This incident...er...accident happened on September 6th @ 4:40 p.m. There were 3 lanes and I was driving on the extreme left lane. All of a sudden the car in front of me swerved to the right lane which surprised me and the next thing I saw something rolling down the road from the middle lane which is nothing unusual coz there have been instances when some plastic sheets/paper/ etc...gets strewn on the road.
I slowed down a bit and on closer examination of the rolling down object I realized that it was made of metal and it was huge. I imagined the worst if my car would have run over the object. I thought of changing the lane but the speed of the car and the fact that the road was a bit sloped meant that the object would have ended up in my lane anyway and I was right. I was 10 ft away from the rolling object when I quickly slammed the brakes and was just about to heave a sigh of relief when my car got hit from behind by another car. The impact was such that my car shook and I imagined the back of my car to be a mess. I got down from my car to assess the damage when the driver of the other car requested me to pull over. Luckily for my car, the bumper took the maximum impact along with one of the car exhaust. The vehicle behind me was badly damaged as can be seen in the pictures.
It's puzzling that even though there were two passengers in the car which hit my car, the airbags didn't get deployed.
We called the cops and the California Highway Patrol (CHP) arrived after an hour's delay and took down the details.
The driver of the car which hit my vehicle from behind was a middle aged guy who accepted his fault, profusely apologized to me and gave his insurance details. He was surprised that his car didn't stop even though he had applied the brakes and there was sufficient distance. He praised my vehicle as a well built car which withstood the impact of the crash. He said that it was his first accident in 35 years. I felt sorry for the guy but the fact is that I was not at fault and as the CHP officer stated that it's the California State Law when a car in the front stops, the car behind must come to a complete halt.
I am proud of my car and happy that I was not hurt in what could have been a life threatening accident but at the same time sad that my car which was nearing it's 2nd anniversary got hit :(
Lessons from this incident:
- Always wear seatbelts. They save lives.
- Keep a safe following distance while driving.
