Fire Update -- Guess What? It was totalled!

I thought I would update the thread I started on July 3 (http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-prius-main-forum/82130-our-2008-prius-dies-in-fire.html) since there may be a few people interested in how this finally came out. The other thread had gotten very long, so here goes:

1. I received what I would call a fair settlement from State Farm. Strangely, I had already negotiated to purchase another 2008 from a forum member for the exact price (to the dollar) that State Farm figured was a fair settlement. I really had no grounds to argue since I had already established what I thought a similar Prius with the same mileage was worth.

2. My insurance is going up about $100 more a year because of this. The accident is being called a collision, because I hit a mattress in the road. However, if I had hit a deer, that would have been under the comprehensive part of my policy and I would only have paid a $100 deductible instead of the $500 I got nicked for. Go figure. I guess I could argue the car was parked and the engine turned off when it burned, but in fact the fire was going before we got parked, although the car was not yet on fire. This was the first accident I had in my adult life in which I was "at fault" and I'm 63.

3. I'm still not sure how I could have avoided this. Traffic was moving at 65 mph. I was in the right lane and there were cars on my immediate left so I could not swerve to avoid it, even if I had wanted to. The mattress just appeared from under an SUV ahead of us. Was I maintaining the recommended six car lengths? I'm not sure. The best I could do was brake sharply, but at that speed the stopping distance is more than the length of a football field.

4. My "new" Prius is sharp! It's a 2008 Touring edition and has been beautifully maintained. It has Katskins leather seats and tinted windows, which really look great on a silver car. I had a satellite radio add-on (not the Toyota one) but this has the Dice iPod adapter. I'm not terribly fond of the Dice unit. It seems slow to respond and I don't quite see the advantage over loading up six CD's with MP3s, but maybe I'll get used to it. I do miss the XM/Sirius radio. I'm getting the Platinum extended warranty transferred to me and my extended warranty on the burned car is being refunded, pro-rated of course.



5. Lessons learned? Life's not fair, but I already knew that. Buy good insurance. An hour after I had made a phone settlement, a State Farm agent came to my house, picked up the title and keys, and handed me a settlement check. From the time I reported the accident to the time I had the money was less than 72 hours. This enabled me to pick up my "new" Prius the next day. Very good service, (although I'm not pleased with being found at fault). I learned there are a lot of used Prii in the Kansas City market, mainly on dealers' lots. I looked at quite a few, but none seemed special. We considered buying a 2010, but the change is kind of jarring, especially in the dash area (buttons galore!) and the 2008 we found was just exceptional. Used Prii seem to be moving very slowly right now, perhaps because of all the bad publicity.

I also owe a great debt to the folks who stopped to help, at great personal risk. Using one's own fire extinguisher on a burning car while traffic whizzes by a few feet away at 65 mph requires a lot of courage. Thanks to the fine people I never got a chance to thank.

6. People used to stop me at the gas pump and ask me how I liked my Prius. My response was always that if my Prius were to be wrecked that day, I'd go out and buy one exactly like it. Little did I know I'd be called on to fulfill that somewhat casual pledge. So all's well that ends well. No one was hurt. It could have been a tragic accident at that speed. As much as we love 'em, cars are just piles of easily burned metal and plastic. People are most important . I have to keep remembering that.

And one other thing: Exploding gas tanks are mostly a movie convention. The fire was so hot it melted the asphalt under the rear of the car, but no gas spilled or exploded. But it still looks cool in the cinema.

For anyone interested here is a complete album of the fire and damage:

Picasa Web Albums - Joe - Fire

 

I didn't define a car length, but thanks for doing the math. I always try to maintain a safe distance, obviously more than 60 feet, but in very heavy traffic that becomes difficult. I'm not making excuses here (am I?) but if I slow to maintain a reasonable distance I can bet someone will cut in front of me, thus immediately making a really dangerous following distance. I'm not sure how it is in your area, but that's the reality here.

Could I have swerved onto the shoulder as you suggest? Emphatically, no. We were on a curve and the shoulder was fairly narrow with a sharp dropoff into weeds/grass. People who try to yank their cars around at high speeds usually end up killing themselves or someone else. Inexperienced drivers are prone to this.

I'm not sure where you get your braking numbers. You wouldn't be using test track, controlled condition numbers, would you? These are useful for comparing vehicle stopping distances, but don't begin to tell one how they should stop their car. Since the cars behind me are travelling 92 feet per second, would it really be safe to stop my car in 176 feet? There are any number of stopping distance calculators on the web and (depending on certain variables) they show an expected stopping distance of around 300 feet or more at 65 mph.

"All that said, I still believe that some obstacles are best hit squarely, slowing substantially but without swerving and without setting yourself up for a hard read-ender. This is how the car is best equipped to protect you."

Yes, that's what I actually did.

 

Actually my agent told me I'm only being assessed because they paid out more than $750 on the claim. If they had caught the guy who dropped the load, his insurance would have paid and I would have been out nothing. So my rates going up have nothing to do with my driving, only with the fact they couldn't catch the guy who was responsible for causing the accident.

 

With all due respect, the vehicles behind me didn't pile up on my deck because I kept moving, only stopping when I could safely pull over. The mattress was stopped on the road -- it fell off a car in front of me. Get it? (Why is it when people say "With all due respect" they mean no respect at all?)