Been driving 37 years.
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A woman ran a stop sign, and hit my right side.
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A woman skidded on ice, and hit my left side.
That’s it.
Maybe she is an unpredictable driver. Other drivers make wrong assumptions about what she is going to do.
You cannot judge a driver all that well solely from accidents - that’s because accidents are actually rare.
We don’t tend to remember the near misses, these are much more common, so common that we forget them almost as soon as they have happened.
If you want to try it out, be my guest, but recalling all your near misses is more likely to be more revealing. If you have very few near misses, then I would expect that you are not putting yourself in risky situations, thus making you a safer driver.
I have been driving for 40 odd years and have had lots of accidents, the most recent a few weeks ago. I don’t consider myself a great driver but even with all these accidents I have never had to claim on my insurance, the other driver being at fault.
Off the top of my head I have been hit 4 times while in the car when it was stationary - once in a parking lot. I have had 3 people run into me turning across the flow of traffic while I was going straight ahead. The latest I was slowing down in a line of traffic and the car behind me plowed up my rear.
IIRC I had 5 of the accidents (3 stationary, 2 cars written off by turning vehicles) in the first 3 years I was driving.
Hm, driving since 1977.
Had to bail off the road in 1978 because a semi hit black ice and came across the median at me. Cop saw it, told insurance company it wasn’t my fault. Seriously totaled that car. [1973 New Yorker. Tree bent the trunk and luggage all the way up to the rear window. Front bench seat broke loose and ended up in the back seat. We walked away with nothing more than assorted bruises and sore muscles. Got to love the old school urban tank vehicles.]
Town truck hit my 74 mustang in 1984, peeled the passenger side door skin. I was standing in a bank watching this idiot in amazement. Got the sheet metal and hammered myself a new door skin while killing winter down time in my shop. Bartered services to a paint shop to paint my car 73 cadillac light gold. Not my fault.
Rear ended in traffic by some idiot lady in Norfolk VA in 1988. Not my fault, bumper replacement. I don’t think there was an airbag in the car yet. [1987 hyndai]
1997 a freak april snow storm overburdened a pine branch and a third of the tree ended up on my 1996 Golf. Act of god, definitely not my fault.
So, in 30+ years, 2 in vehicle accidents, neither caused by me, 1 act of idiot and 1 act of god with me not in vehicle.
I would ask for a cite that “luck” as an entity even exists; statistically speaking shit happens. There are people who have won major lotteries multiple times. With the number of people out there driving the number of miles they do, somewhere there is likely a perfect driver who has been in a dozen wrecks through absolutely no fault of their own. Shit happens. Cars are struck by falling space debris.
Hence the second part of what I wrote.
If your car is struck by falling space debris once, shrug yeah, shit happens.
If your car is struck by falling space debris half a dozen times, odds are it’s somehow being caused by you.
6 accidents in 12 years is above average, but could still happen if she drives a lot around town. Then again, it could be her driving, at that point you can’t be sure.
However, it’s another story if she typically drives a crapload of miles. In my 20+ years of driving, I’ve only had 2 at-speed accidents and I’ve put in around half a million miles. So if she also likes to go on lengthy road trips, that will count to her credit.
I dunno. I’ve kayaked and hiked many times during thunderstorms, but have never been struck by lightning. Roy Sullivan was hit seven times.
This is what I was thinking too.
Signals inappropriately. For example: there will be 2 or 3 entrances to a parking lot on your right, but you plan to turn right at the end of the block. Don’t signal a right turn!
Or is hesitant or timid. For example: she is waiting to enter traffic and it clears but she won’t move. Or approaching a stale green light and she slows… slows… and brakes when it turns yellow*; more aggressive drivers can judge that they should be picking up some speed to get through the stale green or early yellow.
In a typical city you will have a spectrum of drivers: 10% too cautious, 5% over-aggressive and reckless, and the rest in that sweet spot of confident efficiency**.
*or, in a spectacular coupe-de-mal-driveur, after slowing and freezing the car behind her, decides to go through the late yellow after all.
**which is what I call my 10k over the speed limit, tail-gating, aggressive lane changing habits 
Seriously, I’ve had two minor accidents in 40 years, both when I was relaxed, driving slowly and not engaged in what I was doing. When I’m intense I have the situational awareness that I need to keep my car and the other drivers cars in the right place.
I’m a nervous driver, used to drive too defensively but I’ve learned to be a little more assertive. I am constantly thinking about how I’m driving, which I think actually makes me worse.
The only accident I’ve been in was when someone rear-ended me at a stop light and totalled my mother’s car (I was sixteen.) Ever since then I have been so paranoid about getting rear-ended that I probably pay too much attention to what’s behind me.
