If you've ever been in a car accident

amyg530

Active member
was it a frontal, side or rear crash?
i know what the stats say but i just find them hard to believe, every wreck my parents have been in they were rear ended (5) so i'm just wondering especially b/c it would seem that if you are a very careful driver that most likely you would be rear ended, IMO.
anyway if everybody will just post how many of each they've been in i would appreciate it
me:
1 rear end
1 frontal
 
ADS

Laurenc0101

New member
I have been in three. One was my fault, but I hit a ditch, so I guess that was frontal. The second, I was rear-ended (very low speed), and the worst was not my fault, but it was a frontal (lady turned in front of me).

On a side note, I have often wondered how they determine the statistics. Because even though your parents were rear-ended five times, for the parties at fault, that would have been five frontal collisions. Does that make sense? :scratcheshead: So if they are taking the statistics of at fault drivers, then it would make sense that most collisions are frontal.
 

amyg530

Active member
good point lauren, i wonder if by frontal they only mean head on? i just dont see how that would be more likely, i just think getting rear ended would be most likely to happen. i'm just still trying to understand the whole RF thing, i mean it would seem to me that if your were rear ended with a RF child that it would be like a head on for them. idk im still so confused by all of this:scratcheshead:
 

mominabigtruck

New member
Where should I start?? First accident was when I was hit on the side by a tractor, second accident I was rear ended by a drunk driver doing about 50mph in a school zone so not only did he hit me but I hit the truck in front of me who hit a school bus. Third accident I was run off the road by a dump truck and spun around and hit a telephone pole backwards, knocking it over. Fourth accident I rear ended someone at a stop light. And then there was the time I got stuck in the bank drive thru. My last accident I rear ended someone again:( I spend alot of time turned around yelling at kids in the back seat.
 

cdncasper

New member
I have been rear-ended by at drunk going about 40Km/Hr and I rear-ended a car while going about 10Km/Hr
 

CPS_obsessed_EMT

Senior Community Member
I was in a T-Bone accident where it was frontal for us (going about 60mph)

I'm also an EMT (5yrs), would you be interested in hearing what the car wrecks I responded to were?
 

natysr

New member
I t-boned a truck that turned out in front of me. It was a pickup. It was on a country road. 55 mph speed limit.

The pick up was going slow and had his blinker on to the right. There was a dirt road to the right.

It was a yellow dotted line, so I went to pass him on the left. I actually started to speed up, because I'm a nervous passer on country roads and alway worried about an on coming car coming up. So, I sped up even though there was nothing I could see coming at me.

Well, his blinker was turned on indicating he was turning right. But he turned left into a driveway instead. I had No time to do anything. I barely even hit the brakes before I hit him. There were no skid marks.

I broke both my feet and had severe burns on my hands and wrists from the airbags. DH had a bruised chest. Jordan was absolutely fine! He had tiny abrasion on his neck from one of the straps on the roundabout. he was 22 months old, rearfacing. He also had a tiny bit of a bloody from his sippy cup.
 

Victorious4

Senior Community Member
I'd be interested in hearing about crashes that emergency rescue workers have responded to....

I've had 1 frontal crash (with a tree -- on the day I got my lisence: it'd be nice if the 5 hour course explained that dry leaves could be wet underneath :eek:)

I also had the experience if my 2 passenger side tires lifting off the ground when I tried to turn out of slipping on ice at the bottom of a steep hill with a house in front of me :eek: I managed to miss the house & there was no traffic in the cross street *WHEW*

When Leila was a toddler (shortly after she was reverted back to RF) someone side-swiped my Blazer while I had the green arrow. Luckilly, it was a tiny Geo Prism that had only just pulled out of the other turning lane so she was still going slow. All 3 kids in the back & I were fine!
 

amyg530

Active member
I'm also an EMT (5yrs), would you be interested in hearing what the car wrecks I responded to were?

yes definatly

see what i'm confused about is it seems to me that I personally am most likely to get rear ended, but
in the two wrecks i've been in i was rear ended in one and i rear ended somebody else in the other

so for 4 cars that 2 frontal and 2 rear so they would basicly cancel eachother out which would mean that all rear end crashes were canceled out by the frontal involved so that would make it look like it was very unlikely to be rear ended.
does that make any sense to anybody?
 

1girltwinboyz

New member
just got rearended on Wed june 27th 2007. the guy in front of me stopped short. i was not following closely at all so I stopped in time. but the man behind me in a jeep with a boat in tow did not stop. He rammed my rear of honda ody and in turn I rammed a construction truck in front of me. Needless to say the const truck was not damaged at all. my front end and rear end are smashed and the jeep behind me's front end was smashed and fluit leaking all over. TG he accepted fault and his ins is paying for everything!
 

