supermono

The lack of skill and attention by plenty of drivers will never cease to amaze me..
This afternoon I met a highly attentive Subaru driver who ploughed over a curb, traffic island and a couple of assorted signs before clobbering my rental car.

No attempt to steer, brake, or generally avoid the 'sickening crunch'.
I sat there and watched it coming towards me for a few seconds before it hit.
The drivers only comment aside from “sorry” was, “do you know what happened?”

You tend to be stationary when you are waiting to turn right across oncoming traffic. My options to avoid this mess seemed to be.
1. Accelerate into the mass of oncoming traffic.
2. Select reverse and plough into the car behind me.
3. Wrap my hands across my chest and pull my feet back off the pedals, then just wait for the smoke to settle.

What would you have done?

Attached Images

OhhDear.jpg (55.2 KB, 357 views)

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Timmeh

LOL Whoa, far out..... scary how some people have no idea of what they are doing.

Glad you're ok! I voted number three.

Tim!

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FordHawk

It really is worrying to know that there are some shockers out there....there are 2 on this page alone (Zantetsuken's avatar!!!!).

Good to see you are ok supermono.

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6pAc|30nG|00n

lol thats bad glad to see your ok though, My girlfriends brother in law rented an echo, had 3500 km on it, the night that he picked it up he parked it out the front of their place and some punks killed 100% written off. It was attacked with star pickets, jumped on, kicked, bricks thrown at it you name it. so come the next day they hobbled the car back to the rental company. They thought he was doing a jackass untill he pulled out the police report. THEY ALL GOT CAUGHT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

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pauljh74

I would have said - you were the one that drove into me - don't you know where you were going or is looking at what is ahead of you too much to ask?

He must have been looking for his mobile phone when he dropped the cigarette he was holding in his other hand

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dave_au

Let us know if you have difficulties with the car rental company, Id just like to know what they are like with this sort of thing when you are not the driver at fault.

As for what you should do if you have time, as far as I know if you have heaps of time, stationary and no way to avoid the accident, pull the handbrake and keep your hands on the wheel in the normal position. I would be a little worried about airbag activation trying to brace my body elsewhere

honer

Amazing the stupidity of some people out there. Glad to hear you walked away from it though.

Night_Lurker

wow glad ur ok and lucky it was a rental car...the subaru driver was a bit of an idiot.

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supermono

I'll post any update if it comes to difficulty and name calling with the rental company (starts with a 'T' and ends with 'Y' by the way).

So far the only problem has been organising responsibility for the tow and delivery of a replacement (hopefully this morning).
1st phone call went along the lines of, Me: "sorry but the car is dead, do you want it towed and I can you deliver another please".
Them: "we do rental, you need to call roadside assist".
Roadside assist: "we do roadside and breakdown assistance, you need to call rentals".
and so on....

I just noticed the mark on the road left by the front wheel of the Mitsubishi as it was pushed backwards, I probably left my foot on the brake pedal, although I thought I took it off.

The airbag didn't go off as the car was stationary, that's how they are supposed to work, normally you need something like 15kph to 'arm' the bit that goes 'bang'.

The Subaru let off a lot of bags though!

Attached Images

Skid.jpg (5.9 KB, 127 views)

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XR8 Lamah

Ah well, hopefully it ends ok, and you didn't cop any injuries that'll pop up later.
I think you did the right thing - there's a good chance anything else you might have done could have made it worse (and left you at fault as well).

Even though the bag wasn't supposed to go off, I don't know that putting your hands / arms across your body is a good idea though - just in your lap would probably be better . . .

It sounds like the drivers was either in shock, had blacked out, or was fishing for a comment that would push fault onto you . . .

With any luck it will just become an interesting story for you to tell :)