I thought you guys might like to see what happens when sombody doing 10mph in the fastlane, cuts in to the 60mph carpool lane without looking:

EDIT: before sombody flames me, I was in the carpool lane.







The result as you can see, is not good. so far, the tally is one busted truck, two sprained wrists, and a broken thumb. Thank you steering wheel

damn

oh shit

Ouch!!

Glad to hear no more injuries than that, although hand injuries end up nice and achy later in life.

I'd want that whole front-end replaced. I'd also be concerned about any damage to your engine... any contact with the ground? If skid plate has any marks on it, get the oil-pan replaced due to possible impact weakening....

Anything up with Insurance? I'm assuming they didn't total it on you. I hope the police report didn't find you at fault at all. Some states file no-fault reports which can make this situation into your fault... you know... the good ol' "You should have control of your vehicle and be able to stop in time to avoid collision etc. etc.." Love those kinds of arguments with insurance. Hope all goes well.

No issues with insurance. No issues with the police report. He takes 100% responsability.

yeah "you should have had time to stop in that 10ft, which at 60mph = fraction of a second"

Jason something just clikcked in my head and I don't know why it wasn't any earlier than this but... It is as simple as SAS! I would have to say go for it bro. Come on you know you want it...

I wouldn't have worried about being flamed.. The pick showed the right side of your truck being busted.. unless you are very talented, you had to be on the left in the accident.. and sence mose carpool lanes are at the left edge, or right edge of the freeway, they arn't to the right of the fast lane....

Assuming he has the luxury of driving another vehicle for the entire time it would take to plan and execute an SAS, sure, that would be a great idea. But I have a feeling he's going to want to get this back on the road ASAP and the other person's insurance will only cover a couple of weeks' worth of rental car...

Shit, Jason! Glad you're (relatively) okay. This could have been A LOT worse. It always makes me really nervous when I'm cruising in the carpool at high speeds next to stopped traffic. I've seen that go wrong too many times. It's especially disappointing to see things like this happening to your truck because you've been working so hard on it, had so many obstacles, and put so much of your time and effort and $$$ into it. It's most disappointing because I know how much you love your truck, from what I've heard of and from you. Again, glad to see that you're alive and well, and only in discomfort.

Please feel free to email me if you need anything. Take care.

Sorry to hear, man...

Why I never drive with my thumbs hooked in the steering wheel. Have never actually heard of the broken thumb scenario until now.

Hope you can get your truck fixed easily.

You just don't think about that when you are cruising along.

While ofroading, I don't hook my thumbs for that very reason.

But the rate of speed at which the steering wheel was spinning when the wheel was ripped off, was enough to break my thumb at the base, and the impact sprained my wrists.

No airbags deployed.

Us Southern Californian Granites are dropping like flies. Glad to hear your injuries were only minor.

With the rain starting in Socal, I've seen some pretty gnarly accidents where others may not have been as lucky.

Yikes... glad it wasn't any worse than it was.

Will the insurance cover putting it back like it WAS (Calmini UCAs etc) or do they just cover stock parts?

With my accident my insurance company told me that as long as it's bolted or wired to the vehicle, it's insured.

I have State Farm Insurance.

If it was my fault, then I would be worried. But his insurance has to restore my vehicle to the way it was before the accident.

Are you sure your hand injuries werent from beating the livin boogers out of the dumbass who pulled in front of you????
Sorry about the truck man, that sucks

A busted thumb has got to hurt like hell.

Prob'ly puts a crimp in his "social" life, too . . .

Ha! No I still have my right hand for that

Yes it does.

I know it wouldn't change anything ...........but I would probably have had to put that shithead to sleep for being a dumbass.

Jason

I was pretty dazed. Seeing some guy run across three lanes of traffic to get my tire/wheel/axle, was pretty trippy.

I have tried the pissed off approach before, and it didn't work out, so this time I shook the guys hand, introduced myself, and said "what the fuck were you thinking?"... it seems to have worked well so far.

Amen, brother...I've only gotten attitude from one person who rear ended me, I let it escalate, and next thing I knew, I was explaining to the arresting officer how those bruises got there, why he was bleeding where he was bleeding, which was not a place people normally bleed from, why he had pepper spray in his ear, what were the hand cuffs for, and why my truck was full of cutting tools, rolling papers, and books about communism. Led me into about three months of paperwork hell, not to mention the confiscation of a nice Benchmade knife.

The next guy who rear ended me got a big hug, donuts and coffee, and a ride to work. I even helped him with the police report and his insurance paperwork, because he didn't speak English and couldn't read so well. In return, the police left us alone, and I didn't go to jail for the giant bag of marijuana behind the seat. It was the most pleasant unpleasant experience of my life. You did good in not losing your temper. It's difficult, but aren't most things?

Sorry 'bout your X.

