While this post isn’t about fixing cars, it doesn’t hurt to have a CarTalkabout near misses and witnesses of horrible car accidents, and how to increase safety behind the wheels.
4 days ago, me and my mother ( in separate vehicles ) were heading out on the local street going about our business. She was in front and I was behind her with 2 vehicles in front of me. She stopped for the red traffic light on a multi-lane road and remained stationary for a short while. Once the light changed to green, the car in front of her ( which I couldn’t see) proceeded through the intersection and the next thing I knew as a deaf person was a loud explosion in my ears and a white Tesla went up in flames.
“ Omg, my mom!” I yelled. Then a few seconds later I saw my mom go around the destroyed Telsa and continued on to go about her business.
What a relief ! But I still wanted to know what had just happened up there. Once I got to the scene, I realized the car that got hit by the Tesla was in front of my mom, and the Telsa was running its red light.
The victim seemed all beaten up with the airbags deployed and glass was all over the place.
Of course, I’m glad that wasn’t my mom but still my heart ached and still aching for the victim. It was my first time witnessing an accident like that !
I try to avoid things like these by waiting a few seconds at a green light before proceeding through the intersection. I also prefer for cars next to me to go first at green lights before I move forward.
What are some tips you use to avoid being hit by a red light runner, and what horrible accident(s) you’ve witnessed while occupying the road ?
I do the same thing that you do (pausing for a second or two when the light turns green). The two worst accidents that I can recall witnessing include:
A situation where a tanker truck carrying hot tar overturned, and the driver wound-up in a sea of scalding tar. That was about 50 years ago, and I had nightmares about that one for a few days.
A situation where a motorcycle was hit by a car, and the guy and his girlfriend sustained serious injuries.
Thankfully, in both cases, the cops arrived very swiftly and they did what they could until the ambulances arrived.
I have never seen a serious accident occur. I’ve driven past a few. I have witnessed a few fender-benders and a car fire that I dumped my extinguisher on but that’s about it.
I don’t count racing accidents… I’ve driven through or past a fair bit of those. Several roll-overs, wall smackers and car-to car contact… But our safety gear - full fireproof race suits, helmets, gloves, boots, 5 or 6 point seatbelts and full roll-cages keep us pretty well protected.
The entire area I live in waits a bit before entering an intersection because of the red-light runners. I have never been anyplace that waits this long. I usually let the other car go first but that isn’t always practical here so I look both ways before crossing.
While lunching at an outdoor cafe w/a business associate, along-side a commercial-business 35 mph 3 lane in each direction street, a car got cut off and veered into the center curb and tipped completely over, then slide down the street on its roof a surprising long distance.
I was test driving a big truck at work, and I had a lady run a stop sign in front of me. She panicked when she saw me, and gunned the gas pedal and t-boned a Ford Explorer heading the opposite way as me. As Ford Explorers are prone to do, it flipped over. Everyone was ok, but it was definitely scary to watch first hand.
The original lady made it worse by trying to tell the police that I hit her, and pushed her into the other car. The police came over and looked at the front end of my BRAND NEW truck, and saw zero scratches or dings and quickly figured out her story was complete hooey.
I look both ways before the light changes then proceed into the intersection immediately if I don’t see cars approaching the intersection or if cars are stopped in all crossing lanes for their red light.
A woman, dead, layed out between the front wheels of her car along the side of the road. I came upon this while driving home after college, ca. 1970, along a familiar highway about 12 miles from my home. No doubt she had died: read about it in the paper a day or two later.
A male in the passenger seat of a tractor/trailer. He was wearing jeans and cowboy boots. I didn’t see above his waist. My view was downwards toward a stream, from a bridge on I-40 in Arkansas just west of Memphis. The rig had lost a wheel (we passed it before coming upon the scene) and had left the highway, westbound in the left lane, and fallen upright onto the west bank of the stream below. All traffic was slowed to a crawl, some to a stop. We and many stopped and looked down to see this. Seeing no movement, we presumed he was dead. 1980s, on our way from WI to LA to wedding.
Third: Route 66/I-44 in Missouri, driving SW. A sporty convertible in the eastbound lane was crashed on the side of the road. Medics were holding a bag of plasma up high on the passenger front seat. IDK the outcome, but it looked ominous. 1980s?
Those impressions are part of why we just bought a new car to replace my much-loved 1999 Honda Civic, which had become my wife’s primary car.
I’ve seen the aftermath of many car / truck wrecks. Running red lights, distracted driving (cell phones) driving too fast on wet roads and DUI. We had several fatalities due to the passengers not wearing seat belts and getting ejected at speed, pretty nasty. We had some serious accidents where the passengers survived because they were wearing their seat belt
I always pause a moment before going thru when the light turns green, always wear my seat belt.
