Your first crash

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Castle Anthrax
No pictures because I'm old and this happened before camera phones.

Mine was my first ever time driving on a motorway when I was a student who could barely afford to put fuel in the car. I was on the M6 on a Friday afternoon so it was understandably rather heavy, stop start traffic. As I approached an overhead bridge somewhere around Newcastle-Under-Lyme there were some kids mucking about on the bridge waving at traffic and suchlike. Having heard horror stories of kids droppng bricks through peoples windcreens etc I was distracted by them and didn't notice the cars in front come to stop. Wrapped my Metro around the back end of some reps Audi :(

Police attended, details were taken, I was by myself and out of my depth. Police called a recovery company who took my car to their yard and basically said it was a write off. Being only 3rd party insured I just took their word for it, gave them verbal instruction to dispose of it and got a lift to the station and a train home.

Few weeks later I got the bill for recovery (couple of hundred quid) and the NIP for undue care and attention. 5 points and a £450 fine followed and that was the end of my driving for a year or so until I finished uni and got a job that paid enough to buy a car and pay the inflated insurance. The whole episode cost me a fortune all told and meant that I missed out on that early twenties phase of working through quick cars as I couldn't ever afford to insure anything decent (I had a Cinq Sporting for years!)
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
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Jupiter
Driving too fast round a corner, let off the accelerator half way round and lost control.

Crash1.jpg


Young and stupid.
 
Associate
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3 Aug 2014
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Slamannan Falkirk
I was about 19 or 20 so going back 20 years ago.
I got a cheap E30 323i through my work with a wrecked engine and got hold of a 2.7 from a 525E and swapped the head over from to a 2.5 head so it would rev harder and have more power. ( a 525E was a low revving 2.7 engine designed for better fuel consumption )
I more or less turned it into a track car. so me and my mate were out for a run one night near loch lomond it was a bit damp and late at night and I was pushing on a tad hard for the conditions.

I got a rear blow out while cornering and if the car had not been caged I don't think me and my mate would be here today. the car spun hit the banking and rolled several times. the car was fairly bent and the roll cage had a kink in it but it had done its job.. it kept us safe. (wish I had pictures but too long ago and the car went straight to my work and got stripped and scrapped.
looking back on it if it hadn't been for my boss at the time I don't think I would have survived. I had been going to bolt the cage to the floor of the car at the time. but he welded in spreader plates and bolted the cage to them. knowing what I know now I know just bolting the cage to the floor doesnt do anything.
 
Man of Honour
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21 Feb 2006
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29,297
It was horrific I should imagine, glad I wasn't in the car when it happened as it would have been a MASSIVE claim for whiplash.
 
Associate
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13 Mar 2010
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503
My first and so far only accident was a couple years ago in the A8. Travelling along a nice long stretch of road at 30mph, on my side is double yellows and the opposite side you can park. So there I am minding my own when a van parked the opposite side of the road with no indication just comes flying out from it's parking space halfway into my lane as I'm approaching, I swerve out the way and literally bounce off the curb which is much higher than expected and did this:

32426655490_24a57db0c6_c.jpg


31964420604_d260f7ae07_c.jpg


New wheel, tyre and suspension parts = £5k+
 
Associate
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Slamannan Falkirk
RenoRanes007;30488311 said:
My first and so far only accident was a couple years ago in the A8. Travelling along a nice long stretch of road at 30mph, on my side is double yellows and the opposite side you can park. So there I am minding my own when a van parked the opposite side of the road with no indication just comes flying out from it's parking space halfway into my lane as I'm approaching, I swerve out the way and literally bounce off the curb which is much higher than expected and did this:
New wheel, tyre and suspension parts = £5k+
was about to say that wheel looks to be sitting too far back in the arch....

what suspension parts did it damage?

my mate hit a high curb years ago with an old mk2 orion and managed to bend the chassi leg. I ended out with the car as his misses refused to get back in it. pulled it out with a strap around the front tied to an iveco horsebox and reversed back. had the other side of the car strapped to a telephone pole... the car drove straight once I replaced the wishbone and got the tracking done.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2007
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Location
Stoke/Norfolk
My first was due to me being a complete plank and not knowing anything about cars! It was very frosty/icy and I went around a 90' left bend on a one way street in my '97 Ford Escort at a very safe speed. For some completely unknown reason the moron that lives in my brain shouted "It's icy, stamp on the throttle and get the back end out in your FWD car because thats what you've seen in movies, it'll be awesome!!!!!!!" :D

It wasn't. It rapidly understeered into the right side curb folding the front right alloy under the car. £1500 of suspension parts, driveshaft, alloy wheel etc later and I realised that the moron in my brain is infact a complete ******* idiot!

insane200;30486961 said:
Mine was around 2011 i think, Driving up the M5 to Rockingham raceway for a car show, cruising along when suddenly cars began to stop, My friend in his IS200 stopped, i stopped but the Clio behind didn't stop, he did manage to swerve slightly to the right catching my rear end.

