Totaled the Car - Tell Your Story

[RedFanAlways1966]

GAC's story of his daughter and the car boo-boo... can to share your story about totaling a car(s)?

I was 17 and driving my father's 1976 Chevy Vega to play in a doubleheader that was supposed to start at 11:00 am (June 1983). I was on a 55-mph country road doing about 60-mph. The scene of the wreck was only about 1 mile from my parents house, so I knew the area well. There was a small hill in the road and it was hard to see on the other side. When I reached the top of that ridge I saw a station wagon about 30 yards ahead stopped in my lane. There was a farm combine coming down the other side of the road and the old lady in the station wagon did not think she could make it by the combine b/c it was very wide... so she stopped. I slammed on the brakes and prepared for the impact. I did not have on a seatbelt (it was before it was the law) and locked my arms for the collision.

I slammed her back-end. My head hit the windshield and put one of those big spiderweb designs in it. Both of my knees hit the dashboard and I ended up bending the steering wheel about a 1/3 of the way b/c I braced. My injuries were a broken nose and two scraped up kneecaps. I was very lucky.

I got out and had blood pouring out of both nostrils. The lady in the station wagon was not hurt (thank goodness). She, the farmer in the combine and people that lived right by the accident all tried to help me as I was walking around with blood pouring out my nose. My only concern was the thought of my father killing me for trashing his car. The Vega's front end was about half as long as it used to be (crush!). The station wagon was also totaled b/c the frame got bent. An ambulance came and took me to the hospital b/c they said I was in shock and of course needed work done on my nose.

[Screwball]

A couple years ago during the summer I was driving north on I-75 on my way to Dayton. It was the fifth of five straight days with torrential downpours. I was in the left hand lane, going about 65 or 70, when I hit a huge puddle. I hydroplaned immediately, causing the wheel to turn itself 90 degrees to the left.

I was on a bridge at the time, and slammed into the concrete barrier on the left. That sent me into a tailspin, and I did two 360s on the highway. I can't remember exactly how, but I then skidded onto the grassy median once I got past the bridge. I tried to get the car to move again, but it was smashed up pretty good and wouldn't budge. And then, there's this...

I had forgotten my cell phone at home, so I needed to get to a building to call for help. I walked about a quarter mile to a small business, and called my parents and the police. A cop came and picked me up, and we headed back to the site of my crash. Upon arrival, I saw the entire driver side of my '96 Honda Civic had been smashed in. As fate would have it, another '96 Honda Civic had also slid off the highway and crashed into my car. Had I not forgotten my cell phone, I surely would've been keeping dry inside the car, and just as surely would've been crushed. It still gives me chills to this day to think how fortunate I was to have had to leave that certain death trap.

[BoydsOfSummer]

My buddy and I both 16 were out messing around in his brothers Jeep CJ. Neither being too bright, we decided to "run the Gauntlet of Death"--otherwise known as the reservoir. Long story short, we rolled that lil bugger 3/4 of the way down the side of the reservoir. Nothing rolls like a Jeep. We ended upside down hanging from our seat belts. I had to cut the strap with my Buck knife and then fell out on my airhead. A few bruises were all we sustained, but the jeep wasn't as fortunate.

It still reminds me off that scene in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".

" My brother is gonna crap!"
"My brother is gonna kill us!"

"Which is he gonna do....crap or kill us?"

"First he's gonna crap! Then he's gonna kill us!"

[redsmetz]

I've had two wrecks wear my car was totalled, neither time was my fault.

The first time, I was driving by Superior Chevrolet when it was over in Northside and a guy pulled out of Anthony Wayne in front of me. My final payment on the car had been due on two days before and bam, that's all she wrote. That one worked out because the engine had a slight crack in the block and I was never going to get what I wanted, so with it totalled, I did. The worst part was that a sales rep came out to give me his card; I called him a vulture and told him to get lost.

The second time was about five years ago, last day of January and I was taking my daughter, her friend and the son of some friends of our's to school. I was headed over Kings Run over in Winton Terrace and a high school kid came around the bend doing 35 MPH in the snow, lost control and destroyed my car. "I as doing the speed limit", he said to me (it's snowing, kid!) That one hurt because my business at the time was doing horribly and things were tight. I got enough out of the settlement to pay off the car, but didn't have enough to get another car. And to make matters worse, the kid who hit me had two previous wrecks (the kids I knew who were classmates told me that this kid once jumped off a bridge when his friends dared him and broke both his legs - apparently he never listened to his mother). His dad came by to pick him up and said to me, "his mother and I wondered whether he should have taken the bus this morning." Uh yeah!

It's actually taken me a while to get over the nervousness of other drivers when it snows and I've resented that about that accident. This season has been appreciably better.

[GAC]

I've never totaled a car. But I've tried my best.

You all know me. I can't do anything right.

[KronoRed]

Accident free here, I think because I waited till 21 to get my license

[reds44]

I'm 18, had my lisence for over two year, and I am proud to say I've never gotten a ticket before.

I got two tickets within a 3 week span when I was 17. My parents were not too happy about that.

[*BaseClogger*]

I'm 18, had my lisence for over two year, and I am proud to say I've never gotten a ticket before.

I got two tickets within a 3 week span when I was 17. My parents were not too happy about that.

