Have you seen a weird accident lately?

[OceanAnnie]

I did. I was waiting at a stop light and heard a loud crash. I looked around and couldn't believe my eyes. This elderly lady with a handicapped placard on her rear view mirror had misjudged a space to pass through. She smashed two cars, one in front of her and one beside her. I could see one side of her car was really torn apart.

I felt really sorry for her and those that were just waiting at the light to be on their way. What an awful day for those people. I was thinking the lady was lucky she misjudged while no vehicles were in full motion. She had a tank of a car. There was no way it would fit between the space she was angling for. It looks like time to reassess driving for her. I hope that will be the outcome. With 3 cars to repair I wonder what the insurance company will do.

Have you seen any weird accidents lately?

 

[kamik86]

I truely believe that every other time you get your license you should have to retake the driving exam.

I'm not even sure if most states make you redo the eye exam when you renew your license... I'll have to ask my mom (at 24 I have never renewed mine as I moved to NY and got a new one there before my MA expired and then moved back to MA and got a new one before that expired... but they did make me do the eye test for both of these.)

 

[NikitaZee]

I had one, actually. My husband was in the store and I was in the car waiting for him. An elderly lady (don't want to seem to be picking on the elderly here, but that's what she was) walked to her car a few spaces from mine and proceeded to back out. As she was pulling away, she hit my car. Not tapped - actually hit - and kept on going. I got out of the car, running after her car and waved her down. She had no idea that she'd just hit me. Luckily I was calm about it, and was able to calm her down as she got quite upset, and we exchanged info from there. I agree about the elderly getting road tested after a certain age - I just don't see that happening.

 

[cybrkitn]

I was just in a car accident last Sunday. I rear-ended the car in front of me. Both my airbags deployed so there is obvious damage to the steering wheel, dashboard and the passenger side front windshield is broken. The only injuries I had was bruising on the back of my right hand and left thumb area due to the airbags and back spasms (which started on Tuesday). The back spasms are to be expected b/c of the seatbelt and I'm on a muscle relaxant for that, which helps. DS8 was in the car with me and was sore on his left leg and rigt foot for the first few days. He's fine now.

The car I had was a 1998 full size car (like a tank) that belonged to my father prior to his passing in 2008. I've only had it for 2 years this month. The car I hit was a smaller car. One would expect that there would be damage to my front bumper and the other driver's back bumper. At least some sort of crunch. Here's the weird part. Neither of our cars had any damage to the bumpers. It looked like our cars never made contact. The only damage I saw was a slight crack in the paint up by the hood and that's it. It still boggles my mind why there wasn't any body damage to either car

 

[kamik86]

I had one, actually. My husband was in the store and I was in the car waiting for him. An elderly lady (don't want to seem to be picking on the elderly here, but that's what she was) walked to her car a few spaces from mine and proceeded to back out. As she was pulling away, she hit my car. Not tapped - actually hit - and kept on going. I got out of the car, running after her car and waved her down. She had no idea that she'd just hit me. Luckily I was calm about it, and was able to calm her down as she got quite upset, and we exchanged info from there. I agree about the elderly getting road tested after a certain age - I just don't see that happening.

The reason I said every other time you get your license is I agree it wouldn't work to do "after a certain age" some places have tried to do this but many times the Elderly claim age discrimination and get it taken away. By doing every other time you get your license renewed it would be every 10 years (at 26, 36, 46, 56, etc) for MA, not sure if other states do this the same way and you get the eye exam at the same time... This way no one can claim age discrimination, everyone must at least be able to fake they can drive every 10 years.

The only down side is that means every 10 years it would cost more to renew the license since they would have the expense of doing the test...

 

[OceanAnnie]

Sorry to hear about your accidents, NikitaZee and cybrkitn. I hope everything is/was taken care of for you both. I hope your injuries are temporary cybrkitn. And I'm glad your DS is fine.

 

[simba20]

Now that I think about it, it seem that when I am out with one particular friend, we always witness the strangest accidents.

Last week we went out to gether to eat lunch and shop. We didn't witness it, but as we pulled through one intersection, we heard a loud squeal. My friend looked in her rearview mirror and sure enough, two cars had just slammed into each other.

