OT--Cheated Death Again

[Bullethead 12]

I was just thinking the other day that it's been a while since the Reaper took a swipe at me and that he was about due. Sure enough, he gave it a good try a little while ago, but once again missed me clean. You just can't kill a man who's born to hang .

 

I was riding home with a friend about 2300 our time, having gone to the big city to see a movie. We were nearly home, on the 4-lane divided section of the Blues Highway, when we spotted a police car coming the other way with his lights on. He wasn't chasing anybody so we figured he was heading for the usual Friday night bar fight in our little town.

 

As it turned out, though, he was trying to warn us of some damn fool going the wrong way in our set of lanes. Problem was, this was just as we were entering a big curve to the right up against a steep hillside, so we couldn't see the on-coming SUV until it was right on top of us. We were in the right lane side-by-side with a pick-up in the left lane that was gradually passing us. Fortunately for us, the wrong-way idiot was also in the left lane.

 

My buddy immediately headed for the right shoulder and continued on into the ditch while the pick-up slammed his brakes and tried to get into our lane. Unfortunately, there was neither time nor space to pull it off, and the wrong-way SUV made no attempt to dodge. Thus, the SUV and pick-up hit head-on right beside us. By the time of impact, the pick-up had slowed down enough so his front bumper was about even with the middle of our car. Thus, when he spun into our lane after the off-set collision, he came in just an RCH behind us. We stopped about 30 yards on in the ditch, completely untouched.

 

The pick-up had 2 guys in it. The passenger was bunged up but managed to get himself out. The driver, however, was in pretty bad shape and had to be cut out with the Jaws of Life. The wrong-way idiot was a blonde chick (don't it figure?). She was knocked out cold but came to fairly soon and was relatively unhurt except the engine block was knocked back onto her foot. Lucky she didn't have anything life-threatening because it took the firemen a good while to pry her loose. Me and my buddy helped a little, mostly in getting stuff off the firetrucks because we knew were it all was stowed.

 

All in all, it's amazing how well airbags protect people. When I was a fireman, before those were so common, 1 or 2 of them would have been dead for sure.

 

I've complained about my buddy's driving in the past. He has a tendency to tailgate people and can't hold a constant speed. However, he's got good reactions when the chips are down, and I guess that's what counts .

 

The funny thing is, it being Friday night, we had decided to forego our usual "one for the road" after the movie before starting for home; we didn't want to fight the crowds at the bars. So OT1H, we were stone sober when we had to give statements to the cops. But OTOH, if we HAD stopped for a drink, we wouldn't have been at that place and time to nearly get killed. So it just goes to show, once again, that in this life you're just screwed no matter what you do :rapage: .

 

But I'm for damn sure having a drink right now! :drinks_drunk:

[ONETINSOLDIER 2]

Besides being wasted, I cant for the life of me figure out how someone can drive down the wrong side of the hiway.

[Check Six 2]

Besides being wasted, I cant for the life of me figure out how someone can drive down the wrong side of the hiway.

 

 

Tourists possibly. Those BLOODY English types or damn aussies and the like that drive on the wrong side of the road when they're home, so they come "here" and are used to it, so drive on the left side of the road!

 

Just quietly, some of our American friends do the same here...you turn out of a driveway and automatically head for the right side of the road. The right that is the opposite to left, which is wrong. At least here it is.

 

Glad to hear you came out OK Bullethead. Also glad that whilst you American types use a different measuring system from most of the world, some measuring systems (such as RCH) are universal.

 

Also glad to hear you have "usual Friday night bar fights" in your "little town". Helps relieve the boredom I suppose.

 

Nice post mate. Maybe the admins will consider moving it to "Reports from the Front". About as dangerous and threatening to life and limb, just as exciting as the other posts there. Good work.

Edited August 1, 2009 by Check Six

[Hasse Wind 46]

Phew! A close call. Good to know you weren't hurt and nobody lost their lives. The Devil takes care of his own. :yes:

 

Working in a hospital as a surgeon assistant, I can confirm that cars have definitely become much safer over the last 20-30 years. I see some really bad cases every now and then that would have been fatal in the 80s, but not anymore. Of course treatment methods have also improved, but not as dramatically as car safety.

[CaptSopwith 23]

Wow, glad you're alright Bullethead! That was a frightening read! Having been in two serious crashes in my time (one in which a van hit my two-seater Miata at an intersection) I know how unnerving those moments can be! Glad to hear you walked away from a very near miss.

