Ever have a car accident unfold right in front of you?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Hmm, maybe I’m some sort of accident magnet, because I can think of, lessee here, at least nine that I’ve witnessed as they happened; six involving one or more cars, two involving motorcycles or ATVs, and one involving a train; the latter one I actually photographed. I’ve happened on the scene of several others that had happened within 30 seconds of my arrival. Fortunately (and amazingly) no one in any of these was severely injured or killed.

The most lurid road crash I saw (I may have mentioned this one in an older thread) occurred on US 30 westbound near Ligonier, PA late one weekend evening. I had just passed another car when I was overtaken, at high speed and on the wrong side, by some yahoo driving one of those crappy '70s-era Chevy Novas. Just as he got past me, he dropped a wheel onto the shoulder, overcorrected and spun out. The car bounced like a pinball off the guardrails a couple of times, clipped at least one tree, and ended up backwards in the middle of the road, with the driver laying beside it, him having been ejected head first through the driver’s side window. I braked to a halt and as I started to get out of the car, I heard more cashing noises. This turned out to be two carloads of buddies of the unfortunate driver, who were so gobsmacked by the spectacle that one rear-ended the other.

I walked up to the the first driver, thinking this guy’s gotta be dead’. As I leaned over him, he opened his eyes, looked at me and said ‘Oh man, I eff’ed up my car’. He then leapt to his feet, apparently completely unhurt, and walked over to one of his following buddies to ask for a ride to the nearest phone. Amazing.

The one with the train took place at Union Station, Denver, CO, back in the early '80s. I had just photographed the departure of Amtrak’s San Francisco Zephyr. At the Denver stop Amtrak had a contract with a local supplier to fuel up the locomotives from a truck driven up alongside the train. After the passenger train left, I watched in horror as the fuel truck driver backed out onto the tracks to turn around, right in front of an approaching Burlington Northern freight, which within a couple of seconds hit the truck, spinning it 90 degrees and punching a huge hole in the tank. Fortunately the freight was going at low speed and no fire ensued. I snapped off a couple of shots as this all occurred and eventually one of them was used as evidence in a court proceeding against the driver.

22

Crappy '70s-era Chevy Novas?!

Crappy '70s-era Chevy Novas!?

I’m gonna count to ten and let that one pass…

Ohhmm…Ohhmm…Ohhmm…

23

I’ve seen two, one minor, one not.

Couple weeks ago coming home from work, a guy in front of me was merging left from a ramp onto the main interstate entrance ramp, this entrance ramp also being the same road as the exit ramp for the previous exit (kinda like a frontage road alongside the interstate). There was a car next to me and slightly behind just exiting, and so was travelling much faster than the merging vehicle. I thought to myself, “Hmm, this isn’t good” as the merger got smacked in the back bumper and swerved a bit. Both cars then pulled over, with only bumper damage as I continued on.

The other was a significant interstate accident, it happened a couple years ago. I was driving west out of Omaha toward Hastings/Grand Island, and west of Lincoln there were bad dust storms. The winds were strong, and there would be patches downwind of dry fields where visibility would drop to tens of feet. Outisde of the plumes visibilities were in the 1-2 mile range. Well, all of a sudden in one nasty plume, I saw a semi in the eastbound lanes get shredded by another, the trailer was totally crumpling, with the second semi in back almost at the cab of the first one (trailer was almost gone). The back semi ended up moving into the median as I was driving past. My windshield got sprayed by diesel fuel. I managed to call 911 on a cellphone less than a mile later after I was out of the plume, and the dispatcher mentioned they already knew about it. I found out later that maybe 10-15 vehicles were involved, with at least one death (SUV occupant that got crushed), and eastbound I-80 was shutdown for something like 8-12 hours.

24

Only one, it happened 30 years ago when I was 7 but I still remember it, … well, I saw the ending of it at least…

My parents and I were in a Winnebago traveling across the country. We were parked alongside the road out in the middle of nowhere (I don’t remember were in the country we were), in a hilly forrested area with sharply winding roads. There was a very wide dirt shoulder we were parked on, at least 10 feet from the road.

All of us sitting in the back, at the table having lunch, looking out the rear picture window, suddenly my dad says “Oh shit!”. I look up to see a blue van tumbling sideways down the road. On it’s back, it’s side, it’s wheels, it’s other side, it’s back, etc. Headed right for us.

It came to a rest on it’s roof, on the dirt shoulder, only about 15 feet from where we sat, stunned, watching it all happen. … Well, I was stunned, my mother was stunned, my father was already up and moving. He was outside with a fire extinguisher the instant he knew the van wasn’t going to hit us.

Before he could reach the van, the driver had already kicked out the shattered, but intact windshield and had climbed out. He was bruised and scraped but OK.