A few years ago we were out, driving down this one road through a neighborhood. A car about three or four cars in front of us, swerved wildly, as it had cross the yellow line. Next thing we know the car swerves again, crosses the yellow line, hits another car, and then goes up an enbankment and flips over in somebody's yard. My friend, who is a nurse, had to stop for that one and check on the driver. The driver managed to get out, and my friend did a quick assessment while we waited for paramedics to arrive. The driver of the flipped over car, admitted that she had dozed off while driving down the raod. The road going through this neighborhood is curvy, and she woke up to see she was crossing the yellow line and tried to correct herself, but overcorrected and the car went out of control. The scary part was that she was also 5 months pregnant. I really hope everything turned out okay for her and the baby.

 

[kwelch10377]

The wasn't recently, but a few years ago. I was sitting in traffic on a ramp that was two lanes. I was in the right hand lane and the car in front of my started to try and drive over the curb onto the grassy area. Well she totally nailed the back passenger side of the car in front of her because there was no room for her to do this (not reason either). Well instead of stopping as soon as she hit the car she continued to move her car to the grassy area while still hitting the car in front of her. She did a lot of damage to both cars, especially only going a few MPH.

I just remember sitting there trying to figure out why she was going over the curb to pull onto the grass and why she kept on hitting the car in front of her instead of stopping.

 

[swanmom]

I had one, actually. My husband was in the store and I was in the car waiting for him. An elderly lady (don't want to seem to be picking on the elderly here, but that's what she was) walked to her car a few spaces from mine and proceeded to back out. As she was pulling away, she hit my car. Not tapped - actually hit - and kept on going. I got out of the car, running after her car and waved her down. She had no idea that she'd just hit me. Luckily I was calm about it, and was able to calm her down as she got quite upset, and we exchanged info from there. I agree about the elderly getting road tested after a certain age - I just don't see that happening.

I think you may have met my mother-in-law. Just kidding, but we have been trying for years to get her to stop driving. We have taken her keys three times and she always finds a way to get a copy (I believe that she has a copy hidden and just takes it to the dealer to replace.) We live four states away and can't be there to enforce a driving ban. So far, it's been relatively minor stuff (although probably not to the people she's hit!) but there have now been six incidents that we are aware of. She hasn't gotten a major violation or had her license pulled. I think people feel sorry for her. We wanted to call her physician to ask him/her to report her but she won't tell us who she sees. I really agree with age-related testing and I hope, for everyone's sake, that they actually cite the woman who did this.

 

[NikitaZee]

Oh I forgot - I had an even weirder accident on this past Christmas Eve. We were driving home from NY when we were hit in the left rear bumper - on the interstate - going 65 mph. The guy kept right on going, so we followed and saw him swerving all over the road as if he were drunk. We were positive that it was a drunk driver. We called 911, who had us keep following him as they sent a state trooper out to meet us. It was like a cop show - the dispatch trooper told us what exit the state trooper was waiting for us, and sure enough he pulled out onto the highway, turned on his lights and siren and pulled the guy over. We were told to pull over too. Turns out the guy was a diabetic having a medical emergency! No one was hurt by the impact, the guy turned out to be okay after treatment, but man, what a night!! My kids thought it was all great excitement!

 

[smi727]

I was driving home on the freeway from work on a Sunday afternoon (I hate working Sundays). I noticed the car in front of me was swerving a little so I backed off. All of the sudden the car veers into the barricade on the left side. The entire drivers side of the vehicle was smashed in. I pulled over to call 911 and see if I could help. The guy had barely enough room to open his door to get out. He was all glassy-eyed and said he fell asleep at the wheel but was coherent enough to talk to the 911 operator. After getting off the phone with 911, he kept going back into his car, moving things around from the front seat to the back seat and then he covered the back seat with a sweatshirt. When the police got to the scene, I did tell them that the driver had been moving things around in his car. I wouldn't be surprised if he was high but I didn't stick around to see exactly what he was moving around in his car.

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

The reason I said every other time you get your license is I agree it wouldn't work to do "after a certain age" some places have tried to do this but many times the Elderly claim age discrimination and get it taken away. By doing every other time you get your license renewed it would be every 10 years (at 26, 36, 46, 56, etc) for MA, not sure if other states do this the same way and you get the eye exam at the same time... This way no one can claim age discrimination, everyone must at least be able to fake they can drive every 10 years.

The only down side is that means every 10 years it would cost more to renew the license since they would have the expense of doing the test...

