[James92Scort]

On a serious note, aside from my being killed from a Regal GS today....I got into work this morning to hear the news that my mom had been involved in an accident. First off let me tell you she ALWAYS wears her seatbelt.

Her route takes her to a semi-remote part of the city in which you travel over 3 RR tracks and then you have to make a right turn. Well this morning she was taking her normal route and went over those tracks, turned right and continued on her way. What the police think happened was that she had kinda slipped off the road a little and tried to swerve back onto it, basically making herself fishtail over the oncoming lanes. Whilest she was in her fishtail, apparently another truck/car was coming from the other way and T-boned her in the passenger side door.
I talked to her after I ate lunch and she said all she remembers is driving straight, and then waking up in the field off the side of the road with someone looking into her window. Then she called into the office twice after someone head already called once at which point my dad took off. She went into shock.

My mom was driving a V6 semi-full-sized Ford Ranger 4x4 (I´m sure she had the 4WD on too), but I don´t know what the other car/truck was. I went and looked at my moms Ranger and the entire passenger door is mashed in and parts of it are pushed against the passenger seat, the front quarter panel was shoved underneath the hood and the rear panel was also pushed inward. This truck has those sit facing each other rear fold down seats.

She refused to go to the hospital until my dad showed up and made her go, the doctors gave her an aspirin and released her at 11 or so and then my dad brought her home where she´s been resting since then. Luckily, she got hit on the passenger side of all places so no one was seriously hurt.

This morning was shitty beyond belief, it was warm yesterday, everything melted and then froze again last night, then it started to snow this morning again. That means horrible black ice. By the time I got on the road around 9 everything was just wet, no snow or ice anymore. Just yesterday Fort Wayne had 3 fatalities from this kind of weather pattern.
This is my moms first accident since she was 21 yrs old when she got t-boned by a hit-and-run (and never caught) driver. She´s an excellent driver but I think she just got a little too comfortable with the 4wd at her disposal. I´ve gotten a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with 4x4 sideways, so I know it´s not too hard to do.

I´m begging all of you, wear your seatbelts and if that white stuff starts to fall, slow down. I don´t care if you´re late. slow down.

 

[Black93GT]

Glad to hear that your mom is ok.
:-D

 

[Beaverboy]

Yeah.. good to hear she´s okay.

Wear your seatbelts! They´ll make you a better driver too!

 

[nukewater]

hahaha white stuff, thats not how i judge my life, its when the dirt starts to grow, u can go alittle faster, too bad the dirt dont grow much in canada ;-)

 

[2EGTS]

First off, glad to hear your mom is ok. Seatbelts do save lives so wear them. Lucky for us scort owners thats not too much of a problem (its sort of mandetory). However, many people forget to put there lap belt on. Just remember you need the whole belt to protect you otherwise it could make things worse than if you didn´t wear a belt at all. My mom was in an accident about two years ago. I know exactly what happened because I was with her when it occured (along with my sister, my best friend, and my sister´s best friend.) She was driving my grandfather´s 96 Oldmoble Cierra and thought she could make it across three lanes of traffic into a shopping plaza, she must not have seen the giant white Buick Century coming at her. A second later I just heard SCRREEECH! and then WHAM! The guy was still going pretty fast when he hit us despite is better efforts to slow his car down. Luckily we were almost out of his way and he hit us just behind the rear passenger door. The car almost fishtailed and spun out, but my mom kept it under control and made it into the entrance to the plaza. No one was hurt, but both my mom and the guy were cited for failing to yeild. Worst of all we were on vacation (this all happened in Sandusky, OH) and had only been there for an hour. We were going to go to the Cedar Point amusment park after we got some things at the store. The strangest thing about the whole encounter is that the guy who hit us was on his way to work...AT the amusment park. :-o Talk about irony. Anyway, just be safe out there because things always happen when you least expect them to.

 

[nukewater]

ok, while were at it, i might as well share my stories.

Story A - Car #1 - 2000 Ford Escort Zx3 - May 2002 (age 16 & 3 months)

I had just finished a 11-7 midnight shift at tim hortons, driving around at 7 o´clock, i was not the least bit tired, so i cruised round, then headed to Beinfait (bout 10 km away) everything was fine, we went hunting for a while, then around noon, we made our way back for subs, we took 2 vehicles. He was in the lead, i was behind. It began to rain, wasnt bad rain, but wet the roads. I had switched lanes, and not thinking (maybe due to being tired) i snapped the wheel back straight and when i did, my back end just kept on goin. Into a fishtail i was sent, till finally, i hit the ditch sideways. All i could see was road-dirt-road-dirt-road-dirt till i finally settled on my roof in the middle of the divided highway. I had looked around, no airbags off, but Blink 182 was still playing, so i turned it off, reached for my seatbelt, and WHAM! fell 6 inches onto my face (only funny part) luckily the rear driver window busted out and i crawled out to see my cousin running down the highway towards me and many a car coming to a halt. I was not hurt in the incident, but the car was totalled off.

