<p>My dad always said when I was learning to drive to leave the length of your car in between you and the car in front of you when stopping, that way if someone is coming up quickly behind you there is still room to get out of the way.</p>
<p>A few years ago my wife’s wagon was rear-ended at a red light by a young guy in a pick-up who did not brake. The impact sent her car down a hill, through the red light, and up a hill on the other side before it came to a stop. The frame bowed out around my wife into a diamond shape (as Volvo designed it to do). She was unhurt. The car was totalled. We got a $6500 insurance settlement for the 10 year-old vehicle with 110K mi on it.</p>
<p>My colleague’s young adult son was not so lucky. He was home on leave from combat duty in Iraq. At approximately midnight, while stopped at a red light on his way home with a date, he was rear-ended by a drunken illegal alien with a prior offense. My friend’s son and his date were killed instantly. The driver survived. </p>
<p>I spoke to my colleague several weeks after the accident. He calmly expressed forgiveness toward the perpetrator. Shortly thereafter, he retired. He had been a highly respected senior employee. Now when his name comes up nobody talks about his lifetime of professional contributions, only about his loss.</p>
<p>Wow, just wow! Don’t know how to get these bozos to stop ramming others. So glad your W was OK but so sorry for your colleague. Nothing is as precious to me as my H & kids and everything I’ve accomplished would be sawdust if their lives were ended senselessly. </p>
<p>So very sorry! </p>
<p>This is the reason the cars in our family are the safest we can buy–two Volvos and one Toyota Sienna. S has a very heavy old BMW that has done well over the years.</p>
<p>tk21769:</p>
<p>The same thing happened to a work colleague of my D who was a couple of weeks from retirement - he was sitting at a red light a couple of cars back when a drunk slammed into the back of him having not even applied the brakes (he claimed he must have fallen asleep). It killed this poor man instantly but of course the drunk survived with minor injuries. </p>
<p>Being stopped at a light or on the freeway, especially at the back of the line, is a very vulnerable position. It’s bad enough with the drunks, usually at night, and people who just don’t pay attention but now with cell phones it’s much worse IMO.</p>
<p>Why is it that generally those who cause the accident often suffer minor or no harm while other innocents are maimed and killed? It seems so wrong and frequent!</p>
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<p>Don’t you just love Karma?</p>
<p>I think I’ll try to stay out of the middle lane even more than before. If I’m on the right or left, I have the shoulder to work with to help escape some of these nasty situations. Wish folks wouldn’t insist on running yellow-turning-red lights and solid red lights. It sure would make things a lot safer!</p>
<p>I got rear-ended once by a friend who was following me, who in turn was rear-ended by a drunk. I had a pain in my neck for months, and she and I had to attend a court hearing, which of course the drunk didn’t attend.</p>
<p>I’ve become a brake pumper whenever I’m stopped or am stopping at a highway backup. But I wonder - why don’t they make a device or car setting that will blare out sound and lights when you do see someone barreling towards you? It is not as though it is an uncommon occurrence.</p>
<p>What I’d really like is a paintball launcher that I could send toward the bad drivers. Just yesterday we saw one head out into the intersection on a old red light. Why? impatient, I guess.</p>
<p>I wish you could send them tacks that would pop all their tires (superhero style) & cause them to end up on the side of the road, awaiting assistance at THEIR expense for endangering others. Paintball is another good one, but could blind them and cause them to crash into innocents. </p>
<p>We used to have red light cameras to take pictures license plates of folks speeding through red lights but there was an uproar of all the indignant drivers in our state that prefer lawlessness!</p>
<p>I did get rear ended a couple of years ago while sitting at a red light. It had just turned green, but there were three or four cars in front of me. The guy pushed me into the car in front of me. His airbags went off, mine did not. I limped my car to the dealer (ironically I’d been on my way there) and eventually discovered that my car was not worth repairing. It was so annoying we’d just finished paying for the car and even though we got a used car as a replacement we were back to car payments. The idiot’s car got towed away. They guy in front of me appeared to just have a dented bumper. It doesn’t seem right, but I agree that looking in your rear view mirror might be worth doing! Still you don’t usually have the option to run a red light or stop sign without putting yourself or others in danger.</p>
<p>The replacement amounts insurers give us rarely add up to what it will really cost to have a reliable vehicle, in our experience. I think there are way too many folks on the road that shouldn’t be driving, especially lead-footed idiots!</p>
<p>I’ve been rear-ended too many times but the one thing it has taught me is to always check my rearview mirror when sitting at a light and when slowing down. Due to this I was so thankful for my son using this habit when driving back to school in the fall.</p>
