2010 accident/incident

I've now had 2 accidents within 1 month in my July 2010 purchased Prius. First one I was hit when someone ran a redlight. Rear quarter panel and bumper had to be replaced ($6k in damages). Yesterday someone made a left turn directly in front of me so the front of the car will need to be fixed. I am really impressed with how well the car held up in this last one, it was a direct hit to the other cae but the Prius came out pretty unscathed.

dk2463

 

Are people watching the gauges and displays too much?

Suggestion:
When a red light turns green, always wait a few seconds
and look around for a possible red-light runner.
This probably saved my life 4 or 5 times over 50 years of driving.

 

That will get you honked at in SoCal- you really wait 3-4 seconds? Having said that I always look having recently witnessed just this kind of accident.

 

Is there a black cloud over your head following you around?

That's some serious bad luck...or you're not paying attention to what other idiot drivers are doing. Many idiot/donkey drivers here in the DC area, I drive very defensively and always expect them to do something stupid.

 

I had some young dizzie girl back into mine last night. Minimal metal damage, but she managed to hit the spot where the passenger door and front fender meet - so 2 panels need repaired. Shoudl hear back from her ins. company later today.

 

I have to live with it all the time.

Even if you win you lose. You are basically in a lose lose situation when something like that happens. You can lose for a few seconds while a person do something stupid or you can lose a lot by getting into an accident. Even if the other guy's insurance fixed your car, now your car is in a national registry of "fixed cars" (I forgot, carfax of something). When you sell it, it will be worth at least $1000 less.

 

My Little finger would come up....But then again, gotta be weary of the road rage...Lived in LA for 11 years and know what you mean...

Hurry Hurry....not worth it all the time...

 

I never understood why they don't just time the lights to be red both directions for 1-2 seconds then change the appropriate lanes to green. I did finally see that at one a while back. It just makes so much sense and seems so simple.

Little finger or middle finger?

 

Lights go to all-red for a second around here.

Of course everyone knows this and uses that second to keep going through the intersection...

 

With the red light runner, 2 cars had gone before me and several went through after I got hit so it's not an issue of waiting a few seconds. Not sure how anyone could have prevented that one. The second one, the driver turned in front of me when I was less than 4 feet from him so unless I could read minds, not sure any "defensive" driving would have helped.

 

That seems to be the way in most countries. UK and some other commonwealth countries additionally have red and amber together for a second or so before the traffic lights turn to green. Allows people to get the car in gear and disengage the handbrake.

I learnt to drive in Brussels. The definition of a second? The time between the traffic lights going green and the guy behind you blasting their horn. Probably the same in other places.

 

My Prius was new, not having had her for a month when I was hit in a shopping center mall. I was waiting for a spot to open up as the driver of car #1 was backing out when they suddenly hung out their window to yell at me. I realized a car, car #2, I was blocking was about to back-up and hit me as they were pulling out of their parking spot. Thankfully, I jumped out and yelled and they stopped. So I backed up my car a spot to let them go. They, car #2, went and while waiting for the original driver, car #1, to back out, the adjacent car to car #2 which shall be known as car #3, hit me. It was an 02' Toyota 4runner and it resulted in minor bodywork damage to my passenger front quarter panel. The driver didn't see me in his rear view or driver side mirror, but I'm sure if he had looked in his passenger mirror, he would've seen me. Never before have I had an accident in a parking lot.

 

Of course! As another pointed out, this just gives the light runners 1-2 additional seconds to run the red, but I believe that many will actually take one or two more than that.

My region has some of each.

 

My kid and I were stunned to witness an accident in an intersection near our house in our new Prius yesterday...a white Scion turned left in front of a white Camry that was proceeding straight through the intersection....we were turning left at the 90d cross and were the front row witnesses...saw the Camry literally bounce off the Scion....both spun...it was a mess. Plenty of rescuers came to the scene and I drove my kid away to spare more trauma...Should someone start a thread '10 Prius attacts bad Ju Ju?

 

To the OP -

I did, a bad one, my fault (reaching to grab stuff that fell on to the floor). A big DUH. On the good side, the car did an admirable job protecting me. It is one of a few cars out there w/ knee airbags, and I know that made a difference. As did the seatbelt pretensioners, active head restraints, etc. I walked away feeling stoopid. Still in the shop, after 7 weeks. Like any car, I don't expect it to be as good as new. But safety counts. I do wish they had totaled it though--again, never the same.

 

Jeez, traffic is really THAT nuts in NYC? Moving to avoid being hit results in your being hit by another car? I thought Columbus, Ohio was bad. lol.

 

Not an accident but an incident happened to my 2 month old Prius today. While driving down I95 a box or something white and hard blew up out from under the car in front of me and slammed into the front and up the windshield of my Prius. It scratched the plastic cover of myheadlight, tiny scratches up the paint on the side of the windshield and scratches on the windshield. It's not terrible but it was so pristine and perfect. I wanted to keep it way a long time. I will take pictures in the light of day tomorrow and maybe some of you wonderful, knowledgeable Prius owners can tell me if there might be a fix such as a way to buff out the scratches. I am pretty sure that the headlight scratches are permanent-they are deep. I realize in the big picture I shouldn't be so bummed about this but it has really made me sad.

 

When traffic lights go all-red, people start running red lights, they assume that the 'other guy' will stop. As long as there is an amber light on the signal, there is no need for all-red.

 

I was sitting at a redlight when a car scraped by me. I had only had my beautiful 2010 for 3 weeks and I was in such shock that I didn't get the tag number!!! I found out the hard way that the BLIZZARD PEARL paint is more expensive than white for bodywork because it has an extra layer. Plus, the panel design makes it more complicated for repairs a couple of body shops told me. Some scrapes cost 5-6K at the average body shop but my insurance company got a better deal. Now she looks good as new.