damn that sucks man....

 

Dean, I was on 17/880 heading towards SCU, I was going back to school. If you drive, you'll be able to see my skid marks leading all the way into the center divider and you can see my paint on the divider and where I hit.

It is on 17/880 a little after you pass Valley Fair shopping mall and right before the Bascom exit. I have to go by there every time I go back to school and it's just a bad memory for me :-(

 

ouch.. that is where one of my co-workers crashed his FD back in 1994 or so. Sounds like almost the same spot. His first comment to me when I got my 8, "you got the traction control right? don't turn it off!"

The whole, lets add another lane to make the road wider, CA philosophy of road construction really annoys me every time I have to drive that. (When I'm in CA, I have to commute from Sunnyvale to Los Gatos... so I drive that stretch daily.) I can easily see how this contributed to the issue, especially if the road was at all slick from rain.

 

So my dad went to go see the car today in the yard. I couldn't go because I had school, but he took these pictures. We were talking and he said that he does not know if the car will be totalled or if it will be fixed, he thinks it will be around a 50/50 chance and it might be our decision.

My decision is of course going to be to fix/keep the car, but only if there will not be any kind of aftermath that will affect the ride of the car (example: bent frame) If we are able to fix the car, I might do mazdaspeed body kit and mirrors because I will need new mirrors, front bumper and rear. With body work, I'll probably also have the car debadged, but it all depends on what the insurance company is going to do.

Here are the pictures, you tell me if the insurance company will say it's totalled or will be able to fix it.

 

Some more

 

Last set

 

Honestly, I don't see how would they not total the car - but I'm not an insurance appraiser. I've seen cars with way less damage than what these pics show and the repair bill was already some 10 grand...

 

I'm so sorry to hear about your accident. Your poor baby. Unless you were driving like an idiot I'm not going to tell you that you need driving lessons or anything. Stuff happens.. you did your best to recover and you almost did. I'm glad you're okay and nobody got seriously injured. If you want to take the driving course I'm sure it would be great fun but it is also no guarantee that you would've been able to save yourself from this mishap, just as the DSC may or may not have made a difference. We'll never know and none of us were in the car so we can't really say if you did or didn't do everything possible to recover. I hope everything works out and you get another car you love.

 

Despite popular belief. Ignorance is not bliss. You don't need to be an idiot driver to benifit from car control school.

 

Looks like you got lucky and she pitched over on the edge of the roof during the roll. Could have been a lot worse.

 

ohh nooo that wasn't my point at all. Let me rephrase it. If he was driving like an idiot I'm not going to defend him at all. If he was an idiot he's lucky to be alive and he needs more than driving lessons.

If he wasn't driving like an idiot and wasn't speeding etc and it was truly an "accident" then I don't think it is fair to tell him to take 'driving lessons' like it was his fault. Sure it would be great for anyone to take those classes, repeatedly even. But my point was simply let's not get all down on him for something that could've possibly happened to any of us (driving lessons or not), we don't really know, we weren't in the car.

I don't want to be too mean but yeah he should've had the DSC on, it probably would've helped but again we don't know that for sure. I never turn mine off and I know it did keep me on the road once when it was a bit wet and I misjudged a corner and took it too fast and started to slide.

If the driving lessons would specifically teach him to leave the DSC on then yeah he should take lessons.

and Blue I thought you were very nice the way you suggested it. It was someone else that said not to spend money on mods next time but to take driving lessons. That was the comment I thought was a little mean.

 

sorry to hear about the loss hardhitter, hopefully you can get ol girl back. If not not to sound insensitive tell me how much you want to sell your supercat for I'll pick it up.

Good luck.

 

Glad to hear you're okay. I'm being punished, so they've taken away my ability to view pictures, but I'm sure it would make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing here is that you're okay. Keep us posted on the insurance process and what happens next.

 

That is the old test pilot mentaility. It must have been the man, not the machine. If I were in the machine that wouldn't have happened. I guess I watched The Right Stuff too many times.
There are too many variables in the conditions encountered on the street. even in a known piece of road, to turn off the DSC. For perfromance driving on a track, yes I'll turn it off.

