adding to the rainy-day carnage

[mspiegle]

I was in Pasadena driving down Colorado in my '87 IS. I had a green light, went across the intersection, dumb woman in a mercedes turned into me.

The cops came and took a report. She was fully at fault (making a left-hand turn against opposing traffic). Nobody was hurt, but it could have been much worse. It was essentially setup to be a full head-on collision... I hit my brakes, ABS kicked in, and I quickly steered the car to the right just enough that only our driver's side fenders sustained serious damage.

A quick inspection of the damage shows a bent control arm, damaged swaybar, damaged tie rod, torn fender/bumper, and bent wheel. I actually don't think the frame took much damage at all due to the way we hit. I have a parts car with everything i'll need, so hopefully insurance will total the car out and I can just fix it on my own.

I hate to start with the stereotypical shit, but she was an old asian lady who was completely clueless and could barely speak english. Luckilly she had insurance and all that good stuff. I'll get pictures later.

[Gr00v3]

neh, i blame ADS

asian driver syndrome.

i'm heading to downtown LA today.

california drivers in the rain = death.

[MrK]

I hate to start with the stereotypical shit, but ...

But you did anyway. Nobody's forcin' ya buddy.

Besides that, glad you're ok.

[AdironRider]

That sucks man, and insurance will most likely total it. Your lucky you have a nice parts car to replace everything with though. Hope everything works out and maybe youll get a little extra spending cash out of the deal.

[mspiegle]

But you did anyway. Nobody's forcin' ya buddy.

Besides that, glad you're ok.

eh, i'm 1/2 asian myself, so i'm justified in my mind.

[mspiegle]

That sucks man, and insurance will most likely total it. Your lucky you have a nice parts car to replace everything with though. Hope everything works out and maybe youll get a little extra spending cash out of the deal.

Thanks! I'm thinking it won't cost me more than about $500 to fix all this. I'm probably gonna go out today and replace the trailing arm, tie rod, wheel, and see if that allows the car to move freely.

[Jarvis]

Have you heard back from the other driver's insurance yet? Don't touch the car until everything is finalized aka a check is in the mail.

[mspiegle]

Have you heard back from the other driver's insurance yet? Don't touch the car until everything is finalized aka a check is in the mail.

Yeah, I realized that earlier today as I was getting one of my parts cars running. That really blows because I think I could have all the suspension bits swapped out in a day and at least be able to drive it if the shit hit the fan.

LUCKILLY, I have AAA insurance (which is supposed to be good in situations like this... we'll see), and the person who hit me also has AAA. I did my report this morning and I should be called on Monday with more info.

[DaveInLA]

That's pretty interesting that she's an Asian woman, because in my experience, that particular group are too passive in their driving. I'd expect her to NOT turn even when she had a chance to. I'm 100% Asian, and my mother and 2 sisters pretty much fit my description. My father, and me to a lesser extent, are the complete opposite. Go figure.

I've been rearended twice in my years driving, once by an 18 year-old white girl and then by a 22 year-old Latina girl. But once, I came *thisclose* to being run off the road by a 50-ish Asian woman in a Camry driving 2 old people. She literally tried to change lanes when I was right there, don't know what the heck she was thinking!!! Something similar happened with a young white guy driving a HUGE pickup truck. I guess my E30 was hiding in its enormous blind spot... or he didn't even bother to check.

[parkerbink]

Sorry that happened, IQs do drop around here when it rains! I hope all is well in the end.

[mspiegle]

That's pretty interesting that she's an Asian woman, because in my experience, that particular group are too passive in their driving. I'd expect her to NOT turn even when she had a chance to. I'm 100% Asian, and my mother and 2 sisters pretty much fit my description. My father, and me to a lesser extent, are the complete opposite. Go figure.

I've been rearended twice in my years driving, once by an 18 year-old white girl and then by a 22 year-old Latina girl. But once, I came *thisclose* to being run off the road by a 50-ish Asian woman in a Camry driving 2 old people. She literally tried to change lanes when I was right there, don't know what the heck she was thinking!!! Something similar happened with a young white guy driving a HUGE pickup truck. I guess my E30 was hiding in its enormous blind spot... or he didn't even bother to check.

I think you're probably right. Since it was dark and raining, the visibility was low and she may not have seen me... She just seemed SO clueless when she got out of the car though.

[DaveInLA]

I think you're probably right. Since it was dark and raining, the visibility was low and she may not have seen me... She just seemed SO clueless when she got out of the car though.

Did she say that you "blake too fast"?

[mspiegle]

Did she say that you "blake too fast"?

LOL... I think she was frightened of me. As soon as we hit and my car came to a stop, I took 2 seconds to make 100% sure that my light was green. I then looked at my girlfriend and said "This is fucking bullshit!". I got out of the car, marched right up to her car and stared her down until she opened the door. I immediately said in a VERY stern voice "You made a left turn against opposing traffic and caused an accident. Give me your license and insurance information RIGHT NOW!". She kind of looked at my funny and my girlfriend came running out and said "Are you guys ok? is anyone hurt?". I said again, "PLEASE PROVIDE ME WITH YOUR LICENSE AND INSURANCE INFORMATION IMMEDIATELY". She got out of the car and checked to make sure her passengers were ok, then we walked over to the hood of my car and she pulled her stuff out. I tried to call 911 because I wanted to have a police report made ASAP. Before I even got in touch with an operator, a few cops showed up. I had begun taking down her information but the officer informed me that he would include all of the information in his police report, so I decided to calm down and let the officers handle it.










And just for the hell of it... here's some pictures of my workspace:

The car on the left is supposed to be a parts car, but i'm driving it to work for now until I fix the '87 or get another car. The car on the right is a '90IS with 125K that i'm stripping down and rebuilding for track duties. There's also a Porsche 928 for good measure.


Whenever I need to work on something, I just move the motorcycles out of the way (There's supposed to be an Aprilia RSV1000 in there too, but it was out to lunch). Got plenty of room and a 220V outlet for a hefty air compressor (which I have yet to buy). You can also see the POS harbor freight hydraulic press which has actually been put to use a few times.

[AdironRider]

I guarantee they total your car for that.

[Jarvis]

I guarantee they total your car for that.

Yeah, there's gonna be some cutting and welding involved to get that road worthy again. Even if you have replacements for all the parts that bolt up, there's gonna be some real work invovled. Good luck getting the most you can from insurance. Totalled or not, you should definitely get enough back to fix it if so choose. I'd investigate the complications of re-registering a salvage/rebuilt titled car in your state.

And what's with the 928? Fuck the E30s... I'd be driving that thing everywhere.