Ah E36M3, I hit somebody today and probably totalled the Saturn

For the first time ever I got into a wreck that was my fault and it berkeleying sucks. I was driving on a crappy road behind an 11-ish Silverado quad-cab 4x4 when somebody pulled a roll-thru-the-red right turn in front of them. The pickup jumped on his brakes and stopped, I jumped on mine and skipped right over the pothole into his truck. 100% my fault. His hitch was right about the height of my nose emblem, so his truck had one tiny ding and the whole front end of my POS got destroyed, even at 10 MPH. No airbag pop. It's easily fixable, but the insurance will total it I'm sure based on age and miles.

Hooray for a $187 ticket, a $250 deductible, a very pissed off SWMBO, 2 new car seats, and the misery of a Dart rental (holy hell, what a POS, it's worse than the Saturn!).

That sucks. Glad no one was hurt.

Just a side comment. Always move the vehicle in case of accidents that are your fault. There is then evidence of your fault and neither you nor your insurance company can be faulted...

Buy back the salvage, fix with JY parts. Not much else you can do. yeah, it sucks.

Be thankful it was the Saturn and not the Javelin!

Good. You secretly hated that car.

Admit it.

Appleseed wrote: Good. You secretly hated that car. Admit it.

I openly hated that car. I don't feel good though, it deserved a better fate. I may try to fix it anyway.

84FSP wrote: Just a side comment. Always move the vehicle in case of accidents that are your fault. There is then evidence of your fault and neither you nor your insurance company can be faulted...

???????????????????????

Really curious to hear what one of our resident insurance industry pros would have to say about that.

84FSP wrote: Just a side comment. Always move the vehicle in case of accidents that are your fault. There is then evidence of your fault and neither you nor your insurance company can be faulted...

I do not understand this comment.

Gearheadotaku wrote: Be thankful it was the Saturn and not the Javelin!

The only upside if it were is being able to make a thread title "I just hit someone with a javelin".

Could you imagine making that call to the police to inform them of the accident and using that phrase?

Kidding aside, I'm glad you're OK. It could have been much more costly, both money wise and health wise.

If the Dart is a big name rental like Enterprise, return to the same office. Inventory changes daily. They may very well put you into something different for no additional charge.
I'm not sure that something else will be better but if you do not like what they have that day, return another day.

I know you have not been crazy about the Vue so maybe it won't be hard to see it go.

If you do fix, you can likely get a complete, non running, bad auto trans, Vue off CL for scrap pricing.
You may even be able to find the same colored panels so no paint needed.

Glad you walked away okay!

Fueled by Caffeine wrote:

84FSP wrote: Just a side comment. Always move the vehicle in case of accidents that are your fault. There is then evidence of your fault and neither you nor your insurance company can be faulted...

I do not understand this comment.

I'm pretty sure he has a typo and it was supposed to say "There is then NO evidence of your fault." I do not want to know or even be in the same room with people like this.

Any way to place some of the blame on the pothole? Loss of braking due to poor road conditions from an unseen issue. You would have stopped if not for that pothole, right?

Rather than offer advice or snide comments i will say, glad to hear youre alright. I went through thr pain of replacing a car seat (berkeleying recaros are expensive!) After my wife got slid into in our beater prism. It broke the license plate light. Giant pain in the ass with the seats though, even though there's no way it was damaged.

What is with the car seat replacement? Will insurance cover that?

PMRacing wrote: Any way to place some of the blame on the pothole? Loss of braking due to poor road conditions from an unseen issue. You would have stopped if not for that pothole, right?

I would have stopped if not for the potholes, but it's my own damn fault. I don't like it when other people try to get out of things, so I told the cop and my adjuster both that it was my fault. First ticket in 9 years.

~I'm~ proud of you for taking responsibility. Very proud of you. That's honour and integrity, right there.

dean1484 wrote: What is with the car seat replacement? Will insurance cover that?

Law states that a car seat has to be replaced if it's been in a crash no matter what. Too much liability otherwise.

Even if they were empty? I assume they were empty yes?

Insurance here always covers the car seat, empty or not; one of my coworkers got rear ended and received a bigger payout for the car seat than the totalled car it was in. The downside of that liability is enormous.

Poor Saturn, it didn't die a warrior's death and will never reach Car Valhalla. But good on you for taking responsibility. It was the right thing to do, and you'll be much more cautious in the future I bet.

Javelin wrote:

dean1484 wrote: What is with the car seat replacement? Will insurance cover that?

Law states that a car seat has to be replaced if it's been in a crash no matter what. Too much liability otherwise.

Say what now?
I've never heard of this in WA.

In reply to SnowMongoose:

Seems to depend on where you are from and who your insurer is.

http://csftl.org/does-my-car-seat-need-to-be-replaced-after-a-crash/

SnowMongoose wrote:

Javelin wrote:

dean1484 wrote: What is with the car seat replacement? Will insurance cover that?

Law states that a car seat has to be replaced if it's been in a crash no matter what. Too much liability otherwise.

Say what now? I've never heard of this in WA.

That was the only thing State Farm took care of 2 years ago when the Mazda got hit. I had a reimbursement for the car seats in 24 hours. If the car has to get towed away, they have to replace the seats by Federal law, even if unoccupied (IIRC, they always have to replace them if occupied).

FYI, I know in a lot of states it is illegal to have the tow hitch on without something attached.

That'd be a pretty low blow to get the other guy with it, but just an FYI if it takes some liability off you.

SnowMongoose wrote:

Javelin wrote:

dean1484 wrote: What is with the car seat replacement? Will insurance cover that?

Law states that a car seat has to be replaced if it's been in a crash no matter what. Too much liability otherwise.

Say what now? I've never heard of this in WA.

Well, if you bend your race car the incident goes into the car's logbook, and every sanctioning body I know of requires the race seat to be replaced before its allowed back on the track. But replacing an unoccupied seat is just... inane.

mtn wrote: FYI, I know in a lot of states it is illegal to have the tow hitch on without something attached. That'd be a pretty low blow to get the other guy with it, but just an FYI if it takes some liability off you.

No stinger, just the receiver.