Tuesday 10 November 2015

Oh bum!

On Saturday, Mr D and I were going about our business doing some errands. The weather was wet and windy but had calmed a little. We were chatting about this and that in the car and, having just pulled away from some temporary traffic lights, we were in a line of slow moving cars. All of a sudden, I heard the screech of breaks and tyres on wet road before an almighty crash as the car behind slammed into the back of us, shunting us into the car in front!

The rear bumper has been shoved so hard that these metal rods are now protruding through each side!

The boot doesn't shut very well

The side sections of the rear  bumper have been twisted

This is the rear of the car in front now! 

Our poor car looks very miserable indeed, both front and back are damaged and after describing the damage to our insurers, they feel the car may well be a right off. At least the chap behind is insured so it's all being processed now, but it wasn't a pleasant experience. Mr D had a very sore neck and my upper back was sore, but we took some ibuprofen and applied various heat pads and felt a bit better, if still stiff the following day. Mind you today I actually feel worse so I might get the doctor to check it over in my appointment tomorrow.  We will be offered massage or physio via the insurers if we need it. The poor chap in front had his elderly parents in the car with him and they looked rather shocked, but no one was seriously hurt. Mr D and I were relieved that we had just dropped our youngest back at home and that we didn't have Jet in the boot - he doesn't need any more psychological trauma!

It will be irritating if we have to find another car. We have three at the moment, having brought mum's car back and we had been planning on scrapping our big 7 seater as we don't really need it any more. We'd been keeping it to ferry stuff back from Mum's house as its like a van when you take the seats out. I love that car - very comfortable, great visibility and such a workhorse, BUT the gear stick is held together with parcel tape and the window trims are all falling off; it's covered in scratches and the glove compartment won't shut anymore, so hangs open like a permanently gaping mouth! I think we might have to keep the big car until it's MOT/insurance runs out and Mr D will have to use my Mum's car for getting to and fro from work. At least we have options, which many people might not.

16 comments:

  1. At least its only the cars damaged and no one was as you say seriously hurt, the shock of it all is bad enough and then there is the inconvenience and time taken to sort it all out, hope it all gets sorted soon :-)

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    1. No serious injuries although the stiffness in my back and shoulders is increasing so off to the GP for me tomorrow morning. We've already had multiple long phone calls, emails, texts and now the letters and forms are arriving... Hey ho! Of course we've also got all of Jets insurance to sort too. Isn't that always the way?

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  2. Why oh why do drivers ignore road conditions. Thankfully you were not seriously hurt, and that the guilty party was insured. I hope that all goes well regarding the aches and pains, sometimes these things take a few days to come out.

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    1. Oh yes, my back hurts more today so I'm off to see the doctor tomorrow! :(

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  3. Its good no one was hurt but it can be irritating at the same time. My daughter used my car when she had just passed her test. My stereo wasn't cool enough so she installed a faceoff one. But she forgot to take the face off one evening and the car was broken into. The thieves cut my dashboard to smithereens. The car was an economical write off but it was worth so much more to me than a couple of hundred pound. We bought it back from the insurance an hubby mended it as best as possible with the balance of the cash we received. I would never have got another car like it for milage etc.

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    1. We hadn't had any intention of getting rid of this car - it had plenty of life in it still BUT we do have another one to fall back on. One of those irritating things I guess!

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  4. You could have whiplash so I would get it checked out. It took a few chiro appointments for me to get rid of it. You should be offered a replacement car, or even a hire car if yours should be a write off. Like you say, could have been a lot worse. At least with all your photos, no one can wriggle out of it.

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    1. I think you may well be right with the whiplash. I think on the day the adrenaline covered it up, but it seems to be developing as the days go by. Will get it checked out tomorrow morning.

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  5. Glad you weren't seriously hurt, but whiplash can linger so you should see your Doctor.

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  6. I hope your back is okay and that Mr D hasn't sustained whiplash, as you say all these things happen at once don't they.

    You're not the only one to have a car accident Lovely Hubby was driving nose to tail in a traffic jam on the A34 late on Thursday night and ran into the back of the car in front who braked very suddenly. As our car is a big Mitsubishi L200 the only damage to it was a pushed in and broken grill, and a broken number plate, however, the other car needs a bit more work to it's rear end, it was to wet and windy to do much at the time but phone numbers and names were exchanged and then everything sorted out very easily the next morning.

    Later on we went shopping in it to pick up some paint for the garage floor and a whole tin of paint ended up all over the floor of the back of the truck, and in every car park we parked in after that we left grey drip marks ..... we're still waiting for the third thing to happen.

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    1. Oh dear poor Lovely Hubby too and then the paint :( that will be a nightmare to clean out. We've done it once with decking stain. It splashed all up my lovely leather boots, so I had to buy some leather die and die them all darker brown. Every cloud ......
      Hopefully there won't be a third or it will only be a minor event?

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  7. Any minute now you will start getting weird phone calls from people wanting to offer to help you claim money!
    Thank goodness no one was seriously hurt and as you say you've got some options for the time being

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    1. Thanks. Those kind of phone calls will wind me up enormously!

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  8. Glad no one was hurt but it's a pain when your car gets damaged isn't it?

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    1. It certainly is! But I guess we are lucky to still have a 'spare' car we can use at the moment. We could have got a hire car but don't need one.

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