1-5-2002 Car Wreck
Here’s the story - Saturday, January 5, 2002
For those of you who don’t know here’s how it happened . . . Bear in mind, this is pretty unbelievable but it is what happened.
I was driving to O’Hare airport with my nephew, Chris, and his girlfriend, April, so she could catch a flight. We were still pretty far north when the accident occurred.
I was in the left most lane of traffic and there was a semi slightly ahead of me in the center lane. The guy driving the Escort came barreling up behind us and decided he wanted to be in the left lane to overtake the semi. Forget the fact that there wasn’t enough room for the lane change, I guess that little minor detail was irrelevant. Another thing to mention is I’m almost positive the right most lane was completely empty.
So as soon as I noticed he started to make his lane change I swerved onto the shoulder. Everything would’ve been fine had he kept control of his car but he didn’t. He swerved to the right and got his entire front end caught under the semi trailer just in front of the rear left wheels.
Before I had a chance to react he became dislodged and shot back at my car. He managed to not only sideswipe the entire right hand side pretty good but he pushed us on to the median. Yes ONTO the median. So we’re riding with my left tires on the median and my right tires on the ground for a ways (we all thought we were going to roll) I managed to get all four wheels on the ground.
At this point I pulled off to the right side of the road, put it in park, and shut off the engine.
You’re probably wondering what happened to the driver of the white Ford Escort. He ended up shooting across all three lanes, past the shoulder, into the ditch, and partway through a fence. Believe it or not, he walked away. I’m not for sure on how serious his injuries were however, I was so disgusted with him I didn’t even go down there until after he was gone. It was a slight sense of satisfaction when they ripped the bumper off his car trying to pull it out of the ditch.
As for us, we all got out of the car with bruises, Chris had back pain and did need to attend physical therapy for a period of time, but that’s the extent of it. It’s better than death!
The semi truck driver was not found when we finally left and I doubt he ever will be.
I’m just glad that I was able to keep a clear head and keep my car under some kind of control while this was going on, I’m also glad that we were in a safe car (five star safety rating all around) with a steel safety cage, All Wheel Drive and a pretty low center of gravity. I’m sure all of that played a big part in being able to walk away from this one.
Another lucky occurrence was the amount of people who pulled over to make sure everyone was alright. I’m guessing 15-20 cars. We found out later that this guy was doing this to a ton of people in back of us. I have a feeling he wanted an accident. Anyway I think most if not all stayed to fill out witness statements (including Erin’s husband, thank you!!!!)
So now that you’ve heard the story, how old would you say this guy was? 16-17 perhaps? Maybe younger without a license?
Well believe it or not this guy was 61 and driving worse than any teenager that I’ve seen. I really wish I knew what he thought he was accomplishing.
A week after this happened I saw the movie “The Fast and the Furious”, there’s a part in that movie where people are maneuvering their car under a semi truck to get to the other side or just to avoid obstacles. Maybe this guy thought his car was low enough to do it too?
We also found out his insurance was through a high risk provider who would provide the bare minimum required by IL State Law due to past offenses for what’s probably an astronomical price (surprise surprise). The impression I got from my insurance agency was that I would’ve been not much worse off being in this accident with an uninsured driver. All I can say is I was glad I had full coverage with a lower deductible so I did have that going for me . . . The other insurance company finally paid out a year later.
The damage didn’t look too bad on either car actually considering what took place but had things happened any differently it could’ve been a lot worse and we also may not have been able to walk away. As it stood both axels are bent and the sides are bashed in among other things . . . Amazingly enough the doors still opened, closed and sound solid!!!! (Well obviously with the exception of the gas cap door . . .)
Below are pictures of my car after the accident. The car was repaired (a cost to the insurance company of about $12,500 which was cheaper than totaling it out apparently) and I kept it until July of 2005.