Motorcycle guy rammed his head on the suv in front and split it open. Instant death. Car behind ran on top of the cycle. Lots of blood. Nice spring day. Guy lived a few miles away. Like I said five car lengths between you.
Back around 1990 or so I was heading up the Grapevine (mountain pass on I-5 north from Los Angeles) at Christmas time, and the combination of unusual snow and California drivers was a bad mix. A semi had jackknifed across the 3 right lanes. I avoided it but a VW Cabriolet driving way too fast couldn’t and I watched as it drove right under the sideways semi ripping the windshield off. I’m sure the driver died instantly.
Last year my teenage son witnessed a horrific wreck right in front of him. He was sitting waiting for a light to turn green when a Kia Forte with 7 people in it (5 in the back seat, none belted in) blew through a red light. It was then hit broadside by a BMW SUV driving 68-72mph in a 50mph zone. 5 people in the Kia died on the scene and a 6th died at the hospital.
Guess who got the multi-million dollar lawsuit? The 19 year old Kia driver? The person who rented the Kia and gave the keys to the 19 year old? The driver of the BMW who was doing 20 over? Nope. The city and state, for having an “unsafe” intersection.
50+ years ago I was riding in a friend’s Dodge Power Wagon up Kings Mountain Rd on the San Francisco peninsula. Its a winding road through the redwood forest with many 10 mph corners. A guy on a bicycle came flying around one of the corners on the wrong side of the road and hit the front of the power wagon dead center, throwing him over the truck, landing on the pavement. We called an ambulance which crashed into another car about 100 yards before it got to us. Two more ambulances were called to take the bicycle rider and the other ambulance driver to the hospital.
The bike rider said his brother worked on his bike and put the brake pads in backwards so when he put on the brakes the pads slid out of the holders and he had no brakes.
1 - Witnessed a truck turn left across traffic into a parking lot of a restaurant/bar right in front of a motorcycle which was traveling about 40 (posted speed limit). They went flying over the truck and were killed instantly. Multiple witnesses. I later read the drivers BAC level was over 2 (more than twice the legal limit).
Drunk driver on highway driving wrong way. I saw this car coming down the highway the wrong way and luckily, I was close enough to an exit that I immediately exited. He hit the car behind me head on. Driver of car was killed…drunk survived.
I witnessed another drunk driver drive through 4 red lights before he finally hit a car and then bounced off the car and ran over a mother pushing her baby in a stroller. Both were killed. This was before cellphones so I couldn’t call the police to report his erratic driving.
I was in the middle of a 60-car pileup on I-690 in Syracuse some 40+ years ago. The roads were pure ice. I was EXTREMELY LUCKY and saw it unfolding in front of me and was able to stop before the pileup. A state trooper behind me was able to slow down before he hit me - very little damage to either vehicle. But there were cars/trucks/semi’s all around us. How I survived it I’ll never know. I sat in my truck holding on waiting for someone else to hit us (which never happened). Up ahead a car burst into flames and a woman burned to death. I was close enough to feel the heat. All the trooper and I could do was watch (too many vehicles in front to even attempt it). 5 hours later I was able to drive my truck out of the mess. Multiple people injured. Over 50 vehicles were a total loss.
I suspect that–somehow–God protects drunks.
Back in the early '60s, my aunt’s daily driver was a very nice '48 Ford, and she took great pride in that car. One night, a drunk hit her parked car so hard that it wound-up on the lawn, upside down and totaled. The drunk walked away, and the cops had to chase him down as he staggered along the street with only minor injuries–and this was in the days before seatbelts and airbags.
I was on my motorcycle southbound on RT-301 in Maryland. Good weather day. I was coming up on one of the many traffic lights in this stretch. In the corner of my eye to the left (in the Northbound lanes) I saw a car slide by on it’s ROOF! It was also spinning as it came to a stop. A car behind with a smashed front end with smoke coming out.
As an experienced rider I went back to the job at hand and made sure my light was green and crept through the light in case someone was gaping at the accident. Safely through the light I continued and very soon there were ambulances and police cars zooming Northbound toward the accident. It was surreal!
I’m pretty sure that you’re right.
When I was a kid, we were rear-ended by a guy driving a '55 or '56 Ford, and his door flew open upon impact. I was sitting in the rear seat of my father’s Plymouth, and I saw the guy rolling–over and over–on the pavement of the old Route 17, near the NY/NJ border. Luckily for him, nobody ran him over.
A NY State Trooper was on the scene very quickly, and my father asked him about the condition of the guy who hit us, and the Trooper said something along the lines of… He’s so drunk that he doesn’t even know his own name, and his body is so limp from the booze that he only has some scrapes from the pavement. The Trooper said that he vaguely knew the guy, from previous incidents.
Some interesting stories shared on here. And I always wonder why the drunk or the bad driver almost always survive the crash and the victim(s) doesn’t.