<p>We had been driving in the rain for hours on the freeway and while he was driving I was looking at the map so to figure out where we would be changing time zones. I looked up from the map when he applied the brakes and saw an 18 wheeler turned sideways in the road just skidding along as we were approaching. I was so proud of how calmly he reacted. Since the truck had been spewing rain from his flaps he had backed up iniatially to avoid the excess rain and mist which was the first good thing he had done. Since he was the first in a long line behind the trucker I was worried about the other cars bearing down on his stopped car and the trucker which was totally blocking the freeway. Fortunately he had reacted quickly in order to not hit the truck and had left plenty of room to move his vehicle in case the cars behind had not reacted well in the rain. It would have been a major pileup but now knowing that he looks in all his mirrors when driving I feel so much better letting him drive the long distance to college.</p>
<p>himom, my dads vehicle got totaled about two and a half years ago and it had about 150k miles on it. Thankfully he was unharmed. He got like 15k from the insurance… he was amazed how much they gave him. He actually found a newer model of the same car with about 25k miles on it for only 2k more then what they gave him. The accident basically wound up costing him 2k but he got a newer version of his car with 125k less miles.</p>
<p>I was in a 15 mph school zone at a dead stop while kids were being dropped off for school when I was rear ended. The guy who hit me was both speeding and not paying attention.</p>
<p>Glad your dad was well compensated; it’s pretty rare. H got a pittance when his car was totaled but that was all they would offer. We were very disappointed but grateful that he was not hurt. We had another car, so we did not need to purchase one. We could never had purchased anything drivable with what we were given. I believe the car was about 10 years old and had only about 100K miles on it.</p>
<p>My dads car was a subaru and I think they hold their value pretty well. I forget what year it was but he had bought it new and I know it had been paid off, so it had to have been at least 4 years old at the time. If I remember right the insurance company determined the value you get by averaging what the local retail values for comparable models were. I’m not sure if that’s how all companies do it or how that is decided.</p>
<p>Yea, our car was American and it was probably about 10 years old or so. It was very reliable because we maintained it well, but did not have a good resale value, so we didn’t get much at all. US cars traditionally have not held value well. Japanese cars, Volvos & Mercedes seem to do better over time for resale.</p>
<p>Well…I’m on the other side of this.
I’ve never had an accident in all my years of driving,…until I was the one who rear ended someone.</p>
<p>I slowed down to make a stop at a stop sign where a guy in a little Toyota was already stopped.
Thing is my heavy SUV at the time just didn’t slow down or stop…just kept going on an unseen oily slick on the road. (it had been a drizzly day)
No other cars around, my reaction was to honk a warning, and try to veer into the bushes. Nothing happened and I saw the guy staring into his rear view mirror with huge eyes, paralyzed.
I can still hear the horrible crunch.
Poor guy was a young HS student driving his mom’s car…he had also slid on the slick but managed to stop on the unaffected part just before the intersection.
Luckily no one was hurt…I was so upset for the kid and I made sure my insurance took good care of him.
My punishment was that my 14 year old old Isuzu was in the shop for 4 weeks because they couldn’t get a small necessary part. His was fixed within the week.</p>
<p>I also have the habit to always look in the rear view mirror, and tap on the brakes when there’s a slow down on the freeway, always scared someone behind me isn’t alert.</p>
<p>the only 2 accidents I have been involved in, I was rear-ended while stopped at red lights. Thankfully in both instances it was not very bad (not enough to move the car, just a solid <em>bump</em>).</p>
<p>my family (including me) was also rear-ended while test-driving a car.</p>
<p>people need to pay attention.</p>
<p>I also do the break tap like Sequoia mentioned</p>
<p>Well, another one of our employees had a bicycle-car event. This time, someone opened their car door and she vaulted over it. Previous accidents have involved bus mirrors clipping someone’s head (twice), someone turning left into a bicycle (twice), skidding on wet leaves into the curb, and falling on the train tracks while crossing. (Our employees mostly commute by bicycle.) Note that FIVE of these seven accidents could have been avoided by the driver.</p>
<p>I have never been rear-ended; I have had a number of single-vehicle accidents in which I backed into something, however. I was taught to watch the car behind me whenever I slow down; on a few occasions I have made the decision to run the yellow. </p>
<p>Some years back I took a racetrack-based defensive driving course. (I made sure the kids took it too.) One of the things we were taught was to watch for signals up to half a mile away while we were driving. We were also taught safe panic braking.</p>