light across from me and I was broadsided. He hit me from the the passenger front tire to the back of the passenger door. It pushed the front axle about 2-3 inches out the other side, busted the oil pan and radiator but did very little body damage. The Galants entire front end was crushed back to the windshield.

The on scene investigator determined the driver of the Galant was doing 55mph in a 40mph zone by his skid marks. They couldn't determine who was at fault, since all the people that witnessed the accident left except one. Luckily I was in front of a Nissan dealership and a saleman witnessed everything, otherwise the cop said I would have been at fault since they didn't know if the light was red or not. The Galant driver received a speeding and a failure to stop ticket.

Biggest problem was the driver of the Galant was not the owner. The driver was a mechanic for a local dealership taking the car for a test drive. Evidentally the actual owner who had just purchased the car a week or so before the accident was bringing the Galant in for making some type of noise when traveling around 50mph.

The dealership the driver worked for would not pay, as all their mechanics were required to use their own insurance when on the job. So any accident claims the mechanics were in had to be reported to the mechanics insurance company, not the dealerships. Problem was this particular mechanic didn't have any auto insurance.

So now the owner of the Galant and I were SOL since the dealerships insurance wouldn't pay for either of our cars. Luckily though, the Galant owner and I were both insured by Farmers. Farmers ended up paying for our vehicles while taking the driver to court for recovery of these funds. I was subpoenaed to testify against the driver and it took almost 3 years for everything to be resolved.

 

I have only been in 2 wrecks so far.

A month after I got my license, a teenage girl ran a stop sign at the top of a hill near my house. I saw her the whole time....she didnt even slow down. So I T-boned her. She was in a Taurus, and I was in my parents' '99 Windstar. I hit her right in the driver's side wheel. Bent her a-arm, tie rod, wheel, cv joint, fender, door.....all we needed on the van was a new plastic bumper cover.


My second, and last wreck, happened about 5 weeks ago. I was going through a small intersection with a traffic light (I had the green), when someone pulled out in front of me from the right. He didnt even stop, or slow down (you can turn right on red...but must stop and check to see if it's clear...which he didnt do).
I slammed on my brakes, but when I got right up on him, he gave me a brake check! So, I rearended him. Boy was I pissed! I jumped out of my truck and started throwing everything in the book at him...