 

So did they ever figure out why this woman was driving the wrong way on the highway? Please tell me it wasn't something completely moronic like texting while driving...

[Duce Lewis 3]

All in all, it's amazing how well airbags protect people. When I was a fireman, before those were so common, 1 or 2 of them would have been dead for sure...

 

But I'm for damn sure having a drink right now! :drinks_drunk:

Yeah, an explosion 2 feet in front of your chest can be life saving eh?

Good to see you slipped by that 1 bullett

Enjoy the brew

[Rickitycrate 10]

Good Observers report there mate. Your pilot did well in this instance and brought both crew and crate back safely. I thank God. I often get a "message" to take a different route than usual. I have learned over these years to heed this impulse. I have heard of accidents or other problems that I missed by doing so. I am glad you are both okay

[JimAttrill 24]

I once came off a British ferry at Ostend very early in the morning as it was just getting light. I was one of the last cars off, and all the Brit tourists were in front of me. I was not in their category as I lived in Germany at the time. All went well until the roundabout before the motorway to Ghent. The first car went from the RHS of the road and then blithely set off down the wrong LH side of the motorway. This is easy enough to do when there is no 'native' traffic around to show you the right way. However, about another 20 tourists then followed the guy in front. I then went down the right road, put my foot down and overtook them all, flashing my lights and blowing the hooter like mad. I remember them looking across at me, no doubt thinking 'that car is on the wrong side of the motorway' before the penny dropped. I last saw them all slowing down and pulling to the side.

 

But who can point fingers? I once drove through Dover and was wondering why I couldn't read the signposts until I discovered I was looking at the back of the signs. It's easy to do at 4am with no traffic about.

[Duce Lewis 3]

The same danger for pedestrians

When approaching the street in the US, the tendancy is to look left

Do that in Britland and you'll get a Hillman in the butt

 

It goes both ways

Winston Churchill looked the wrong way in NYC and got hit

Two cracked ribs and some lacerations

[Dej 17]

Do that in Britland and you'll get a Hillman in the butt

 

You'd be lucky to these days! And if you did you'd probably be admiring the classic car rather than complaining about the accident. Gosh! Nostalgia.

 

Glad to hear you're ok BH, these fora wouldn't be the same without yah.

[Bullethead 12]

Besides being wasted, I cant for the life of me figure out how someone can drive down the wrong side of the hiway.

 

Well, the driver WAS a blonde chick . But I agree, given that it was 2300 on a Friday night, you'd automatically suspect some intoxicant was involved. However, when she came to, she didn't act drunk, she acted panicked and was all wired with adrenaline, so didn't appear drunk to me at all, nor did she have the telltale "Faces of Meth" going, so who knows?

 

She was a local, not a Brit tourist. Besides, I think everybody, even the Canadians, drives on the right side of the road in this hemisphere.

 

Yeah, an explosion 2 feet in front of your chest can be life saving eh?

 

Well, it depends. Yes, airbags will often save your life, or at least allow you to have an open-casket funeral even if you're pulped from the chest down. I could tell you some gruesome stories in that regard . However, they can also kill you in several insidious ways. That's pretty rare in comparison to them being helpful, but the risk always makes me uneasy because they include occasions when you're not in a situation where the airbag would be helpful. On the balance, however, it's probably better to have them than not. I've found most folks prefer the taste of "airbag pie" to "windshield brittle".

 

However, let's talk about the potential problems, just to make you all aware of them. First off, airbags are usually counterproductive unless you're wearing your seatbelt complete with shoulder strap. Besides the airbag, cars have seatbelt pretensioners that go off a split second before the airbags, snatching you back into your seat. This makes sure you're the correct distance from the airbag when it deploys. Airbags move as fast as bullets when they're deploying, and have to come to a stop in the inflated positoin before your face touches them, or they could easily break your neck. And, of course, they're designed for adults so can still break the necks of children below a certain size even if they're wearing the seatbelt.

 

In fireman training I once saw a demonstration of the power of an expanding airbag. This guy took the whole steering column out of a car, from the wheel to the U-join on the far side of the firewall. He set it vertically on the ground, standing on the steering wheel, then fired the airbag. That entire steering column, weighing about 50 pounds, was blown about 15 feet vertically into the air. Another demonstration put a crashtest dummy sitting unrestrained within the deployment zone of an airbag. When we fired it, that 150-pound dummy was blown back a good 4 feet. So you do NOT want to be slapped by the airbag while it's still moving toward you.

