Question Of The Day: Have You Ever Been In An Accident That Was… Your Fault?

Steven Lang
by Steven Lang

Picture courtesy of Autoevolution.com

I was all of 22 years. College graduate. A young guy seeking nothing more than a nice Sunday drive with his girlfriend.

The entrance ramp to Route 17 was a one lane affair with an old Buick that seemed to be all too hesitant. Five seconds. Ten Seconds. An eternity of 20 seconds came and went before the vehicle started to creep forward and seemed ready for forward motion.

I had thought the vehicle was long gone when, a few seconds later, I pressed the accelerator and…

“Boom!” A nasty fender bender had taken place.

The Buick’s old style aluminum fender had been bent while my old Toyota’s bumper seemed fine. At least from the driver’s seat.

I inhaled a few seconds of stunned silence. Got out a little shaky, and went to the other car.

“Are you okay?” It was a lady in her 60’s.

“Yes young man, thank God. Are you?”

“I’m okay but I think I got your fender pretty good.”

The lady took a look at me, my car, and then said words to the effect of, “Well, my house is only a couple of miles away from here. Let’s get out of this traffic and follow me.”

Like a Pavlovian lap dog I followed her straight to the house. I was shocked that an older lady, especially in North Jersey, would be willing to do this. But once I saw the mailbox stand in the form of a rifle, and plenty of cars on her driveway, I realized she and her passenger were more comfortable in that familiar place. Besides, there was a heat wave going on and a nice suburban street was a far nicer place to wait for public officials than a traffic laden highway that was near three different malls.

A police officer came by and took the report. No tickets. No drawn out crying or arguments. Just a simple straightforward affair. My fault. I pay. That was that.

Except for one little thing. No insurance company claim, thank God! I offered to simply pay for her repair at a nearby independent shop. It did cost a few hundred dollars but, compared to the four figured rate increase that comes with a blemished driving record in New Jersey, it was cheap. Real cheap.

That was my last at-fault accident. But what about you? Did you ever find yourself in a collision that was entirely of your own making?

Steven Lang
Steven Lang

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  • Azmtbkr81 Azmtbkr81 on Jul 02, 2012

    While in college I slammed into the just-opened door of a Chevy 3500 work truck while riding my bicycle on a busy city street. I was wearing a helmet but still passed out for a few minutes after cranking the door back and subsequently slamming into the ground. The driver was kind enough to drag my limp, bleeding body onto the sidewalk where he left me while he went to eat lunch. Luckily, a few concerned passersby called 911 and stayed with me until the authorities arrived. Aside from the cuts, a nasty headache, and a few lingering aches I escaped uninjured. The accident was deemed to be partially my fault for riding too fast in the bike lane even though I was well under the 25 mph speed limit. The unconcerned driver was not cited, not even for leaving the scene of an accident. I hope karma kicks his ass someday.

  • Marcus Marcus on Jul 04, 2012

    I have been in three accidents, all of them my fault, as there were actions I could have taken to avoid them. First accident, I was 16, messing with the radio, and rear ended someone at about 5 MPH, this was my only legally at fault accident. The second, a driver turned across traffic into a parking lot just in front of me, and I T-boned him. The parking lot was adjacent to an intersection, the other driver saw a red light for traffic going his way, and assumed that traffic my way was red as well, but his side had a delayed green, and I timed my light, shot through the intersection at speed just as my side turned green. He got the ticket, but still my fault. The final accident, also at an intersection, green light my way, but I heard/saw an ambulance approach, so I stopped, the guy behind me did not. Legally his fault, but I should have looked behind me.

    • Burgersandbeer Burgersandbeer on Jul 04, 2012

      I think you are too quick to take the blame for the second two. The one with the parking lot and delayed green wasn't exactly a defensive driving best-practice on your part, but the way you tell the story it sounds like the other driver may have ran a red light. As for the ambulance, what else were you supposed to do? Not yield to an emergency vehicle? The driver behind you needs to take note of that same ambulance and be ready to react to it. Not your problem that you were paying attention and he wasn't. I was in a similar situation once that didn't actually result in an accident, but came very close.I was approaching a four-way intersection, and there was an ambulance racing along the cross street preparing to take a left in front of me. In addition to the ambulance, my light had turned yellow. I was close enough to the intersection at this point that under normal circumstances, it would have made more sense to beat the yellow. With the ambulance about to cross in front of me, I decided to stop. The punk behind me almost didn't stop in time, and was so pissed he actually started to get out of his car at the next light. That light turned green before he completely left his car, so he just got back in and sped off. I'm not sure what he expected me to do - floor it and t-bone and ambulance?

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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