But, I am really not that bad. I’ve had a few at-fault near misses (all of them when I was lost), but I’ve prevented many more accidents than I’ve caused. I live in Jersey and work in Philadelphia, so some days it seems like avoiding accidents is all I do.
OMFG. You don’t have a location listed, so I’m just crossing my fingers that she isn’t in my area. If “America’s Worst Driver” was still on, she’d be a contender.
This is my bet, too - she’s probably not terrible, but a good driving instructor could probably reduce her collisions significantly by making her aware of how to avoid what all the other idiots are doing.
That’s definitely part of being a bad driver. A thing I’ve noticed drivers here doing more of recently is driving as close to the right curb as they can - they go to the curb in between cars, then back out into the driving lane. I don’t know what the hell they think they’re doing - I absolutely hate driving behind people doing that.
I had an accident once where I was dead stopped as the second car at a stop sign. The first car put his in reverse and backed his pickup into me, riding over my hood. He said he didn’t see me and wanted to look at something on the side of the road. Was this my fault?
No, unless you feel that having a small sports car is my fault.
But maybe if I had stopped farther back, he would have seen me.
My point is that if you allow more for accidents, you are less likely to have them. Is something odd or uncertain happening up ahead? Slow down. Do you not know what the driver in front is going to do? Then avoid him as much as you can. Is another driver’s visibility restricted? Then give him a wider berth.
People who drive defensively have fewer accidents.
Not being at fault in accidents does not necessarily mean that you aren’t a bad driver. Being aware and avoiding bad situations is what makes you a good driver. I once was driving side by side with another car at about 50 mph as we approached a cross street. This was in the country and I could clearly see a car on the cross street approaching the intersection way too fast (he had a stop sign). I slowed down while the guy next to me continued on, T-boning the guy who ran the stop sign. Not his fault legally, but it was his fault for not paying attention.
Another bad idea is to drive in packs in icy weather. I guess people feel safety in numbers, but if just one of the cars slides, it can take them all out. Stay far away from other cars and even if you do slip, you can recover without hitting anyone.
Like at least 95% of all drivers, I consider myself an above-average driver. I got my license in 1954 and in 58 years of driving, I have never had an accident. It is true that in that time, I have averaged probably only about 7 or 8K miles a year, but still. I certainly drive defensively, use turn signals (I think nearly all drivers around here are missing a left arm) and always try to track the situation.
If instead you had stopped farther back, and someone had rear-ended you, would you be thinking “maybe if I hadn’t been so far back he might have stopped in time”?
Recently I was stopped at a large roundabout. There was a car in the roundabout on my right. It looked like he was probably going to exit rather than cross my path, but I couldn’t be sure, and it was wet, and he was going slightly too fast, so I decided to be defensive and wait till I knew where he was going.
The guy behind me drove into the back of my car.
So… you can’t drive defensively against everything. Defending against one thing means you’re not defending against another.
I haven’t been in a collision for thirty years now. In that time I got one ticket for running a red light and one for an expired inspection sticker. I think it’s a matter of being aware of your surroundings. I’m a hyper aggressive driver so I pay very close attention to what is going on around me.
You cannot be certain because with so many drivers inevitably some are going to have six accidents through pure bad luck but I tend to think that almost all accidents are avoidable by anyone of the parties. I would say it’s at least 95% chance she’s an awful driver in some respect, yes.
Key thing is getting her to describe the accidents. If in most of them someone “comes out of nowehere” or “suddenly did something with no warning” then chances are she is awful at anticipation skills. I’m trying to think of an accident that isn’t avoidable, the one I had a week ago possibly counts, I was parked up and someone crashed into me as she was having a sneezing fit, then again arguably if I was superman and for some reason watching the traffic around me, had the engine running, and the car in reverse just in case I could have avoided it…
Not all miles are created equal. There’s a reason most accidents are within 3-5 miles of where you live (and it’s not because you’re living in the wrong place (mostly)) - most people live where there is lots of stop and go traffic. If your half a million miles is mostly outside of urban areas, you greatly reduced your accident risk just by where you were driving.
Ride a motor scooter like I do if you want to experience what it’s like to be invisible. People will stop at an intersection, look right at you, then pull out in front of you. People are looking for oncoming cars, and a motorcycle simply doesn’t register as an oncoming vehicle. When I ride, besides being invisible and always expecting the other driver to do the stupidest possible thing, I imagine that all autos have a bubble of toxicity surrounding them - an area I must avoid being in if at all possible. Haven’t been hit or had to lay the scooter down. Yet.