First, the disclaimer- we are fine, the toddler was not in the car, and my pregnancy wasn’t compromised.
Now, on to the bitching-
We were en route to the USC/UCLA game on Saturday, in a not-so-nice part of town just off the USC campus. We are heading south on a fast road, coming up on a intersection. This couple in a Honda coming the other way makes a left turn right in front of us, with almost no space between us as we are almost to the crosswalk. My husband has to brake and swerve hard right (like a 45 degree angle) to miss the Honda, he is now facing into the oncoming lanes of the cross-street. He threads our Discovery between a VW bus waiting to turn left, and a telephone pole on the sidewalk. We hit the curb in front of the telephone pole, come back into lanes, and finally land in a parked Jeep Cherokee (which we almost missed). Impact wasn’t too hard, as he was braking the whole time.
Holy shit. This could have been an absolute disaster. I grab my stomache, then call 911. The Honda driver stays instead of taking off, what a miracle, and admits fault immediately. He said that he never looked when he made his turn. He also told this to the police when they finally arrived, and gave us a written, signed statement admitting fault as well. His wife or girlfriend was in the passenger seat, she has three kids.
The pros-
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Honda driver stopped and stayed until everything was settled, being sure to admit fault. Wow, and in this town, no less.
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My husband most likely saved that woman’s life when he swerved, because our Land Rover’s grill would have impacted her side of the Honda at upper-torso level at a fair rate of speed (over 25-30 mph), either killing or seriously injuring her.
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This was all property, no injuries, which is what I know is important, regardless of how much I bitch later.
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The VW driver stayed as a witness as well, even though it took forever to get the police there (more on this in a minute).
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I never really paid much attention to all the Land Rover hype, but I am now a believer. I am firmly convinced that if we had been in our old Ford Explorer, we would have been upside down and hurt badly. I shudder to think of what could have happened to the baby. A maneuver like that just can’t be done in most SUV/high profile vehicles, and it responded like a champ. The tires never lost traction or contact with the pavement (except for the curb thing) and the center of gravity didn’t shift. That traction control stuff is great. That car saved our lives, no doubt about it.
The cons-
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Don’t ever call 911 from a cell phone! The calls (in CA, at least) are routed through CHP, and it rang for over 3 minutes before a machine answered! About 5 minutes total before I got a dispatcher! Good thing nobody was bleeding…
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When the cops arrived, about 2 hours and four calls to 911 later, they were very concerned about the damage to “city property.” Yes, our wheels had gouged the curb and messed up the red paint pretty good. Are you fucking kidding me? We missed killing some people, missed a power pole and two street signs, and only eventually hit a parked, unoccupied vehicle, and they took more pictures of that fucking curb than they did of the scene! Do they charge us for that kind of “damage to city property?”
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My car is so fucked up! The front is all bashed in (I guess they are supposed to do that, but it looks awful). There aren’t that many Land Rover Discovery II’s imported each year compared with other car brands, so they don’t warehouse a lot of parts and it can take up to three weeks to repair it, if they don’t declare it totalled, and the jury will be out for a few more days. I love this car! I can’t believe how bad it looks!
I guess the bottom line is, everyone made it and it’s just about the cars. But goddammit, now I have no car, I am dealing with multiple insurance weenies, and I’m still pissed off. It is hard to be mad at the other driver, as he has totally admitted that it was his fault, but he’s still a dipshit for turning left without checking for oncoming traffic!
And we missed the game.
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