He’d been coming around the corner a bit too fast when his front tire blew, causing him to loose control, twisting the nose, and throwing it into a tumble. My father saw the whole thing happen while my mother and I only caught the end of the action.

25

I won’t.

…Ah, they’re 1970’s style “death cars”.

26

yes, but I didn’t see it. I was driving to church and had stopped at a red light. I was waiting for the light to change so that I could turn left. It was a slightly rainy day. You know, one of those days where you grab an umbrella or a jacket but it isn’t really worth it to open it up or wear it. An SUV came around the corner from the left and aparently rolled. My dad, sitting next to me and not watching the light, because he was the passenger, was startled by the fact that the SUV rolled. It seemed to him that it had been going too fast- but not so much too fast that it should have rolled.

The light changed, we went on to church.

27

I was on the bus going down the highway, rang for the next stop and went to the front of it. Just as I got there and said “Next Stop,” a car going too fast went onto the exit ramp, off the ramp, across the grass and hit a tree, which fell onto an electrical wire. The sky lit up like the 4th of July. The bus pulls over and stops and the driver tells me to stay on the bus (like I was going anywhere). The driver gets out of the car and starts walking away. The poll hold the wire suddenly splits in two, the live wire making more fireworks and an explosive sound. The driver starts going back to the car, but a guy takes her arm and drags her off.

It was very scarey.

28

Yes. My sister and I were driving from our new home to our old hometown, and watched a Jeep flip and bounce about 300 feet from the road. We parked and ran out to the person who had been thrown from the vehicle, and stayed with him while the next passersby contacted the ambulance service. It turned out to be someone we knew, who was charged with impaired driving (criminal code conviction in Canada [felony]). Neither my sister nor I smelled alcohol on him at the time, and we both testified to that effect. The other people at the scene also testified that they smelled/saw no alcohol. He turned out just fine, only minor scratches although the dumbass wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He was found not guilty.

29

One time on the 405 Freeway I saw an rear ender up ahead in the fast lane. A Toyota hit a VW bug. The two cars in question pulled onto the center divider. My buddy and I stop to see if anyone is hurt. The VW has a fuel leak, and the driver is trying to light a smoke. I had to take his lighter away from him. :eek:
Anyway, a CHP motor officer shows up and I am telling him to call for a fire unit because of a fuel leak when a car stops in the fast lane to looky loo the accident. The guy behind him does not stop and there is a rear end collision about three fee from where I am standing. :eek: :eek: Accidents are very loud.

30

When I was a senior in high school, my mom and I went down to Santa Cruz to look at the university. Driving home on Highway 17 (Wikipedia on 17: “Highway 17 carries substantial commuter and vacation traffic between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Its combination of narrow shoulders, dense and high-speed traffic, sharp turns, and sudden changes in traffic speeds makes it one of the most dangerous highways in California.”) we drove for quite a ways behind several guys in a Jeep. They had surfboards in the back, and I was kind of imagining what their day had been like, that they lived in San Jose and had gotten up early to get down to Santa Cruz to catch the best waves…you know, like you might wonder about someone you’re driving by for a length of time. Anyway, at one point the driver appeared to be going a little too close to the cement barrier separating the directions, and he overcorrected, driving up the side of the mountain. The Jeep came rolling back down onto the freeway in a cloud of dirt just as my mom and I zipped past them. We’d been close behind them and our speed was such that we couldn’t have stopped. We were the only car to get past though. This was before cell phones were terribly common, and we didn’t have one, so we drove to the next call box and stopped to tell the CHP, but apparently someone had already called 911 because they already knew about it.

Very scary. And when I ended up going to school in Santa Cruz, my mom refused to ever drive down there again. Every time I had to come home for a vacation, my dad drove down to pick me up. She flatly refused to ever drive on Highway 17 ever again.

A couple months ago I witnessed a slightly more amusing accident. A bus came to a stop at a bus stop, and the car behind it (Car A) slammed on the brakes. The car behind that one (Car B) smashed into Car A. Car C managed to avoid smashing into Car B, but Car D, of course, smashed into Car C. Two rather minor fender benders inside of about two seconds.

31

We were once talking at work about car accidents and I casually mentioned I had been in several. When pressed, I counted them up and came up with eleven I considered serious (as in I wasn’t able to drive away without assistance). (And, no, none of these crashs involved alcohol - I’m apparently just a very bad or very unlucky driver.) Remarkably, I was never injured in any of these accidents. The good things that have come from this is that I always wear seatbelts and I’ve acquired a zen-like calm that envelopes me during a crash. The bad things are horrendous insurance rates and jokes about being ahuman crash-test dummy.