While I agree something needs to be done for older drivers, that wouldn't be feasible for all states. I live in AL and we have to renew evey 4 years and compared, at least to GA, the price is high $25/4 years for regular Class B DL and my DH who is a Class A driver with no endorsements was $53/4 years.

On the back of my license it says I wear corrective lenses, I expect there is a nice big fine if I am caught without them, but luckily I haven't been stopped since 1997.

Suzanne

 

[disneyquestions]

I didn't see it, but read the police report. A woman was crossing the street, and got hit by a car. The driver of the car got out, and ran away, leaving the car behind. The woman who was hit, then got in the car that hit her, and kicked out the windshield. She later told police she did it because she didn't want the guy to come back and get the car after they had all left the scene. Seriously.

 

[mrodgers]

In high school, I worked in a grocery store. We closed at 11 and everyone left at 11:15 other than the night stock crew who came in at 11.

As we all were walking to our cars, the last person who shopped was still putting stuff into his car. We all left the parking lot. I was working the open shift the following day (Sunday) and when I got to the store, there were police and medical in the parking lot. The guy who was still loading up his car must have put the car in gear to leave and had a heart attack or something and passed. The car was sitting in the front window of the store next to the grocery store. He was still in the driver's seat sitting in the store window when the manager arrived to the store in the morning.

So, not necessarily a witness, just a witness to the afterwards.

 

[MICKEY88]

not recently, but when I was in High School, we were out in the drivers training car. there was a car in front of us, as we left town. we had to drive over a small bridge that had metal railings that went up on an angle, to about 5 feet, crossed the bridge and went back down.

the car ahead of us, hit the railing, went up on 2 wheels, drove across the bridge, then dropped back down on all 4 wheels, we stopped our car and the teacher ran up to check on the driver.

It was a little old lady on her way to...... you guessed, it the eye doctors....

seriously

 

[swanmom]

My DBIL was driving his car down Route 306 in Ohio when he was hit by a boat. Yep, the car in front of him was hauling a trailer. Stopped at a traffic light on a hill, the boat started to slide off the trailer. It landed on the hood of my DBIL's car with the mast smashing through the windshield. Fortunately, no one was hurt. I'll never forget the phone call from DSIS, "Tom's car was just hit by a sailboat." We still haven't let him forget it.

 

[AshleyW]

Didn't see it, but I saw the aftermath in the parking lot at work. I work for the local PD, and our officers got into a pursuit late Tuesday night, and the person we were chasing decided to jump their car onto some railroad tracks and ride along the tracks... two of our rookie officers (in one squad) thought they would follow him, and carnage ensued. Not surprisingly, they saw a train coming, and the vehicle they were following was able to jump their SUV off the tracks. Our low to the ground squad car... not so much. The officers got out of the car, and dispatch tried to call the railroad to get them to shut down.. but no such luck. Squad car was pretty much destroyed.

http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/Train-Hits-Cedar-Rapids-Police-Car-During-Chase--118073354.html

 

[moet7]

I was stopped at a RED light exiting a shopping center. A "mature" woman hit me from behind. I look in my mirror and see that it's a "mature" woman so I put my van in park and get out and walk to the rear of my van. I see no damage and then just look at her and she puts her window down about an inch and says to me "YOU backed into ME" I said "what??? your crazy and lucky there is no damage to MY car...there was damage to hers, which I didn't tell her....I figured if SHE was going to sit in her car and blame me, and NOT get out to check her car she KNEW she was in the wrong and just tried to lie her way out of it.

 

[Becky2005]

The reason I said every other time you get your license is I agree it wouldn't work to do "after a certain age" some places have tried to do this but many times the Elderly claim age discrimination and get it taken away.

As far as I know IL still has that law....I think it's age 75? or older you get tested every 2 years and then age 80something it's every year.

AND it's a road test not just the written test & eye exam.

We have the eye exams every 8 years no matter what your age.

IF you have had no accidents, after 4 years you can do an on-line renewal but if you have had any sort of accident you get to take the written test again.

 

[PigletsPal2]

All of these posts are why this "little old lady" "mature" (take your pick) driver doesn't drive anymore! Seriously, I have a neurological disorder and I'm not comfortable not knowing if my right foot will obey in time my brain's order to move from the gas to the brake. It's a little inconvenient, but at least I know that if I'm in an accident, it wasn't my fault. And I CAN drive in an emergency, but I figure if there's an emergency, I'm calling 911.

Queen Colleen