Rear ended!!!!!

[drew22]

Here is a good one

Personally, I try to be a cool driver and it takes a lot just to make me even hook my horn at someone. It was about two years ago, not too long after I got my explorer, when I was heading to school. I was actually on time and doing the speed limit, thank God. I came up over a hill and saw a WOMEN driver sitting a stop sign, about 150 yards away. I looked right at her and she looked right back at me, she hesitated a little, then she pulled out! Keep in mind I am going about 40 down hill. (I could have kissed the guy that decided to put 4 wheel Anti-lock disc brakes on my 96' explorer.) I hit those brakes for all they were worth and stopped about five feet from her driver side on her 80's cavalier. She just looked at me funny, like she was wondering why I was stopped in the middle of the road. LOL. My behavior for the next few moments was something short of gentlemanly like. A few minutes later I arrived at school with a big adrenaline rush and a few books wedged neatly between the window and the dash.

Later,

Drew

 

['96explorereddiebauer]

I'm sorry to hear that Stephen. Where in NC did the accident happen? I'm wondering because I live in NC (Winston-Salem) and I want to stay away from there.

Also, when you guys talked about installing or installed ball hitch or mounts, whatever you call them, do you install it onto the bumper or install it into a trailer hitch?? I guess this is a dumb question but I'm asking because when I (or my parents) bought it a few months ago, there's already a ball hitch (correct me if I say it wrong) installed onto my rear bumper. What's the difference anyway?!?!? TIA.

 

[bluescat]

Bumper or Recv'r Hitch

Billy;
The ball on the bumper you spoke of is a little different from the receiver hitches that are mounted to the frame. On my '94 Navajo, the max load on the bumper with a ball was 300lbs for a 3000 lb trailer. If you installed a receiver hitch attached to the frame the capacity jumped to 580lbs for a 5,800lb trailer. The difference is basically one of leverage since the bumper attaches to the frame but sits out and above it. Aside from greater capacity, the receiver hitch normally provides a better height match with the towed vehicle. My '01 Sport has a bumper that can take 350lbs and with the frame recv'r hitch 518lbs.

 

[Stephen]

Peter, oh I know you were just kidding

Billy, I'm not exactly sure where in NC it was. We only got to talk for a short while before she had to go. I'm heading to WV here in a few minutes so I'll get the full scoop while I'm there.

 

[Maniak]

Peter,
I don't think bright colors will help much either.. Our Explorer is lifted and the normal 1992 blue color.. But we have floresant(sp?) green on the roof racks and down the side of the truck (on the doors) and also around both front windows. There are people here at work that say they can see us coming from a few blocks away and people still don't see us.. one of these days someone is going to get hit as I learned a long time ago I will not cause an accident to avoid another.. if someone is trying to take my lane and my only choice is to go into oncoming traffic I am going to push the car taking my lane out of my lane. This is advice I got after I caused an accident trying to avoid someone hitting me (fromt the officer that wrote me the ticket).. I got the ticket and the person that was going to hit me didn't.. That isn't going to happen again... now don't get me wrong.. If I can get out of the way and not cause another accident I will..

 

[J. Kennedy]

It is only a matter of time untill the bimbo learns her lesson. She will trade her Saturn for an Expedition so she can eat, talk on the phone, put on her makeup, yell at the kids in the back seat, and send us to our reward, all at the same time. Yay.

Consider yourself lucky you don't have 2-lane rotaries like out here in MA. I've seen these ladies strike fear in everyone!

Im going to start wearing a helmet.

 

[MyExp]

No my trailer hitch was not damaged at all except for a few scratches and scuffs on the ball.

I've been rear ended before and with this little "damage" it is not even worth reporting it to her insurance. I got the scuff on my bumper off by giving the truck a good wash.

Just FYI, I have been hit in every single vehicle I have owned, and once in my girl friend's car!!!! None have been my fault!! All of them have hit me in the rear except on where they backed in to me in a parking lot.

Where do some of these people get their license from???

BC

 

[mattadams]

I was considering whether or not to tell this story to the board but I figured "ahh what the hell" because it was actually another Explorer driver (not modified and not familiar with this website though, LOL). So Yesterday Im driving down Federal (those in Colorado will know it), at about Federal and 80th, driving along doing under the speed limit because traffic was kind of a pain, so I was doing MAYBE 30 (I don't know my speedometer doesn't work). I'm approaching a green light, green all the way, I'm legal. I see this Explorer like he doesn't see me (yeah, Im real camoflaged in my huge Explorer with the big thing of steel sitting on the front and lights on top and everything) and he goes to make a left turn from the opposite lane RIGHT in front of me. Well I slam on the brakes but it was too late. Caught his rear quarter panel, if he'd been going a little faster I would've missed him entirely. So we pull off to the side of the road, people stop to help and make sure everything is OK and see if we need witnesses and everything.. I looked and there is not a single scratch on the front of mine... NOT A SCRATCH! It didn't even take any of the cheap bed-liner spray I have on my front bumper off! I felt sorry for the guys rear quarter panel though... lucky it didn't break the glass it hit below there... but I'm glad that my Warn Winch mount on the front was there... that thing is like 150 pounds of steel protection in addition to the regular bumper . Wish I had had my camera with me... oh well. Just thought you'd like to hear .