The boot lid was forced open had to slam it really hard to close.


I did exactly the same damage in exactly the same way to my mates 200sx when I thought he should have joined a roundabout but instead he'd stopped. Even the damage is a literal carbon copy as the dent looks identical, although his was red not black and the repair was the same :D
 
Chooser of poor weather meets
Soldato
Joined
25 Apr 2009
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2,780
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Sidcup
Heavy snow of 2013, parents told me not to go out and be a prat, I went out and proceeded to be a prat.

At this point it was still amusing.

AcU3PGd.jpg

Nice phone call to my very recently divorced parents for them to come and get me out, took us (a very awkward) 6 hours and a kind stranger from PistonHeads in his old Defender 90 with a winch to get me out. Think it was about £600 in repairs and £100 to the PHer for his time.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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SX, unfortunately
Many years ago now, when it was snowing we went round the roads of Burnham on Crouch in a tractor pulling people out of ditches for a tenner a time.

Got a ********** off a policeman for charging for a service when uninsured etc. but got let off as we pulled his car out a ditch for free :D

That was great snow, had a whale of a time in the allegro hooning it round.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Aug 2006
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6,791
ianh;30491860 said:
My first was due to me being a complete plank and not knowing anything about cars! It was very frosty/icy and I went around a 90' left bend on a one way street in my '97 Ford Escort at a very safe speed. For some completely unknown reason the moron that lives in my brain shouted "It's icy, stamp on the throttle and get the back end out in your FWD car because thats what you've seen in movies, it'll be awesome!!!!!!!" :D

It wasn't. It rapidly understeered into the right side curb folding the front right alloy under the car. £1500 of suspension parts, driveshaft, alloy wheel etc later and I realised that the moron in my brain is infact a complete ******* idiot!



I did exactly the same damage in exactly the same way to my mates 200sx when I thought he should have joined a roundabout but instead he'd stopped. Even the damage is a literal carbon copy as the dent looks identical, although his was red not black and the repair was the same :D

Were you driving a Clio too :D Claiming was a pain as they lad that hit me was on his dad's insurance and kept refusing to admit it was his fault until he saw the damage.

Took many calls with my frustration to get it sorted.

It has reminded me this was not my first :o

Again, not my fault, turning right into a junction a kind lady was impatient and pulled out turning right, she caught my rear quarter on the Calibra, Again the insurance were being a pain, i had to send lots of drawings, she tried to claim i hit her even though there was an island to go around.

My witness i thought had stitched me up and would not respond for weeks, turned out he went on holiday.

eventually got it back repaired, but it wasn't long until rust started to appear.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2007
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Stoke/Norfolk
insane200;30493347 said:
Were you driving a Clio too :D

So close, I know it was a small French car I'd hired for a week while my Skyline was broken, but I can't remember whether it was a 206 or a Citroen C3 etc (defo not a Clio) :D
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Jun 2009
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3,456
Location
Weston-super-Mare
My first car was a 1.2 clio mk1. I drove that for a year, few scrapes here and there, I then scraped that after a year and got myself an e36 318i

I was determined to do some drifting, but it was a little difficult to get the back out with the crappy 1.8 4 pot. However when I finally managed it I panicked and took my foot off the accelerator, fishtailed the car like 10 time, hit a tree, cleared a 4 foot hedge and landed in a supermarket car park on the other side...

(edit, I should probably add this all happened at like 20mph or so)

Fortunately, no one was hurt, but I often think how ******* stupid that was and how different my life would be had there been someone on the other side of the hedge... :o

Properly stupid move on my part, but I actually think I probably learnt a lesson from it, so I guess it all worked out.
 

mrk

mrk

Man of Honour
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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99,990
Location
South Coast
Rover Metro 1 litre, cement truck came into the rear quarter 6 months into ownership as a new driver!

It was a cement company down the road from home, and they admitted fault. I was put into a brand new Clio Extreme Edition for a month while they dealt with the claim.

Metro was written off, the payout was £200 more than what I bought the car for based on its condition. I kept it as salvage (no cost to do this back then), and sold it to a bloke walking past the driveway for £150.

The car had failed its MOT earlier and I was driving it home from the garage at the time of the accident.

First crash and positive non fault accident settlement experience :cool:

I have no pictures, nobody had smartphones back then! And phones with cameras were next to useless anyway.
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Nov 2006
Posts
4,922
My first was me being stupid, but I was unlucky too. I was 18 and driving a Fiat Punto. I'd been playing around pulling the handbrake on corners and I went round one very close to my house a bit too fast, hit some gravel and skidded into a half spin. The unlucky bit was that the guy who owned the house on the corner had put stones on his verge to stop people parking there and I hit one that caused my car to get a puncture and bounce onto the next one which went straight through the drive shaft. Was a write off even though there was minimal external damage.

I got hit from behind yesterday in my company car though but the damage to mine is cosmetic, theirs will be a bigger job.
 
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