Any one ever being in a car crash??

[PanzerJaeger]

Glad to hear you are ok, Cowboy. I've been hit twice, both by lane changers. Driving a small car in a country full of enormous SUV's with tiny, gun slit windows is dangerous business. Their rolling blind spots.

[Subotan]

Good thing you're OK GC.

I was in a car crash that was my dad's fault when I was about ten in France. It was a head-on collision on a dual carriageway, and my parents were seriously hurt, especially my mum. The other people and my sister and I were OK, but I still don't like driving because of it.

[Husar]

Good to know you're all okay!

I was once picked up by a car when I was sitting on a bike behind my dad, guy "picked us up" at a zebra crossing or what you call them.
Lost one of my milk teeth but the rest was just bruises IIRC.

Then a few years ago I crossed a green traffic light on foot when some of the ground was icy in winter. Suddenly noticed a black truck at the side of my vision that was approaching me, cornering through the intersection. Due to the ice I made two careful but fast steps back, thought I might/would slip and fall if I jumped(and that that was a rather bad situation to be in). Held my arm up in defense and the truck bounced off my arm, or rather my arm and I bounced off the truck.
That made enough noise to make the driver stop, he got out and asked whether I was okay. I said I'm fine and, as is my weird habit, didn't want to bother the police with what seemed like nothing serious, so I shook his arm and went home while he drove off. Of course that wasn't the best idea and I realized that when my arm started to hurt a lot on the way home....

Anyway, it was "just" a seriously squeezed elbow joint and my insurance covered it since I obviously didn't have any info on the driver. People repeatedly told me that was dumb but I was obviously shocked and my first serious accident like that where I was alone (there were other cars but noone seemed to care, not that I cared much about them at the time either).
Well, better than being catapulted a few meters over the pavement anyway.

[aimlesswanderer]

Back when I was about 7, on a dark, winding, narrow road one night coming back from a relo dinner, Mum somehow managed to lose control, hit the rail, and the 4wd ended up on its roof. I remember waking up hanging from the ceiling thanks to my seat belt, and Mum crawling back to help me and my brother down. Thank goodness for seat belts. We were ok luckily, though the car of course was a write off.

Luckily there was a police car right behind us, and they actually gave us a lift home, which was all very exciting.

Sadly we had our lego castles in the car with us, and, needless to say, after getting flipped over, one in particular had structural issues for years after until I did a full rebuild.

I remember that when we went to the smash repairers, we were still finding bits of lego in the car.

[Peasant Phill]

Glad you're OK Cowboy.

My only car accident of note was 10 years back. I was riding my bicycle and stupidly ran a red light at a busy intersection (where cars went 90kph or more). I was able to avoid most cars in the first 2 lanes but got scooped up by a car in lane 3. Miraculously, I was unhurt and my bike only sufferd minor damage (had to replace a wheel but I'm still riding it). The car that hit my got a big dent and a cracked windshield.

[Voigtkampf]

I was in about, say, half a dozen car accidents (both as driver as well as a passenger once or twice), dozen or two near catastrophic misses (most of them involving hazardous driving on utterly crappy roads and were, once again, mostly about me managing not to fly off the road in the last possible second). It was never my fault - and this part is what I hardly believe myself. On the other side, the catastrophic misses were partially my fault (young and restless, driving mostly empty roads, more like a rally run) as well as fault of other drivers and/or horrible roads I was driving on. I simply used to spend a lot of time on wheels, as the job demanded.

On the absolutely positive side, I was never hurt in all those accidents that always ended with only material damage for all parties involved.

As a funny side note, my first cousin was a true maniac on wheels. Living in a territory that could best be described as some sort of "wild west", he tended to race like mad. If the track from A to B would require a normal person driving with a bit of a "punch" take 20 minutes, he wouldn't rest until he would manage to make the track within 15 minutes. Then he'd aim for 14 minutes, then 13 and so on. He has about one dozen fully documented occasions where he literally flew off the damn road, totalling the car. Yes, that includes wheel barrels, somersaults and/or any acrobatic movement a car flying through the air is capable off producing. Those dozen heavy accidents resulting in total losses of a car were, if I am to believe his closest friends, actually more like two dozens of those he had and that escaped our attention because he happened to have them far away from home and nobody caught wind. Most of the cars he wrecked actually belonged to his friends and our mutual relatives. No, he never got to drive my car. Guess why.

The guy never, ever got hurt, except for some cuts and bruises. When I asked him what his secret was, he said, believe it or not, "never put on the seatbelt". "See, this is what happens", he told me in a bar, leaning in his James Dean "I-am-too-sexy-for-this-world-manner" and smoking his Marlboro. "I fly off the road, car hits the ground, I fly out - either through passenger window or through the front window - in one direction, car tumbles off in another. So we go our separate ways. If I had worn the belt half the times I was driving, I'd be dead ten times by now."

Please, feel free not to take heed to this advice. You are not driving a rally.

On the bright side, my cousin eventually got married, got two kids and calmed down to the point where you couldn't recognize him as the blood-boiling teenager and feisty adolescent ready to pick a fight with a freight train if possible in any way or form.

Ah, the fun memories...

[Lemur]

I was in about, say, half a dozen car accidents

Clearly you have done something to offend the spirits of the road.