[TeamSelig]

I hit a deer once and totaled my Mustang. Never even saw it until .001 before hitting it.

[Strikes Out Looking]

In 1982, I was leaving an orthodontist appointment in Fairfield. I was driving my 1973 Ford Pinto going through an intersection where I had the right of way (it was a two way stop on the other road). A 1968 Impala (I think they were used as tanks in 'Nam) blew through the stop sign and hit me in the back of the car--spinning the Pinto around into someone's yard.

I was fine and fortunately I was wearing a seat belt. The Impala driver immmediately said "I ain't got no insurance," and that is what burns me to this day. We had to file suit against this moron and she paid my dad installments over a couple of years to pay for the car. Meanwhile, my car was totalled --even though it was a Pinto, it really ran well (slow but well). My dad bought me a '75 Ford Maverick to replace it but it was a piece of garbage that wouldn't run most of the time.

[Caveat Emperor]

Driving to a doctor's appointment near the end of my first summer home from Tulane. Turned onto the road leading out to the interstate and got T-Boned by an Ford F-250 that was trying to turn onto the road. I don't think he ever saw me, because he accelerated and started his turn literally as I was right in front of him.

I was driving a Jeep Cherokee (1993 model) doing maybe 40-45 MPH and got pushed completely across the road and into a ditch on the opposite side. My Jeep ended up on it's side -- I had to crawl out. If there had been a car coming in the other direction on the road, I'd have been killed instantly. If I'd have had a passenger in my car, they'd have been either killed or severely injured. Like Screwball, whenever I think about that, it really hits me how lucky I was.

The Ford, as it turns out, suffered no visible damage and only a bit of green paint on the bumper where he hit me. Call me a bitter person, but I really hope awful things happened to that guy. Nobody needs to be driving a vehicle as big as the truck he was in as a personal-use vehicle. Insurance paid out, but the replacement Jeep Cherokee I bought was nowhere near in as good condition as that one had been (it was the best I could find with the money I had). Plus, he never asked me if I was OK -- he just sat in his giant truck on the cell phone with the cops.

Oh well...happy to be alive, at least.

[BoydsOfSummer]

I hit a deer once and totaled my Mustang. Never even saw it until .001 before hitting it.

I hit one doing around 80mph in my then year old Toy 4x4. Didn't "total" it but it cost $6100 to fix it.

[WebScorpion]

Wow...where should I start?
I'll call this the tale of 3 Celicas:

I bought my first brand new car in 1984 at Tri-County Toyota. It was a fully loaded Celica GT w/sunroof, etc... I loved that car and had driven it for five years and over 100,000 miles before this little episode. One day I was driving down the road in Crystal City, VA around 50mph in a 45mph zone and was rear-ended by a Pontiac Grand-Am that left 100ft skid marks before it hit me from behind, spun me 540 degrees, bounced me off a guard rail, blew all four tires, broke the back of the passenger-side seat, and basically totalled the car. When I get out, the driver looks at me and says, "Hey ma-a-an, what happened?" Fortunately, the remnants of my car were between us because as I began climbing over the car to kill him, a bystander yells out, "I saw the whole thing, that guy is crazy!" It turns out he had a supended license, was driving someone else's car and neither had insurance. With the money from that car I bought a 1989 Celica. This one was a stipped down ST, (I was married to a high maintenance woman,) and I never really cared for it much.
Cruising down another stretch of Virginia road, going around 55 in another 45 zone, yet another Pontiac Grand Am pulls out from a side road on my right to make a left turn and just stops directly in front of me. There was a step van on my right and two lanes of oncoming traffic to my left, so I slammed on the brakes and T-boned her driver's side door. No major injuries, but still scary, and as it turns out, she has a suspended license and no insurance. In fact, the State Trooper said later she skipped town and had a whole host of people after her for money already. That car wasn't exactly totalled, so it lived on for a few more years, but was never the same...windshield whistled, never did align perfectly straight, etc. Eventually, I traded it in on a brand new, fully loaded, 1995 Celica GT-S (after the divorce, before the second marriage) another beauty!
Well, the last Celica ran like a champ and saw me through the whole mid-life in-between marriages wild times. (other stories) After she had 120,000 miles, the water pump blew, the battery died, she was starting to eat oil, one of the electric window motors died, and she was generally showing her age. I was considering trading her in but was worried I wouldn't get much for her. I was getting on the highway into bumper-to-bumper traffic just before the Woodrow Wilson Bridge going from Virginia to Maryland when from nowhere, some unidentified car just slams into the rear end of my car and spins me 180 degrees with my driver side door wedged against the bridge wall. I was livid and was getting ready to get out the passenger side and give this person a piece of my mind when I spot a police officer, gun drawn, pointing at the other car shouting, "GET OUT OF THE VEHICLE!" So I hunker down and watch the show, as a teenage kid gets out and drops to the ground for packaging and processing by the Virginia State Troopers. That one was totalled, (mercy killing, I say) and I traded it in on a 2004 Prius. Oh yeah, it turns out the kid was driving a stolen car, had been pulled over and bolted for the the state border thinking he'd be safe if he could cross the bridge...he didn't have a license or insurance obviously, but the state of Virginia covered this one since the State Police were chasing the guy...I thought they appeared pretty quickly.
So there it is, The Tale of Three Celicas.