So I had an accident...

I feel that everything has been said here already.

No matter what reasons tho, crashing sucks. Glad you're fine, and the car is rental, so who cares ;)
 
There are a lot of crashes that happen these days due to drivers taking what their satnav says for gospel. I've driven cars with them, and I don't really like them. Frankly, you can't have some little machine drive for you.
 
MXM said:
I feel that everything has been said here already.
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seriously... But since this is an internet forum, and the thread title has the word accident in it, I assume that there will be hundreds more variants of the sentence "the driver should have been driving the car" coming our way...
 
I'm a new driver myself - rather newer than your friend. I'm an awful navigator, so I tend to put the satnav on and let it do the bulk of the thinking, but even so, in my couple of weeks on the road, I've learned that blindly following the satnav, you might as well be following the crazy man who sings about prime numbers on the bus and it's mostly useful for just pointing you in roughly the right direction.
So far it's tried to send me into a pedestrianised town center, has suggested I go the wrong way around roundabouts (when Dad accidentally set it to 'bicycle' mode), advised me to take roads that didn't exist or had been restricted to buses, and regularly loses me completely in Coventry, usually when I'm on one of the more terrifying roundabouts. In those cases I just take whichever exit it's safe to take around the other lost people who don't know which lane they need and let the damn thing have another guess. It quite often doesn't know there are roundabouts coming up, especially on major roads, but as I trust the thing about as far as I can throw the car, I'm always watching the road ahead and what other drivers are doing as well as looking out for road signs. Perhaps it helps that as I drive an old car, I know that if I had an accident like that, I'd not be likely to walk away from it.
However, having said that, there have been a few times, especially when I've been driving for over an hour and my passenger is an experienced driver, that I've nearly blindly obeyed an instruction from them before my brain catches up. I can see how it happens, but that's been sudden instructions such as 'next left' rather than carrying on going. I still think I would have known there was a roundabout coming up and not driven into it. And now that I've said that, I fully expect to have a really stupid crash in the next week or so.
 
Road maps. Great invention.

I grew up with them, used them excessively, when the air force sent me to training courses all over Germany for years.

I guess that's why I never completely trust a sat nav, even though I really like them.

Still I dare saying that I will find my way anywhere without one. Without getting lost at first. Careful preparation before the drive is the secret.

Still no guarantee to avoid an accident but at least it doesn't make you look like a complete clod, when you crash.
 
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and since the street speed limit was 100, we kept going at that pace.
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Just popping in to say something about this as I haven't seen it mentioned. Posted speed limits (here at least) are good for during the day in clear, ideal conditions. At night, in weather, or any condition where visibility or vehicle control is lowered, you should not assume the same speed limit.
 
Alok said:
The car coming behind us guessed our impact at around 40-60kph, I think for modern safety standards that would be enough... Dont know though...
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When I had a head on collision with my Volvo, it was at about 30 mph, but the bags didn't deploy.
 
nouseferaname90 said:
When I had a head on collision with my Volvo, it was at about 30 mph, but the bags didn't deploy.
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The bags won't deploy if the impact isn't very dangerous. After all the worst case scenario would be hitting a smaller object, setting the bags off, and then hitting a large, solid object at almsot the same speed with nothing to protect you. The airbags can only be deployed once, so it's a good thing that they don't blow up unnecessarily.:)
 
Driver error.

the driver should pay attention on the road, instead of the GPS.

GPS device is only an auxiliary device, you cannot solely rely on the directions given by the GPS.
 
Ford Prefect said:
A satnav is good for long distance driving, because they generally do get the highways right. It?s also good for finding your way to wherever you are going on the last couple of kilometers, because there are generally no signs saying something like "this way to Bob?s apartment". But if you don?t at least roughly know where you?re going, then you?re just one more driver (of many) who has given control to a machine hoping it can get the job done better than you.
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Yah right.. well the Highways are also easy most times. I've just had a satnav for 3 weeks now... before i memorized my route on a map and drove by heart... and well.. i had a print of it in the car just in case i didn't remember correctly.