 

Second, the explosive charges that fire dashboard airbags (side bags are usually fired by compressed gas) produces a huge amount of heat that lingers in the assembly for several minutes. The passenger's bag is usually mounted directly above the glove compartment, which most folks have crammed full of flammable things like maps, receipts for car repairs, etc. If the pile is big enough that this junk touches the top of the compartment, or the angle of the car after the wreck makes that happen, then the residual airbag heat can set it on fire. The fire will then spread to the plastic dashboard, producing highly toxic fumes as well as growing to involve the rest of the interior of the vehicle. If you're in a wreck where airbags deploy, there's a good chance you'll be unable to get out of your car due to it being all bent up and/or you being injured. And if you're out in the boonies, it might take 10-15 minutes for the guys with the Jaws of Life to arrive. That's not a good situation in which to have a fire inside your vehicle.

 

Third, airbags are man-made devices so sometimes malfunction. Sometimes they go off for insufficient reason, such as running over a dog or hitting a chuckhole. Being stunned, surprised, and/or having your vision blocked by the airbag can then cause you to wreck your car. And when that happens, the airbags have already fired so MOST of them won't offer any protection from the real impact.

 

Airbags can also malfunction in NOT firing when the should. Then they're just sitting there like a dud bomb and can easily be triggered if slightly jostled, blowing a fireman and/or his heavy Jaws of Life into your face at high velocity. Such jostling can happen from the stress of the Jaws of Life prying the wreckage open. While firemen can cut battery cables, most airbag systems have capacitors in them in case the initial collision tears out the battery. Thus, it's recommended that firemen cut the battery cable and wait 15 minutes or more to let the capacitors bleed down before extricating somebody from a car with dud (or multi-firing) airbags. This never happens in real life, of course, because no fireman can watch a guy bleed to death or writhe in pain as the timer ticks down. Plus all firemen know of documented cases of airbags firing in cars sitting in junkyards for 6 months after their batteries have been removed, so don't put any faith in the 15 minutes anyway. But none of that changes the fact that you've got a live bomb sitting there that can and has killed both victim and rescuer.

 

And fourth, as mentioned, the side airbags are usually fired by compressed gas. The cars that have side bags almost always have a computer that only fires specific bags as needed, so in a frontal wreck the side bags usually don't fire. This means that charged gas cylinders are hidden away, somewhere in the roof or door posts. Unfortunately, all makes and models of cars have them in different places, NONE of which are marked. In fact, even the markings that the side airbags themselves exist are as unobstrusive as possible so as not to detract from the beauty of the car, and thus are easily missed. The problem is, cutting into one of these gas cylinders is about the same as setting off a hand grenade, in both blast power and shrapnel, and all the hiding places for them are just where firemen would like to cut the car to get you out. So there's nothing for it except to strip away all the interior finish and paneling to find the cylinders prior to making a cut. So just hope that you're not bleeding or burning to death during this delay....

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Gee, thanks Bullethead. Anyone have a good price on a horse and buggy?

 

Seriously, BH, glad to hear of your narrow escape. How many does that make now?

[Creaghorn 10]

glad nothing happened to you and your pal.

i'm wondering, what did you feel or think while it happened? IMHO life dangerous moments like this reveal the true heart somebody has. you can't control your feelings and behaviour on moments like this. you just act instinctively. and that reveals everything without using sense or education or intelligence. you simply act and maybe later you can think about it and remember what you have felt.

 

i remember one situation when in about 2.am. i was on a highway on a section without speed limit and any lights or something. i was on the left lane and suddenly my car broke down. it simply stopped. no battery, no warning lights, nothing worked anymore. completely dead. i tried to steer it to the very right lane as long as it rolled but between the left and middle lane it just stopped and there i stuck. it was dead night and completely dark. i saw in the mirror several lights of cars coming from behind, driving with about 120 mph towards my rear and i knew they can't see me and will crash into me. just at the very last moment they saw me and passed me with a swerve. probably they were all shocked of course. then the next bunch came from behind. trucks, cars, and all i could do was just sitting inside, hoping they'll see me in time. they were too many for me to just jump out and run to safety. besides that i could not simply leave a car on the road as a deathtrap. so i just kept sitting inside, took my cell and called the police. strangely i was rather calm and without any fear, my mind worked completely clear. i remember that i was wondering if the safety belt would give me any protection and i think i have laughed when i in a fracture of a second came to the conclusion that it will have no sense. so i sat inside, seeing cars coming from behind and at the last moment facing horror of just avoding a dead obstacle in the middle of the highway. it took a while when for some seconds theere were no more lights from behind, so i jumped out and pushed the car to the safety lane.

several hours later the terrifying feeling came when i thought about what just had happened and what could have happened. but strangely not in the moments when the thing happened.

