A week ago I was driving home from school in the evening, heading south on I-17
just a mile before the first I-10 exit. Traffic generally slows down at that
point, and I came to a halt. Within moments of stopping, I felt / heard a
large CRACK/BANG, I was knocked a bit silly, and before I could figure anything
out, I had rear-ended the car in front of me and was idling slowly... After a
few moments, I regained my wits and pulled off to the side of the road.
This just happened to be the first time in five months that I had taken my '99
Mitsubishi Galant to school instead of my 67 1600.... Wow!
I had a pretty nasty case of the jitters, a few days of an extremely sore neck,
and now my ribs are tender, but one the whole, everything turned out alright.
A full size, extended van had rear-ended me. The police report claimed 15mph,
but I swear it was more than that. The van had the radiator shoved up into the
engine, while my Galant only had a few minor dents and the driver seat railing
is a bit off. The car (truck) in front was not damaged at all. To add insult
to injury, the van was uninsured. My insurance company extorts $500 from me
before they will do anything about it, so as the damage was minimal, I just
dropped to liability insurance on the Mitsu and will be receiving a check from
them anyway! (Renewed for 6 mo just 2 weeks ago.)
What I got from my first accident? My head-rests were not extended to match my
6' body, thus I got more whip-lash than I would have should they have been
properly adjusted. I was wearing my seat belt, or things could have been much
worse... Time to install the lap-belt in my roadster I guess. I also quickly
understood how important the seats are in an accident, while it has been
stressed in the past, those four bolts holding your seats in your cars had
better be secured nicely, I'm thinking about doing "one-up" on that large
washer, as adding the 200lbs of a securely strapped human with all sorts of G
forces going at them is something that I am not that comfortable with right
now. Head rests??? Don't want to think about that one right now. :(
Anyway, it has been an interesting week. The good news is damage to myself was
all minor, damage to the Mitsu was minimal, and I consider myself incredibly
blessed to have been in the other car that day.
Ryan Bird
Tempe, AZ 67 1600
www.azroc.org/ryan
/// datsun-roadsters@autox.team.net mailing list
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|