Is is bad driving or an accident?

MrsE_2

About 3 years ago I skidded off a country road & ended up in the ditch, car was wrote off.

I've badgered myself since, how much was my lack of countryroad & bad conditions experience & how much really was an accident.

It was officially the black day for accidents that day, the 999 services (can't remember if it was police or ambulance said it was the 8th in their small patch so far that morning & it was before 8am.

It was a low lying back road (could call it a boggy sort of road with some really deep ditches along either side.

The man who "rescued" me said he knew it was going to be really bad, it was raining hard when he left work at 2am & frozen when he got up.

I was probably doing 30 mph (with hindsight I think this may have been too fast). A couple of cars skidded & almost slid into my rescuers car while we were roadside. It was slippy to walk on.

Was it down to my inexperience (moved to sticks from London:o) or was it an accident?

If I believed more it was my fault, I think I would be less scared now, knowing 1. I've learnt to be very cautious on ungritted winter roads & 2. I now have big meaty tyres on my little monster truck:p

clever_username

well it was an accident in that you didn't intend for it to happen, if you admit you were going a bit fast then you may have misjudged the speed for the road conditions and/or not shown enough caution and could've avoided the incident.

who knows?

you don't sound like a maniac who was tearing around the place in snow and ice, just someone who slid off the road in very bad conditions that you rarely see in this country and have little experience of. despite what people say anyone can have a crash in icy conditions, no matter how good a driver they claim to be.

i wouldn't beat yourself up over it to be honest.

spike7451

It was just an accident,When I was based in Germany,I was driving to my squadron where I worked one frosty morning & hit a patch of black ice doing about 20kph (the speed limit around the roads on camp) & skidded into a bollard.As I was going downhill,the force wrecked the front bumper of my new car.

MrsE_2

I would rather it was bad driving - or rather inexperience of the local back roads.

Then I would feel more in control of stopping it happening again.

clever_username

spike7451 wrote: »

It was just an accident,When I was based in Germany,I was driving to my squadron where I worked one frosty morning & hit a patch of black ice doing about 20kph (the speed limit around the roads on camp) & skidded into a bollard.As I was going downhill,the force wrecked the front bumper of my new car.

exactly. it can happen to anyone.

also fred dibnah is a legend! :cool: "did ya' like that!?" :rotfl:

rugbyleague

this happened to me aswell.

Car in a wall me in intensive care with 7 broken ribs.

To this day I don't know how it happened

Speed fine, policeman afterwards talked about black ice and lots of accidents at the same time.

I still drive the same route each work day and its just outside the shire of Mr Dibnah!

jackieb

I'd say it was an accident. I also wrote off our people carrier in black ice. I wasn't going fast. I kept my distance. I saw the car 2 cars in front do a 360degree skid. I took my foot off the accelarator, changed down gears, then started to brake slowly. Nothing happened - even when my foot was all the way to the floor. Then I started pumping the brakes. And nothing happened until I skidded (fortunately in a straight line) into the car in front of me, which in turn had hit the car which had skidded in the first place. Then 2 cars went into the back of me. When I came out of the car I skidded. The road was very slippy and hadn't been gritted. I don't think there was anything different I could've done. The police said it would probably be knock for knock (which it eventaully was but not after the 18yo who was driving her dad's powerful car, tried to blame me! They didn't get anywhere with that one. It was a non-starter.) It turned out she was only insured to drive her dad's car under her own insurance (3rd party.)

gilbert_and_sullivan

You describe classic black ice, when melted or running water freezes into a lovely perfect transparent surface mirror clean and almost invisible.

I don't think it was your fault except maybe now you are wiser as to where such conditions can occur, you can't buy experience and knowledge you have to earn them over time and sometimes it's learned the hard way, those of us who were brought up on older more basic usually RWD vehicles maybe developed a more sympathetic 'feeling' for conditions underneath...a luxury and a pity that super equipped modern vehicles don't have that seat of your pants driving feel.

Many people mock those who do but proper winter tyres might have coped that little bit better at the time and you might have got away with it.

As it is, no one was hurt and you've lived to tell the tale, and if that's the worse thing that happens to us on the roads we won't have done too badly.

MrsE_2

Thank you all.

Its a bendy road sort of soft bends all along it. As I came out of one of the bends & tried to straighten up I started sssssing back & forth along the road. I'm sure I was breaking - but I just picked up more & more speed, the ssssss got bigger & bigger till I eventually came off the road, I then shot down the ditch at a 45 degree angle for a good 40 or so yards. Then something in the ditch sort of chucked me out & I spun again, this time the back spun out so I ended up face (car nose) down in the ditch.

I was def in shock, I was very concerned about being late for work:o
I felt like I had, had a good kicking in the ribs for about a week, but other than that was unhurt.

We realised Garfield must still be in the car, so that afternoon DH drove me to the recovery place where they stripped the car, Garfield wasn't in the bag.

So we went back to the crime scene (boy was I scared) & DH had to hunt the muddy water filled ditches in the dark with his torch to find Garfield (is that love or what) - thankfully he had been thrown clear through a window & sustained no injuries:D He's in my new car:D

clever_username

(walks away from thread muttering something about women drivers...)

jackieb

I came out of our people carrier, locked it where it had came to a standstill in the middle of the road, and my 3yo son was in the back, fast asleep holding onto his Pingu. People were knocking on the window to try and rouse him (probably thought he was out cold but he was just sleeping). First I knew about it when I heard someone shout 'where are the keys!' I was standing on the relevant safety of the grass verge and had locked my wee boy in the back. Even though we weren't hurt, I was definitely shocked that I left him in there lol