*Phew*! A close call...

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Tonight I was driving home from my college on the highway. As always I had to pass through a highway intersection that was being worked on, and tonight it once more had seemingly random lanes merging with safety cones funneling the extra lane into the remaining ones. As I passed under an overpass, I failed to realize that the lane to my right was also being funelled straight into my lane, and it was occupied by a rather large semi truck which silently sidled up to me.

Announcing it's presence to me, my eardrums were blown away by the semi's horn, and I realized in a panic that me and my 99' Pontiac Bonneville were about to be crushed by the eighteen-wheel monstrosity. Having no alternative, I was forced to merge into the lane to my left, where a newer grey five-seater was appraoching far faster than myself. I heard a dull *clunk* as the front left side of my long-nosed car clipped this car as I hurriedly moved out of the semi's way.

My brain registered shock as I realized many things at once: 1: I just hit another car. 2: I might have been killed. 3: I'm probably going to have to pay for this guy's damages and I don't even know what our vehicles look like after the collision.

I decided responsibly against an overwhelming urge to drive on as though nothing had hapenned, seeing as both cars were still functional. I followed his vehicle, hoping he hadn't noticed, until I saw his hazard lights turn on and saw his hand out the window motioning for me to follow. Still absorbing the reality of the situation, I followed him out of the lareg construction area until he stopped on a shoulder. I followed and put on my own hazard lights, parked the car, turned it off and stepped out.

Who I had been expecting I didn't know, but it wasn't the very hip-cool sleek blong-haired teenager I was suddenly being addressed by. He couldn't be older than me, and was definitely not as tall as I was. The situation grew less and less tense as he asked me, a little scared, a little bewildered, and a little amused "Hey man! What hapenned?"

The first words out of my mouth were asking him if he was okay. But after we both assured each other's physical well-being, I explained the circumstances to him, and thankfully he couldn't have been any more constructive and good natured and understanding about the situation. At this point we decided to check each other's vehicles for damage. I was immediately glad to see that we had to go over our vehicles carefully to even see what had hapenned. His car only had a spot near the back tire where the paint had been scratched off. My car only had damage near the front left tire by the headlights. One part was slightly scraped, but the paint was still there. Other parts were black skid marks which turned out to be from his higher riding tires, which after scratching with my fingernail turned out to come off with relative ease. Thankfully, the scraped part was in the same spot my father (the previous owner) had snow chains from the same tire fly off the wheel and batter the Hell out of the area as the tire rotated.

After assessing, I agreed (being the driver at fault) to pay for his repairs to the area which will likely cost no more than $100, which I can easily afford. I'm just extremely happy it wasn't worst considering the circumstances.

Anyone else have a similar close-call?

PS: After 6 months behind the wheel, this is my first automobile collision, and I want it to be my last.
 
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Well... There aren't any "Over passes and highways" here.
But... I have a 1989 Holden Commodore VN SS Group A Replica.
The only accident I have ever had, was when I was doing 180KM's on cruise control, up to a small town called cummins. (Speed limit is 110km's).
A Kangaroo jumped out, I smashed into it, and the car was totaled, And I was also not insured. (Am now)
Everything was damaged in the front end, Bumper, bonnet, headlights, bonnet scoop, quarter panels, even the chassis itself. And being about half way between Port Lincoln and cummins, I had no phone reception, And then one of my girlfriends saw me on the side of the road, took me back up to cummins, got a tow-truck got the car home, Then a few weeks later, I managed to score a VS Clubsport, Perfect! I changed everything over, bonnet, motor, quarter panels, headlights, I checked all the chassis from the front doors back, everything seemed perfect, bent all the front-end chassis back into place. (I had to cut some beams off, that were mutilated, and welded some more on)
I even got an upgrade, ABS! (VN commodores don't have ABS stock).
The only issue I had putting everything together, was I couldn't "Start" the car, It would turn over, it turns out, I forgot to replace the computer, As I upgraded to a more modern motor, I needed to upgrade the computer aswell.
The only thing I probably lost, was that my VN SS had a group A bodykit, and a twin throttle body manifold, But instead I have gone to a stock VS club sport front bumper and side skirts, and I managed to grab another VN Bonnet scoop, And powerwise the performance of the VN V8 motor and the VS V8 seems pretty similar, the VS V8 has more power higher in the rev range than the older motor.
Oh, And I had to use the old cross members from a VR Wagon, And I also used a VR Sedan Auto Gearbox, with a Quick shift kit.
Everything was re-sprayed Pheonix red. All up I spent about 4 grand for the re-spray, and about a grand for the VR and VS gear.

Edit: heres a picture from awhile back, where she is on the burnout pad here.
 
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I've been driving almost 2 years now, not a single close-call. However, I'm sure Kama would love to tell everyone and their mother's about how I almost dinged a car parking -_-
 
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I've had plenty of collisions. Here in Boston people can't drive for ****--in fact my paper recently ran a story claiming we are in fact the third worst drivers in America.