 

[kilroy]

So who got the ticket?

 

[mattadams]

no ticket, we didn't even call the cops. I'm not worried. I gave him my insurance info just in case he needed it, but it was probably about $1000 in damage which I think was his deductible, LOL

 

[GJarrett]

Matt, just FYI, I used to have a cycle as primary means of transportation and learned real fast about defensive driving in Dallas. One of the interesting fun-fact statistics I learned is that the "left turn into oncoming traffic at an intersection" is far and away the most common and dangerous accident. No other accident situation even comes close to being as common. I always have my head on a swivel when I approach an intersection; and yes, I nearly bought it bigtime once on my cycle when an idiot tried to turn left in front of me as I approached her at the intersection.

 

[mattadams]

actually its funny you mention that. As I was approaching this intersection I saw the guy look right at my and it was almost like he didn't see me and I was almost thinking "Geez I think this guy is just gonna pull on out" so I started slowing down and then sure enough, out he pulled. Pretty strange, Im just glad my Explorer was fine and that nothing like my winch was damaged.

 

[Tom Wilk]

Matt, the guy's darn lucky you weren't barreling down the road. You could have really creamed him. It's weird, but people will occasionally make direct eye contact, but still won't see you.

Also, you may want to make out a police report, not to get the guy in trouble, but to protect yourself. He's probably honest (as most people are most of the time), but he may be one of those people that will later claim that you hit his car in a parking lot or something like that. A written report can be used in your defense. I doubt if they would give him a ticket after the fact, since no police were on the scene.

 

[Robert]

Allright, I'll add my two funny ones. The first one was when I was rearended by an early '80s Corvette at a stop sign. The guy jumped out of his Vette and started yelling at me about why in the world did I stop! I explained to him that it was normal practice to stop at a red octogon shaped sign that say's "Stop" on it. Meanwhile, a city utility truck was going through the intersection when it happened and called the police. They came, took our information and told us that since the damage apeared minor we could settle it without using the insurance companies if I agreed. It turned out that the guy that hit me owned a well known construction company in the small town that we were in. I agreed, took my Ranger to the local Ford dealer and had them replace and repaint my rear bumper. It came to over $600. The guy was not happy about the bill. The bad thing is the guy at the dealership said they get a car in every few weeks that the guy has hit. If I had known that I would have turned it into his insurance company.

The second story involved my Explorer with yes a trailer hitch with the ball still mounted. I was siting in the left turn lane with a red left arrow when I felt the slam from behind. I grabbed my cell phone from my glove box and handed it to my shaken wife telling her to call 911. I jumped out and ran abound back to see a Grand Am with my ball having sex with his grill. He got out, sincerely apologized and then tried to back his car off my hitch. When he finally succeeded, his grill came off his car and landed on the gound between our vehicles with a 3" hole in the middle of it. I looked over my Explorer and could not even tell it was hit. I told the guy to pay attention to what he is doing and went on my way.

I would keep the ball on my hitch but I kept running into it and banging up my shins. I figure the hitch still offers some protection.

 

[expobronc]

Thats almost exactly what happened to me. I was in Minneapolis and some a-hole dropped his cell phone on 494 in rush hour traffic on wet roads at 29 degrees. Traffic and I stopped and he did not. I saw him coming and let off the brake to roll after impact. The officer estimated he was still doing 35 or so when he hit me. Knocked me from the far right lane, across the left lane, and into the ditch in the middle. I got pissed, slammed the (button) in to 4 and gunned it back out of the slippery snow covered ditch. I slammed it into reverse and was gonna give this guy hell. got out, saw his car a 94(?) intrepid, then looked back at my ex, and it was all i could do to keep from laughing!!! sucka!!! his was $2200, and i had some frame damage that was like $600. After that I nicked nammed my Ex "tank"

 

[asdfioo]

I got a wierd story about being rear ended. I was in a friends car on July 4th, 4 of us were on our way to see Scary Movie 2. We had just gotten off of the high way and were waiting at a light. We were then hit by some teen that was.... You guess it, using a cell phone. We pull over to exchange info. We asked, and he didnt' have his drivers licence with him. I then asked if he had his insurace card. A blank stare. We then try to get his plate number. No plates on the car....?? Had some sticker on the back windshield. At this point we decided to call the cops to have them look it over. The other guy gets this scared look on his face and jumps into his car. He puts it into reverse and backs up real fast to try to get out of the parking lot we were in. Well, he wasn't looking very well and back up straight into another car with 2 people in it that were parked. He takes off and we are stuck. And thanks to the fact that we were on the freeway ramp, the local cops said that it was out of their juristiction so it took 20 mins for the nearest state tropper to get there. My friend was just SOL. Luckily there wasn't much damage to his bumper.

Wish I had though to write the VIN number down.