 

Silver huh?...

 

Glad you're ok man!! I'm a collision apprentice and I saw a Nissan Altima come into our shop that had been T-Boned in the rear door at a highway intersection while traveling at highway speed, went sideways hitting the center divider, rolled over onto its side and slid grinding off the sheet metal on the passenger side then back onto it's wheels.......took it like a champ. New cars can look flimsy but you're 8 probably did save your life. On another note, It may have been suggested already(didn't read all the posts) but if you hit the divider before losing the back end there is a possibility that you may have damaged the rear wheel/suspension making the car unrecoverable even with DSC. The fact that you are alive and understand what you think you did wrong shows a good driver. Don't beat yourself up, I think you did what anyone in that situation would have done and in an accident things happen fast, theres no way to know if the car could have been recovered.

 

Yikes! I know that right sweep after Valley Fair on 880. I can see why you lost control there. I almost hit that one time with my Solara. If I had the stock rear sway bars when that happened, I wouldn't have reacted as fast. Luckily, I got away with just a pissed off driver on my right that was speeding. I don't think you are the first to hit that divider, because I have seen marks there before.

 

Yup - the locals are familiar with that nasty stretch of road. The car really took the brunt of the accident and you walked away. Be grateful. The airbags did their job. Pretty amazing that the sunroof and rear window are intact.

Thanks for the admonition. Yeah - everyone - drive safe.

 

Dean, I never really noticed how many divits there are on 17/880, especially now with all the construction they are doing on 17 and putting temporary divders literally a few feet away from the actual lane is very dangerous to me. (hope you know what I am talking about, on 17 around the bascom exit) One of my friend's mom--who is a law teacher at SCU--was telling me I should be able to sue the city about something like this or because of the roads. I really don't think I have a case for it, but who knows.

Speaking of airbags, it's funny, none of mine went off. The only airbag that went off was the passenger side curtain as you can see in the pictures. I don't understand how I didn't hit the steering wheel or a window when I hit the divider. Only thing I can think of is I am lucky I hit on my passenger side, because my body would go to the right, if I hit on my driver side, I most definatly would of hit my head on the window...scary to think of that.

Everything just keeps replaying in my mind, and just thinking of every possibility I could have done to try and recover from it. I talked to my dad about driving classes/school and he said he would want to do it with me because he's always wanted to go and do one, so it would be great for me to learn even more about whichever car I get and father/son bonding and learning to be safe.

 

I'm not suprised that your front and passenger airbags didn't go off, since there wasn't a direct impact to the front, but I'm suprised your side curtain, and seat airbags didn't go off since you said your flipped it. I'm also really suprised to see the strength of the moonroof. Looks like it wasn't even touched. I used to work in the replacement rental business, so I got a chance to see a lot of accidents, and if they would total the car or not. I have to agree with one of the previous posters that this is probably a 50/50 chance. If its mostly the sheetmetal, then you'll have your car back in about 3 months, but if you bent the frame when you hit the center divide and rolled, then unfortunately it will be totalled. Again, you are lucky to be a life. God really took care of you on that one.
On a different note, I was driving that area about 2 years ago in my Chevy Malibu, and some lady in a minivan lost control for a bit in that same area, and almost took me out. Maybe there is something the city should do about that, since it seems to be a reoccuring problem.

 

Do you guys think I have a case in bringing this to the city as a cause of the crash or is it just a waste of time?

 

HH, sorry to hear about your accident, the RX did it's job and kept you safe which is incredible.

Please I ask everyone else on this board, if you don't know what you're doing, and you aren't racing around a track please just leave the DSC to do it's work. It's not that intrusive that it would interfere with your everyday driving and it actually allows for a bit of play as well.

 

Waste of time. They will see a young kid who was driving in his sports car too fast for the conditions and just laugh at you... and to be honest they would be right.

Learn from this, I say never make the same mistake twice.

 

car looks totalled to me as well.

 

Good to hear you're okay. Sorry about the car.