My advice is simple: wear your seatbelt. After a couple of hits with your seatbelt on, they aren't nearly as scary or tense; you know your alright, and unless it's a pretty brutal accident your car's damages are the only thing you worry about (aside from the other people, of course). I literally watched my car be torn asunder by a big truck's T-bar as I hit them (they stopped short), and even though my car's windshield was crushed and the entire side of my body was torn open, I had no fear or tension for my well being. In fact it felt like watching it on a movie screen--I was watching it happen almost in slow mo, going, "Ah crap, that's gonna cost me! No, not the windshield not the windshield notheewindshie--ah, ****."

They're almost funny, as long as no one gets hurt.
 
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I was playing with my friend in a small town near us, we were doing all kinds of silly stuff with our cars just for fun, like skidding with tires, and speeding on a small high way part(That place hasnt seen a cop for ages and its kind of safe place to drive anyway because you can see far without because theres not many hills).
Anyway, i decided to make a handbreak turn in a corner, because i was hyped up. I turned out well until i started turning my wheels straight according to the road, suddenly both the front and back tires took grip on the road, and the car turned to the other side of the road and i ended up on a bush wall... Gladly it was only a bush wall and my car didnt really suffer any kind of damage. It suprised the hell out of me though.
I havent played too much with my car after that...
 
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i got knocked off my motorbike by an idiot in a car, on my second day of riding.
 
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good to see you're alright man.


When I was like... 16, I was walking home from school, and crossed a street, getting hit by a car on foot.

I was near the end of the year, so my recovery carried over into summer(and Summer School.) I was off the cane by the time school started again. A foot further ahead and I probably would have been flailed accross the hood.
 
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oh well if we're talking on foot... being hit by a car is the reason i'm no longer in the forces.
 

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A cop didn't look at his blind spot while switching lanes on the highway, he's going around 90 and I'm going around 80ish, so when he starts to pass me, he's switching into my lane WAYYY too early, knocked the **** otu of my car and I hit the concrete wall to my right, both of my passenger side tires exploded.

Yea, that cop paid for that and then some.
 
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I live in Southern California, about an hour from LA. I'm not sure how many terrible drivers we have, but I know that our traffic is just insane out here. The Freeway I have to drive all the time, the 91, is basically the main Freeway into Orange County. It's commute-central for our whole county, since so many people who live where I do work across the mountians in Orange County. I have to drive East, so I don't get much of this, but rush hour is rush hour in SoCal. So many cars, all the time. There's almost never a point where each car has more than 100 feet of space before the next one in case of a sudden stop of traffic. I've had to put on the breaks full power more and more frequently these days as more idiots decelerate too quickly from 70 to 25 with almost no warning at all.
 
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Tonight I was driving home from my college on the highway. As always I had to pass through a highway intersection that was being worked on, and tonight it once more had seemingly random lanes merging with safety cones funneling the extra lane into the remaining ones. As I passed under an overpass, I failed to realize that the lane to my right was also being funelled straight into my lane, and it was occupied by a rather large semi truck which silently sidled up to me.
Apparently this truck driver is unfamiliar with the concept that he has to merge into the other lane, rather than simply merge expecting you to get the **** out of the way.
 
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Apparently this truck driver is unfamiliar with the concept that he has to merge into the other lane, rather than simply merge expecting you to get the **** out of the way.
Well, he didn't have much place to go. The area we were in consisted of three lanes. I was in the middle lane; the lane where I had to switch to where I got hit was to the left, the furthest left lane. The right lane was the lane merging into mine where the truck was. The right lane was closed for construction and funnelled into my lane with cones. I can only guess that he felt he wouldn't be able to slow it down before I could move past him and would otherwise have to flatten the cones and drive through the closed lane to avoid collision with me. Of course, it may also have been that his lane was actually an off-ramp from the other freeway intersecting with the one I was on, and he had to immediately merge and I was in his way.
 
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Well, he didn't have much place to go. The area we were in consisted of three lanes. I was in the middle lane; the lane where I had to switch to where I got hit was to the left, the furthest left lane. The right lane was the lane merging into mine where the truck was. The right lane was closed for construction and funnelled into my lane with cones. I can only guess that he felt he wouldn't be able to slow it down before I could move past him and would otherwise have to flatten the cones and drive through the closed lane to avoid collision with me. Of course, it may also have been that his lane was actually an off-ramp from the other freeway intersecting with the one I was on, and he had to immediately merge and I was in his way.
I guess there are drivers out there who would rather flatten cars than cones. Go figure. He wasn't paying attention, or he would have been ready to merge before the lane stopped. Forcing you into the next lane like that puts him way the **** in the wrong if he hit you, but you did what any sane person would do, you got the hell out of the way!
 
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Hmm, couldn't you just speed the hell past the truck before it ran you over?
I thought the same thing (retrospect). I probably could have, but he was directly parallel to me and it seemed to me that he was going to hit me long before I could accelerate ahead. Plus, I analyazed the whole situation and acted in about 1.5 seconds, AND I was scared ****less. The most direct means of escape was to move left. I was more concerned over the 16 ton semi than the traffic I'd be forced into, so I took the lesser of two evils.

Tonight I decided to take an alternate freeway home to avoid the construction. I was plent more self conscious today, and I seem to have grown a bit paranoid about staying away from merging lanes, seeing as I now have a little red flag raise in my brain whenever I see one.
 

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