I was rear-ended today. Gee was that fun. Most people’s first thought is probably, “eh, people get rear-ended all the time.” Yeah, but I was going about 60mph at the time, and the idiot still managed to ram into me.
I was on my way into work around 1:45pm (hey, I was up until after 1:30am working on urgent stuff). I entered the 805 North from 52 West, and after I looked in my rear view, I saw a commercial truck (not a big-rig, but uhaul sized or so) coming up on me fast. He came pretty close but slowed down and fell back. He fell back enough that I didn’t keep track anymore. About 2 miles later, as I was approaching Miramar Way.. I had to slow down a little (maybe down to 55) due to slower cars in front of me. There wasn’t any real traffic to speak of, but I was going to be exiting soon and wasn’t in a hurry. The car in front of me got into the “Exit only” lane to take Miramar, and I noticed the car in front of him was an old VW (or maybe Volvo) and it was the slow car. I was catching up to him a bit (he was a couple hundred feet ahead) when he took the 2nd lane exit to Miramar. At this point I started accelerating again to get back up to 65, and seconds later I checked behind me again.. . lo and behold, here came the same truck from before. I started to think something along the lines of “here comes that jackass again,” but quickly realized he was going to hit me! I couldn’t swerve either way (short curb for exit on right, car in lane behind me a bit to the left) so I just jammed down the gas to try to minimize the speed difference. Then he nailed me.
I don’t think the speed differential was more then 10mph… but goddamn was the hit hard. Luckily I didn’t lose control at all, and immediately we both pulled over and stopped. I got out figuring the back end of my car was smashed to hell, but it turns out there was almost no damage whatsoever. I was in that fairly angry, but really shaken up mode.. so while I did get his info, I completely spaced on getting his name. I got the insurance info and wrote down the license plate too just in case. I didn’t feel any ill effects, nor do I yet. I’m pretty sure I put my head against the head rest to minimize any whiplash… still a tiny part of me worried about the horror stories you hear about people who feel fine then wake up the next day with their necks killing them… hoping nothing like that happens.
Some crazy things I noticed that gave some indication of the force of the hit:
– The moon roof in my car had opened up about 4 inches.
– I had a soda can in the center console cup holders, which barely had any soda in it.. and some of that splashed out onto the gearshift.
The only visible damage: 4 nut imprints in the bumper. 2 from the license plate, 2 from wider out on his front bumper. That and a bit of the left side of the bumper had popped out of place a bit, but it snapped right back in when I pushed on it. Took this shot as soon as I got to work… can see the 4 bolt spots. Part of why I took it was for a date/time stamp just in case too.
All in all, it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse, of course. It’s a good thing I didn’t swerve too, I’m pretty sure that would’ve pretty much guaranteed that he still would’ve hit me, but at an angle instead of flush, which would’ve made me fishtail and lose control I’m sure. All the drivers training (that drove me nuts at the time) that my grandfather put me through likely helped me keep my cool and maintain control too. Thanks for that gramps. 🙂 Kudos to Toyota for building a hell of a car too.
Going to call dealer tomorrow (would’ve today but I was still really busy) and set an appointment. I have a couple things that already needed doing, but I figure it’d probably be a good idea to have them check out the car for any damage I can’t see. Just in case.
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Miguelito
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