Story B - Car #2 - 1995 Ford Escort GT - Jan 2003 (age 16 & 11 months)

School had just let out, and my carpool dropped me off at home, and we sed we would goto Dairy Queen for coffee in a couple minutes. So i decided to cruise around for a couple minutes till they got ready, i had passed Dairy Queen and saw non of my friends were there, so i proceeded to Brandon´s house (friend to meet), i was turning the corner (green light) and wasn´t going terribly fast, bout 40 km/h when from behind a large black SUV came a large old van, RIGHT in front of me, i slammed on the brakes only to slide into the front corner of this bahemeth of a van, shattering my front end and exploding both air bags, i was wearing my seatbelt and did not even touch the airbags, but my wrist was on the steering wheel and was rashed by the bag coming out, once again, i sat there, looked around, turned off Blink 182 AGAIN! walked out to see my car in thousands of peices on the road. After swearing a couple times, i proceeded to punch my horn to get it from stop blaring. I tried to start my car, it turned over a few times till it died, i then pushed it off to the side, with once again another totalled car.

So my grand total so far is
$12900 - Focus
$ 8900 - Escort
------------------
$22000, but from SGI i ended up getting $24000 back (good deal)

So now i am age 17 & 1 month, 1993 Red Ford Escort GT, and i just wonder what fate has in store for me

So buckel up, drive smart, and dont total cars :-]

 

[Juggernaut]

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07-03-2003 at 01:22, nukewater wrote:

Story A - Car #1 - 2000 Ford Escort Zx3 - May 2002 (age 16 & 3 months)

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escort zx3? hybrid! (i know, u said focus at the end...

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07-03-2003 at 01:22, nukewater wrote:

So buckel up, drive smart, and dont total cars :-]

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and don´t listen to Blink 182! ;-) :-]

 

[James92Scort]

Everyone was asking if my mom was going to total it today, well I looked at it yesterday and I´d say in a heartbeat yeah. we went back again today to take pictures of it and the car that hit her, hit her hard. The car went all the way to the frame and bent it slightly in. You can now actually reach in and touch the inside doorsill that says "ranger" on it from the outside through the door itself. the whole cab got pushed about 3" to the drivers side and the hood was shoved towards the passenger side, over the front quarter panels. both of the driving lamps popped out, the windshield got cracked pretty bad, and all the glass was gone out of her passenger window. When we get the pictures developed I´ll try to post them up on here.
She did suffer a slight concussion and went into shock, she didn´t remember calling in to the office twice, but now she does...
Apperently she hyper extended her neck when she got hit because her head went to the right and her lunch bag came up and she got stabbed by her fork (funny, but dangerous seeing as how it was an actual metal fork). She took today off and she´ll have all weekend to re-cooperate...
We already went looking at new trucks. Some 2000 (Trail)Blazers, she wants to look at a Subaru Forester, maybe a Toyota or Nissan pickup as well. I highly recomended the Forester because of the reliable 2.5L H4 and the full time AWD system. But it might be out of her price range. We´ll see.

 

[Trashknight]

On a side note, i am a Games Asst. Area Supervisor at Worlds of Fun in KC and they are owned by Cedar Fair. Just a bit of meeningless info. :-]

 

[siragan]

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06-03-2003 at 17:32, James92Scort wrote:
She´s an excellent driver but I think she just got a little too comfortable with the 4wd at her disposal. I´ve gotten a Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo with 4x4 sideways, so I know it´s not too hard to do.

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Yeah I drive an escort, so if I ever get into an accident, I´m fuckin dead, which is why I constantly challenge my driving skills in parking lots late at night, setting up imaginary cones and basically learning how to control the car. Already it´s helped so much, because just last week I threw myself into a skid that would have seriously fucked my car up, because I would have gone off the edge of the road into a ditch, but I luckily was quick to counter-steer and adjust my throttle to control the skid. I KNOW I wouldn´t have known to do that if I hadn´t been messing around in snowy parking lots late at night.

Speaking of which, one of my friends got busted by the cops for doing that stuff late at night. It´s kinda sad, because it has made me a signifiantly more skilled driver. Anyone can point the wheel down the road, but to develop an instinctual feel for what to do when you lose control is extremely important and I feel should be encouraged.

Which is why I hope to join the CNY SoloII autocrossing division this summer, to prove how little skill I have and further develop my technique and meet some cool people and have fun at the same time.

--and good to hear your mom is okay. My mom got into an accident when she got rammed by some geezer in a buick and totaled a 1st gen escort LX wagon. she had to wear a neck brace and it kinda freaked my out, but she´s okay now.