[Bullethead 12]

Gee, thanks Bullethead. Anyone have a good price on a horse and buggy?

 

Cars are more dangerous only because they can go faster so it hurts more when things go wrong. Also, back in the day, it took more net worth and innate intelligence to acquire and keep a horse functional than it does a 21st Century car, so as a result far less people are condemned to walking everywhere today than back then.

 

It took the North Vietnamese 10 years to kill as many Americans as we kill ourselves in 1 year on our own highways. And despite this, I'd rather have cars than horses. Any time you make control responsiveness a committee decision, things cannot possibly hope to end well .

 

Seriously, BH, glad to hear of your narrow escape. How many does that make now?

 

I have no friggin' idea. I'm now nearly 46.5 years old and nearly 30 of those years were "on the firing line" in 1 capacity or another. I've got the scars to prove it, physically and psychologically. But I daresay anybody in the US who has not been as "adventurous" can still match me on the number of close shaves. After all, we routinely kill as many Americans on our own highways in 1 year as it took the North Vietnamese to equal in 10 years. The Taliban and Al Qeda combined, including 9/11, aren't quite on pace to match the North Vietnamese, and they all fall far short of what the Germans (either time) or Japanese individually accomplished in far less time.

 

Granted, there are lies, then damn lies, and finally statistics, in order of veracity. But the last I heard, if the US had the same per capita death toll on its highways as the Germans, we'd be killing 2x to 4x as many people per year as we do now. Thus, I imagine the average German can easily exceed the average American in the number of narrow escapes.

Edited August 2, 2009 by Bullethead

[Duce Lewis 3]

Well, it depends. Yes, airbags will often save your life, or at least allow you to have an open-casket funeral even if you're pulped from the chest down. I could tell you some gruesome stories in that regard ....

Yep, there's Pluses and Minuses to those things

I used to work in the Auto Industry making acuators for all the automated devices on cars today

Detroit was asking for actuators to move the foot pedals forward & back

Problem was too many people were sitting too close to the airbag

As you said, it has to have room to inflate before you invade it's space

They wanted the drivers to sit back and bring the pedals to them

That was almost 10 years ago, but I don't know of any vehicles with this feature

Course my vehicle is older than the hills so there's probably a lot of new dodad's I don't know about

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

I have a friend with a disability who uses hand controls in place of brakes and accelerator. She is only 4' 10" so she sits only about 18 inches from the steering column. I keep telling her to either disable the air bag or sit back farther from the wheel but she never listens to me. But then, she also has a bit of a death wish...

[Bullethead 12]

i'm wondering, what did you feel or think while it happened?

 

I had no influence on how things played, being just a passenger. While I was saying, feeling, and thinking something rather worse than "OH CRAP!", my buddy was doing the same AND steering us clear.

 

What I felt as I watched the collision within spitting distance was, "better them than us", and "I hope we're still not caught up in this mess when they bounce off each other".

[Duce Lewis 3]

Yeah, accidents can have a very surreal feel to them

I went through a period in the late 80's when I swear my vehicles were magnetic

One in particular was like a carnival ride

I was traveling down a minor route that crossed a local road diagonally, they had the stop sign

There was a small knoll that blocked view of the road and as I approached a lady shot out on my right ...&%^@#*!

 

Swerved hard to get around her, but there were 2 other vehicles coming head-on towards me

Only chanced taking about 2 feet of their lane as a head-on would be worse

Bam, the lady impacted my right rear quarter and sent me spinning CW

1st thought through my mind was 'I'm in a pinball machine' ...played alot as a kid

 

Knowing the spin should throw me fully into the oncoming lane meant 'we're not done yet'

Waiting for the 2nd impact, I watched the guard rail approach my car from the right, spin, then depart to the left ...weird stuff

Getting hit off-center there was no whiplash and I just sat there watching the world spin around me

 

Luckily the ladies in the 2 oncoming cars were brilliant and avoided me

The 1st skidded her brand new car within inches of a utility pole and the 2nd inches behind her

I ended up doing a 360, stalled out but sitting perfectly straight in my lane

 

Climbing out of my li'l crumpled RX-7, the women started screaming at each other but quieted down as fast as they sparked

One last check to make sure the fence wasn't moving and we waited for the cops

 

Turned out ...it was a 3 car accident after all!