But even with a good description it is very hard to find a specific adress in a city that you don't know. There is just too much traffic to read the names of the streets.. look at all the other cars that switch lanes etc... Well somehow i managed it but it was very stressful and i hated it. Especially when some of the roads i memorized (like... follow the big road until a roundabout.. then 3rd exit.. than 4th street on the left.... just to find out that one of these roads are one way streets... wahhh. And there goes my memorization... and circling starts.
 
I am glad you are both allright. Secondly, you guys screwed up. You can't change that fact, but you can learn from it. Hopefully you do/will and will be better drivers. Nothing like learning from a bad experience.
 
DanRoM said:
First, I don't believe it was brake failure until there's actual evidence for that. Second, do you know what you are talking about? Putting a manual in 1st gear is actually rather difficult at speed, let alone while panicking because you are in the process of going off the road and heading for some trees. And handbrake? Yeah sure, because going into the trees sideways is more fun. Besides, that would require taking a hand off the steering wheel.
Even if these proposals were practical, you can't expect a 19-year-old inexperienced non-racing-driver to be able to pull off something like that, let alone in the one second he has to react to a very nasty surprise.
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Downshifting and handbrake use is on all of our written tests out here in California. Plus I've done a few drifting courses - I know exactly what the handbrake can and can't be used for, safely. I was thinking about 1st gear because it was a rental - out here they don't rent manuals because of too many dunces who can't shift hurting them. Not every auto has an easily reachable "hill gear", I know, but mine does, and if my (drum) brakes fail it'll only take me half a second to jam it down there.


Spectre said:
Ah, the arrogance of youth. Single-vehicle accidents are among the most common type, being less common than two-vehicle and more common than multi-car pileups.

Trust me, a lot of people have them, especially in more rural or suburban areas.
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Yes, yes, I realize that now. Most people are average or below average drivers. I just don't know anyone, and I've never seen one. I certainly can't imagine myself just "crashing", but then I'm an arrogant youth aren't I?
 
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MadCat360 said:
Yes, yes, I realize that now. Most people are average or below average drivers. I just don't know anyone, and I've never seen one. I certainly can't imagine myself just "crashing", but then I'm an arrogant youth aren't I?
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Yup, I was the same way, until I did a 180 on forest lane because the road surface changed and it was wet. That made me realize that I won't always be able to hold the slide. Luckily for me, it was a free lesson as nothing was damaged.


Glad to hear everyone was ok Alok.
 
Crazyjeeper said:
Yup, I was the same way, until I did a 180 on forest lane because the road surface changed and it was wet. That made me realize that I won't always be able to hold the slide. Luckily for me, it was a free lesson as nothing was damaged.


Glad to hear everyone was ok Alok.
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Remember pre-resurfacing Beltline in Addison? I remember moving to Dallas when I was 18 and discovering that road in the rain. I ended up doing a 540 one wet, rainy night....
 
Spectre said:
Remember pre-resurfacing Beltline in Addison? I remember moving to Dallas when I was 18 and discovering that road in the rain. I ended up doing a 540 one wet, rainy night....
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Yup, vaguely. I wasn't near old enough to drive then though. The most treacherously slippery road I know of now though is Inwood between 635 and Forest. That road is like black ice when wet.
 
Spectre said:
Remember pre-resurfacing Beltline in Addison? I remember moving to Dallas when I was 18 and discovering that road in the rain. I ended up doing a 540 one wet, rainy night....
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I learned that particular lesson with a 720. In a minivan. I'm still not sure how I avoided wiping out into the telephone poles, the firehydrant, or the electrical boxes along the outside edge, nor how I avoided rolling the damned thing. The road was dry, except for this one turn where the neighbors on the inside of the turn had decided that the road needed to be watered along with their lawn. Bastards.
 
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flydiscovery said:
BS. Most people are average drivers, by definition of average. Statistically speaking, there are just as many above average drivers as below average drivers (assuming a Gaussian distribution).
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The Professor is [IN]
 
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