How many car accidents have you personally witnessed?

Question

How many car accidents have you actually watched happen, or you were there when they happened...? Not just driving past them afterwards.

I ask because I've seen a LOT of them in the past two years, and I'm not sure if it's just because I have a long commute. I want to know, is this common among people with long commutes?

Answer 1

I have seen dozens over the past 30 yrs, I drive for a living and usually travel appx 200 to 300 miles a day, Drivers are getting worse though and there seems to be more cars on the road. Just remember everyone out there is in a hurry and most of them are inconsiderate.

Answer 2

I have been driving for 50 years.
I have personally been in about a dozen accidents or incidents (an incident is when you think this is no accident, but someone caused it deliberately)
I have personally witnessed perhaps a dozen involving other people ... that's like 1 every 10 years where I am an eyewitness to how it happens.

The statistics are difficult to measure ... Cincinnati has bridges that are sloped ... think major highway going along side of a hill, with a bridge over that connecting higher up streets with lower down streets. Anyhow there was a time when I was sufficiently inexperienced driver not to know not to use those bridges in winter time when slick surface turns to ice. So I driving like 5-10 mph because icy conditions & there's some people on sidewalk waving at me & I wave back, then I am over the edge & why are those cars parked on the bridge every which way? & oh heck I have no traction, the brakes no help, I just clipped that car, I am spinning, still gathering speed, I just clipped another, another, I am having trouble keeping track of all the cars I hit, oh ***** a pedestrian in the middle of this, steer steer steer try to get around them, ... each time I straighten out the wheel I can feel the tires rolling, but twitch steering wheel even the most microscopic amount I am into another skid, oh thankyou God I missed him.

Ok, so I am at the bottom of the hill, debating whether or not to try to exit my car and get out of the way of the next car to come down the hill, most of them a heck of a lot faster than me, or hunker down and ride it out, because I can see pedestrians out there clambering over trying to get out of the way & them no traction either.

When the police arrived, there were about 100 cars piled up & they declared it a nobody fault accident.

I have had short commutes & long commutes ... I think some intersections are extremely dangerous, and I learn how to detour them.

Answer 3

One.

But I have seen it over and over in my mind. It demonstrated absolutely that you CAN NOT hold onto your infant when you are in a collision.

I was in a truck, so I was sitting higher than the car ahead of me at an intersection.

As another car approached from the opposite direction he had a green light but the car ahead of me drove forward to make a left turn, slowly, and directly into its path. Had the driver moved quickly, a collision might have been avoided.

I watched the oncoming car try to find space around the other, slow-moving one, but there was none.

The car was struck by the rear door and the impact spun the car around. As the car moved away from the point of impact and began its spin, a baby, all wrapped up in blankets, was torn out of the arms of its mother who was in the front passenger seat.

The baby hit the inside of the windshield, moved across the dashboard and then moved against the driver windows, which were closed. The baby went totally around the inside of the car and finally banged against the back of its mothers seat and fell to the floor.

The woman in the back seat was cut in the face and upper body with smashed glass, as was the mother, whose head hit the window, and broke it. Her head was a mess.


I realized several years later that the mother was extremely lucky: I had a boss who was hit in similar circumstances, but the side window did not break and the concussion killed him.

It was a lesson in what people see, or think they see at an accident scene.

Very curiously, and even though it was at an intersection where a number of cars were already stopped, no one else actually "watched" it happen, including the man who was with me in the truck.

For me, it happened almost in slow motion, as I recognized the inevitability of a collision as the car moved away from in front of me, so I was able to give the police an exact description of how it occurred.

Answer 4

Several through the years. Watched one a few weeks ago as someone went through a red light and creamed a mini van in the side.

~

Answer 5

about 4..