All the plastic debri, metal clips, etc clattered all over her 2 week old car

Yikes! you fear getting your 1st scratch and she got 100

She got a paint job and I had my RX patched up ...but the decade wasn't over yet :black eye:

[JimAttrill 24]

I read somewhere that US airbags are more powerful than European ones and therefore more dangerous. This is apparently because wearing seat belts in the US is not compulsory as it is everywhere in Europe.

[Olham 164]

Good you have learnt a leathery kind of humour, Bullethead. That was close!

 

So OT1H, we were stone sober when we had to give statements to the cops. But OTOH, if we HAD stopped for a drink, we wouldn't have been at that place and time to nearly get killed. So it just goes to show, once again, that in this life you're just screwed no matter what you do

 

This, I just see the other way round - in both cases you did (or would have done) the right thing.

[Bullethead 12]

I read somewhere that US airbags are more powerful than European ones and therefore more dangerous. This is apparently because wearing seat belts in the US is not compulsory as it is everywhere in Europe.

 

I don't know about the relative strengths of US vs. Euro airbags. I suggest a test. Pull the steering column out of some fairly large Euro car and launch it with the airbag. If it goes up about 4-5m, then I'd say they're about equal strength .

 

Seatbelt use in the US has been compulsory for many years. Enforcement has long been pretty lax, however. In the last few years, however, they've really started cracking down on it, at least in most places. It's hard to watch TV for any length of time these days without seeing a "Click it or ticket" commercial.

 

I think the reason for the sudden step-up in enforcement is the growing number of deaths and injuries from airbags caused by lack of seatbelt use. Airbags have been mandatory equipment on new cars for long enough now that even most old used cars have them these days, so now just about everybody is exposed to them. Even where I live, in a poor rural area where most folks drive old clunkers. It really wasn't until 2005 or so that the majority of wrecks around here involved airbags, but now nearly all of them do.

 

Because airbags are government-mandated equipment, the government doesn't say much about their hazards, under the theory that governments can do no wrong. Kinda like how the structural problems of Airbus planes are hushed up... About the only thing most folks might have heard on the subject is that "Final Destination" movie where a chick gets killed when an airbag goes off while she's being cut out of her wrecked car. I'm sure most folks dismissed that has Hollywood BS. However, it's still a fact that way more people have been killed by airbags than by all the kids who've taken guns to schools. I picked up that tidbit during fireman training.

 

Prior to all the various kinds of airbags making their appearance, firemen naturally got people out of wrecks as fast as possible. Time is important in such situations. But once all these airbags and all the various related features started becoming common, a lot of people started getting hurt in the extrication process. Thus, there was a lot of retraining for firemen, to change them from charging in gung-ho into approaching wrecked cars as if they were going to defuse a live bomb, which is essentially what it's like now. Because firemen are hard-chargers by temperment, it took a lot of demonstrations and talk of gory statistics to change their habits.

[ONETINSOLDIER 2]

on the same topic,

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ef1_1249622783

 

holy crap!!!

[Bullethead 12]

on the same topic,

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ef1_1249622783

 

holy crap!!!

 

Yeah, that would have put him in traction for months if it had rolled up his leg. Might have even killed him if it had slammed his head into the pavement.

 

One time when I was driving 18-wheelers, I was heading east on I-40 towards Gallup, NM early in the morning. A faster truck was passing me, and as we come up a slight rise with the sun in our eyes, we saw a bunch of tire fragments ("gators") too late to avoid them. I saw all sorts of sparks under the other truck's trailer, plus hunks of rubber flying all over. As he switched into my lane after passing me, I saw something sticking out the right side of his trailer, but I couldn't tell what it was. I told him about it on the CB so he pulled over to take care of it.

 

I kept going, but his radio still reached me after he found out what it was. Turned out, it was a split ring from one of those old, 2-piece 18-wheeler wheel hub, hung up on the flat tire rack under his trailer. The gap between the ends of the ring is only a couple of inches, which is the same as the width of the channel iron used in the flat tire rack. IOW, the ring had made a perfect horseshoes ringer on the post of the rack.

 

Had it not done so, it would have bounced left or right. If it had bounced right, it would have cut like a knife through the aluminum of my driver's side door at about ankle level--so much for me. Had it bounced right, it would have cut the air brake lines of his trailer, so those wheels would have locked up and fish-tailed at 80mph right next to me--so much for both of us.

 

You know, I need another drink just thinking about that... BRB