Wow...sorry about your truck and injuries dude.

In the pic, it looks like he just hit your tire like a cruise missle or something...there's barely any visible damage to the rear of the wheelwell, and not much in front of it either other than what looks like what happened when the truck continued w/o the 4th support.

What did he do, just come across the front of the tire at speed, you braked, he hit the leading edge of the tire with a 40-50 mph speed differential, the steering wheel spun like a left turn, spindles and arms, etc...snapped, (followed by thumbs and wrists)?

Shrock Bars help, or did the impact all occur as above with only front of wheel area involved?

At least the kamikaze was on the Pass side, and not into your door.

:rolleyes:

Well, here is what happened in detail:

It was night.

I was travelling west bound on the 91 freeway in the carpool lane (I had three passengers). The lane was fairly clear so I was moving about 60MPH. The fast lane of the freeway was slowing rapidly, and suddenly this guy decides to cut across the double yellow in to the carpool lane. He has to cut sharp because he was coming up on the traffic and was slowing quickly(he was down to 20MPH or so), so when I saw him (about 10feet away) I was looking at the side of his vehicle almost completely. He admitted to not looking, AND not signaling, not that it matters.

I hit the brakes, but it didn't do much good. The passenger side of the front bumper was the first thing to come in contact with his vehicle, at that point, my tire caught his doors, this forced the wheel and tire to turn right (to the rear of his vehicle) once the steering hit the bump stop, the assembly broke free from the ball joints, and finally the Calmini tie rod was the last thing to break. So now the wheel is exited from the vehicle. At this point, my shrock sliders impacted, this took me up and over his vehicle (at the same time pushed his away). We ran on two wheels for a while, and then came down on the lower control arm with a shower of sparks. I had lost braking power because my brake fluid was draining, so I just scraped to the left shoulder as best I could.

And somwhere in there I broke my thumb and sprained my wrists.

Wow.


Hope your injuries heal quickly. And the trucsk too.

Oh, and the sad thing is, there was maybe 1 mile of carpool lane left.

Updates!

Well.. 2.5 months later.. still no truck!

They are still working on the frame, and now have to swap out the steering gearbox and such.

Pics from today, on the frame rack.

I just got my Xterra back after 3 1/2 months in the shop. It was a completely different kind of accident though, with me getting t-boned by a redlight runner.

Good luck on yours.

Who is doing the work?

Looks kinda weird to see all of the bright metal and paint next to the underbody. Good luck.

An auto body place here local called Spencer Auto Body. Had used them before, and they did a good job, wasn't anything major like this however. We shal see.

I have been checking on it every few days, just to make sure everything is getting done, and so far so good.

Well.. it's on FOUR wheels at least!!

Still don't have it back however.

It's coming back together nice though. Trust me, you want to give them time to do a good job and not just "fix" it half-assed. You had some pretty serious damage to repair.

do you have any more pictures from before they started the repair? Why did they take the emblem off the hood? It didnt look damaged in teh first pics.

There is no way I could drive a rental car that long!

The first page of this thread has the orriginal pics. They took the emblem off because the hood has paint damage, so they had to blend and buffer the whole thing I guess.

I'm not driving a rental, I am driving my first truck 1991 Nissan Hardbody pickup.

Youre entitled to a rental (if you want it) from the other driver's insurance company. They had to give me one when I just 19 for over 2 months.

Oh, it gets to be fun . . .

My first new car was rear-ended by a drunk, only four months after I bought it. Only 4500 miles on the clock.

The drunk's insurance company put me in a rental for the entire four months that it took to repair my car . . .

Do you know how much air a Grand Am can get, if you hit the train tracks just right at 60 mph?

I beat the shit out of that rental car. No body damage, but I pity the idiot who buys it from Enterprise when they finally sell it off . . .

Update again...

Pic of where it sits in a storage lot.. they can't figure out whats wrong with it.

It's looking good... what kind of problems are they having with it now?

I think somebody switched bumpers on them!

Pulls hard to the right on braking. They dunno why.

Indeed. I was going to replace the stock anyway, so I told them to hold off on it, and I just cashed it out and put the money in to an aftermarket.

Good call. Hopefully they figure what the problem is soon and get your truck back to you!

I guess the problem isn't as simple as I and some of us here thought. Hope that you get your truck back soon - and it better be as good as new.

Hope I get mine back soon as well...

'Cause it's a Nissan. Perfectly normal to pull one way or the other :p

To the point where it is an uncontrollable hard right turn? We arn't talking just a drift... this is a take out the traffic in the other lane nothing you can do about it pull.

This may sound stupid, but it sounds like the left side brakes aren't engaging. Maybe the brake lines are crimped somewhere and not allowing the brake fluid to the brakes?!? It sounds like only the right side brakes are engaging though.....Just a thought...