near death experience

ok, maybe not a near death experience, but scary enough to make you glad to be alive.

so I'm coming home from class, about an hour ago (nighttime), drivin on the freeway, da da da, no biggie.. up ahead I see some break lights and I'm thinking there was an accident. get up, to see that there is some debris in the road, like bedding materials and stuff. it's not in my lane, so I let people get ahead of me that need to get out of that lane, etc. no biggie. keep driving, and maybe a mile later, my exit is coming up. I work my way to the right lane. suddenly there is a box spring mattress in my lane only a few hundred feet ahead of me. time slows down... I consider swerving, think better of it, knowing of all the stories about people swerving and ending up killing 16 people, etc. now, despite how slow motion this all seems I run out of time. I slam on my breaks... the guy behind me, luckily, sees this, and swerves to the shoulder lane (which is what I should have done, but ran out of time to do) I hit the box spring mattress with a sickening crunch by this time I've slowed down to about 30-ish... after I hit it, I pull over, wanting to check out my car, of course this is impossible with all the traffic, and other cars that are trying to swerve around this thing are honking at me because I'm in their way... I don't know what to do.. I get back in traffic, and get off at my exit a few hundred feet away. pull off to the closest parking lot to try and check out the damage. turns out that that plastic thing that sits under your bumpers was ripped off and hanging on by one bolt. other miscellaneous plastic stuff was broken down there too. and the bottom of my front bumper is all scraped up.

I'm lucky to have escaped with so little damage, and glad I didn't swerve into traffic and cause a 32 car pile-up. perhaps this wasn't the worst that could happen, but it scared me s***less

I can imagine! luckily you didn't have my mum with you, she would've screamed so hard that you still wou have made an accident, things like this sure make you glad you're alive, a reality shock I'd call it

Wow, that was a close shave... it was good that you kept your head and avoided swerving out into the traffic. I probably would've lost it in that situation, traffic scares the willies out of me.

^^ So true... Sometimes you just have to brace yourself and take it... especially when you're on a highway with a bunch of cars around you.

what I find fascinating are the concrete barriers they place between the lanes in orrposite directions on the freeway (dunno about there, but they do here).
The way I see it, any car that hits one of those travelling at Freeway-level speeds is a write-off, and not much chance of survival for the driver and passengers...but atleast the car wont move into a lane with on-coming traffic...

As I can tell, it basically says "If you lose control or have an accident on this road...we are willing to sacrifice you, in order to save other people" Its justified and necessary...but still kinda scary

Originally Posted by: Andrew Sawhat I find fascinating are the concrete barriers they place between the lanes in orrposite directions on the freeway (dunno about there, but they do here).
The way I see it, any car that hits one of those travelling at Freeway-level speeds is a write-off, and not much chance of survival for the driver and passengers...but atleast the car wont move into a lane with on-coming traffic...

As I can tell, it basically says "If you lose control or have an accident on this road...we are willing to sacrifice you, in order to save other people" Its justified and necessary...but still kinda scary

You're referring to median barriers that run parallel to the roads?? The possibility of a car hitting a parallel object to it's route of travel while traveling at 70 mph... with enough force to kill a grown person is very unlikely... In the rare case that a car swerves then over corrects the opposite direction... and heads straight for the median barrier... the car would slide... thus the cars bulk momentum is still parallel to the barrier... Even though it's sliding toward the barrier..... I don't know if that makes sense... Anyway... if a car hits a median barrier... the impact is much less than you may think it would be.... And most barriers in the US are made to absorb impact. They are actually hollowed out on the inside... so that the barrier absorbs the forces of the car... this also keeps that car from ricocheting back into traffic... On the other hand... roads with no median barriers have a lot higher death tolls... due to people falling asleep at the wheel and going across the median into oncoming traffic... or going off the road... subsequently flipping vehicles or hitting telephone poles and such....... Hope that puts your mind at ease a little!

Originally Posted by: PonyOneyou did the right thing... sucks getting damage to your car but it's a hell of a lot better to run over an obstruction like that and mess up your bumper than it is to lose control and end up in a ditch and risk hurting yourself and others.

probably the only good thing about LA's absurd traffic woes is that you seldom get up enough speed that you don't have the opportunity to avoid such things.

well, I won't even pretend like we have worse traffic than LA, but 580 is reputed for having some bad traffic, especially during rush hour (where it can take you an hour to get 10 miles down the road.) but if you go at nighttime, it's not super bad. and it wasn't but there was still plenty of other traffic, but we were still able to go about 70-80.

thanks for all your support guys. I took my car in to my mechanic about a half hour ago to have him check out to make sure that nothing else is wrong with the car that I didn't notice. better safe than sorry.

Originally Posted by: PonyOneman, the worst non-accident related rush hour suffering i've had to deal with... it took me fifty minutes to go 3 miles, from 4th street in Santa Monica to the 10 East/405 North interchange. Try doing that after you've had a Red Bull and some juice... now that is pain. And if I'd stayed on the freeway, it would've taken another two hours to get to Canoga Park. LA traffic is evil incarnate.

FTR the first fatility I saw while on the road involved one of those concrete barriers... the guy was speeding and sideswiped a Volvo wagon, lost control and slammed into it; his car flipped over a few times and he got his upper body torn off. Pleasant!

yeah, I've been to LA several times, I know the traffic is bad. I couldn't imagine living there.

btw, my mechanic said there was nothing wrong other than the plastic sheild being ripped off. I'm supposed to take it in next week to have a new one put on... $105 for a piece of plastic.. sheesh. :rolleyes:

You guys should move out here to rural Manitoba. The closest thing we ever had to an accident was when some guy left his brights on once as some other car approaced. And that was 37 years ago.

Originally Posted by: aschlemanYou're referring to median barriers that run parallel to the roads?? The possibility of a car hitting a parallel object to it's route of travel while traveling at 70 mph... with enough force to kill a grown person is very unlikely... In the rare case that a car swerves then over corrects the opposite direction... and heads straight for the median barrier... the car would slide... thus the cars bulk momentum is still parallel to the barrier... Even though it's sliding toward the barrier..... I don't know if that makes sense... Anyway... if a car hits a median barrier... the impact is much less than you may think it would be.... And most barriers in the US are made to absorb impact. They are actually hollowed out on the inside... so that the barrier absorbs the forces of the car... this also keeps that car from ricocheting back into traffic... On the other hand... roads with no median barriers have a lot higher death tolls... due to people falling asleep at the wheel and going across the median into oncoming traffic... or going off the road... subsequently flipping vehicles or hitting telephone poles and such....... Hope that puts your mind at ease a little!

well, all the accidents I have seen into those barriers have involved cars ricchetting off of other cars into the barrier.

It is reassurring to know that the barriers are designed to take impact...thanks for your insight...there was actually quite alot in there that I nver considered or knew.