 

[2EGTS]

The forester would be ok to get, but it doesn´t impress me to much in the looks department. Why not try to get the new Baja, that way she would still have a truck that handled almost like a car and it would have four doors, not to mention all wheel drive. Plus, I think it is one of the best looking hybrids (not gas-electric hybrid) out there. Just my 2 cents. BTW, an escort may surprise you on how sturdy it is when its in an accident. I was rear ended in my 87 gt by a full sized chevy truck a year ago and it held up pretty good (and so did I thanks to my seatbelt), but there is still a sizeable amount of body work to be done (I was driving without insurance at the time, luckily the guy didn´t care about getting his truck fixed and no cops were involved).

 

[James92Scort]

Yeah i thought about hte Baja when i went onto subaru.com. it´s more of a truck, like she wants, with four doors and the same 2.5L H4 w/ 165 hp as the Forester...so I´ll ask her about it tomorrow. ;-)

 

[Killian]

To add another story, this was an Escort day. My mom was driving to work in the morning several years ago when she pulled out in front of a car. She was hit in the side of her ´84 Escort wagon, which I called ´Little Thunder´ because of the bad muffler, by 2nd gen. Escort. Then my brother and I picked her up at the hospital in his ´86 Escort. As soon as we walked in, she looked at us (with tears in her eyes) and said "I killed my car". She loved that car. The wagon was in an L shape when we got it back to the house so we pulled off anything good to use on my brother´s car.

The closest I´ve come to wrecking my car, besides dodging idiots on the road (which is everyday in South Georgia), is when I hydroplaned just as I cut my wheel in a deep puddle I didn´t see. Ended up in the ditch, but luckily only a tire off the rim to show for it.

Good to hear your mom´s okay. If you have automatic shoulder belts, make sure you wear the lapbelt, or you could become a head shorter.

 

[Foxy]

:-? All the best to James´s mum - hope no repercussions!
My Escort has the ordinary lap/over-shoulder type belts and no airbag - I rekon I would end up bashing my brains out on the door window in a full-on or even side-on wallop! I´ve never had a car with automatic seat belts - what are they?

 

[nukewater]

stupid thats what, mine dont work, well the pas. one does, but the dri. side makes a hideous knocking sound, so i just pulled the fuse for both of them

Automatic seatbelts, are kind of a novelty. A seatbelt hook is attatched to the pillar that goes over your window, and it slides right from the front of the window, all the way back over your shoulder, so when you sit down, and close the door, this seat belt comes towards you, and down behind your shoulder, after that, you much reach down, and do up your lap buckel.

The way i like doing it is by doing them both up manually, it feels likea fancy half-ass 5 point harness, and then when ur ready to get out, u snap both belts off at once, and they go flying back to their hole, and ur like.. yes :-D

 

[Beaverboy]

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I highly recomended the Forester because of the reliable 2.5L H4 and the full time AWD system.

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[/TD][/TR][/TABLE] So do I. My dad bought a used one a couple months ago. The 2.5L motor and a manual tranny makes it a scary fast ride on the backroads... it´s so weird to sit up that high and be pressed back into the seat as it purrs to that 165hp redline in 2nd gear around a semi-tight corner. It doesn´t have much room in it though. It´s quite comfortable for 4 adults, the rear seatbacks lock into 4 different positions, so you can recline in the back But there just isn´t much room in the cargo area. I´d reccomend a Legacy wagon before the Baja... the Baja isn´t very practical when you´ve got something large.. and the rear overhang is wayy too much for the wheelbase. You need to talk her into a Legacy GT Wagon.. trust me, you´ll love it. Buy her a small trailer and a hitch if she wants the truck-like utility

 

[James92Scort]

She wants more of a "truck" than anything. so a Legacy wagon won´t cut it, don´t go what? i don´t understand it either. I´d rather have her drive around in a Forester. It´s almost too perfect. four doors, nice size, full time awd, I know the specs and from the time she gets it on I can always go outside and pop the hood and see a beautiful Suby engine.

 

[Foxy]

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09-03-2003 at 12:18, nukewater wrote:
stupid thats what, mine dont work, well the pas. one does, but the dri. side makes a hideous knocking sound, so i just pulled the fuse for both of them

:-( Thanks for the info - think I´ll stick to what I´ve got! ;-)

 

[rascal]

"Remember kids, seatbelts will save your life if you use them. Then you can go kick the person´s ass that hit you, then choke the shit of him with *HIS* seatbelt!" :-|

 

[gmoney]

Let me just say, I´m very glad everyones parents are ok and I couldn´t agree with you guys more. On the autostrada over here in Italy. It doesnt matter if your going 60 or 100 mph (LEGALLY, YEEHAW). If you get in an accident if your not wearing the seatbelt. Your roadgrime litterly...So keep em buckled and drive ´em fast when weather permits...I do...hehe
later guys