CPS_obsessed_EMT

Senior Community Member
That does make sense amy. But what I think it probably is, is maybe they are counting crashes that people were injured? Or even reported (as the majority of rear ends are probably so minor they don't get reported)

I think that a lot of people get confused with RF and FF in the 2 different types. They think that getting rearended while RFing is the same as a front crash while FF, but its NOT.

Ok, how can I explain this....
So say you are driving down the road at 30mph. You get into a frontal crash with someone else who is driving 60mph. Since you are going different directions, you combine the speeds to make the crash force equal to 90mph (for simplicity sake, we are going to say neither had time to brake and slow down)
Your body goes from going 30mph in one direction, to going 30mph in the OPPOSITE direction. Its that quick change of direction and rapid deceleration that causes your body trauma and injury.

Ok, so now lets switch that accident around to a rear end scenerio.
You are driving down the road going 30mph, and someone comes up behind you going 60mph and rear ends you. Since you are already going 30mph, the crash force is only equal to 30mph (as opposed to 90 had you combined the speeds for head on). And also you don't have quick change of direction to add to the trauma since you are already going the same direction.
Even if you were stopped still, and the person rear ends you at 60, it still isn't as high of crash forces as the head on, and you still don't have the change of direction (you only go from standing still to going in the direction you hit at 60)

Does that make sense? Its physics really.

I will list all my crashes in my next post, but I just wanted to point out that in my 5 yrs, I have never responded to a crash where someone has been injured from being rear ended (not saying it isn't possible, I just haven't seen it)
 

southpawboston

New member
i have been in one accident (17 years ago), and it was both a frontal and a rear-end (how can you have a rear end accident without someone else having a frontal accident???)

i was car#3 in a bad 5-car pileup.

i stopped in time and avoided hitting car #2, by a few feet. then i got slammed in the rear by a large car with an estimated speed of impact at about 25 mph. he pushed my car into car#2. insurance had deemed me not at fault, and car #4 was responsible for my car AND car #2 ;).

emergency responders did arrive, with ambulances and police. no one ended up going to the hospital, but i did suffer bruising and a concusion which gave me flu-like symptoms for about two days. my car was totalled, as it was crushed from both ends.
 

Laurenc0101

New member
Its that quick change of direction and rapid deceleration that causes your body trauma and injury.

Melissa, great explanation! Thanks!

What I quoted is the same thing I have always heard too. If you are rear-ended while stopped or even moving slowly, your body does not have to change direction. It is those head-on or nearly head-on collisions when your body moves toward the impact and then abrupty stops and reverses direction when you are most likely to be injured. Hence rear-facing is safer for a child in that situation because the back of the CR is able to support the fragile neck and head in line with the spine.

Sorry that got a little lengthy, not my intention since Melissa's post already explained it :thumbsup:
 

joolsplus3

Admin - CPS Technician
High speedish side impact (I was ok, just slid a long way across the road, I was not at fault)
Very low speed rear ender (I wasn't driving, we were not at fault)

I've banged my bumpers and fenders on a few things...

I guess I've been pretty lucky!
 

joolsplus3

Admin - CPS Technician
i'm just still trying to understand the whole RF thing, i mean it would seem to me that if your were rear ended with a RF child that it would be like a head on for them. idk im still so confused by all of this:scratcheshead:

"in theory" an RF child would be worse off in a rear impact...but the injury data just aren't showing that it's bad... the data are very strongly in favor of a RF child being safer in ALL types of car crashes (I was thinking about this... maybe if an RF kid is rear ended, their head goes forward, which is a natural neck movement and not likely to injure you, versus your head flying backward, a not-so-natural movement, that causes adults to have whiplash even in cars with headrests when they are rear ended (getting rearended when you are FF is painful, so would a kid REALLY bre better off FF in a rearender.... ?)
 

amyg530

Active member
man i used to be smart when i was in high school, i wish i had actually got my engineering degree (went to school for a semester and then quit) , or heck at least taken phyiscs :confused: i'm still so confused, i'm gonna make my dad look at all this stuff and figure it out, i was content with just accepting what i've read here but he keeps questioning it and that makes me question it and i'm just more and more confused. i mean i want whats safest for my child i just cant seem to fully understand what that is, especially since just b/c someone tells you something or you read something, that doesnt mean its correct (not saying ya'll are wrong, just not seeing the proof that i need) KWIM? like i really want to understand why i'm doing what i'm doing. maybe we'll just never drive:shrug-shoulders: :sarcasitc-bow:
 

CPS_obsessed_EMT

Senior Community Member
Ok, where do I start...I will only list the ones I clearly remember (there have been so many...)

Oh, I also want to point out this is in a rural area, so mostly country driving and on gravel roads, the speed limit in town is 25mph.

The first one I ever responded to was a jeep full of teenage girls. They slid off the shoulder of a gravel road and had a light rollover. The 2 girls that weren't buckled got ejected and suffered some broken bones and bruises. The one girl who was wearing her seatbelt wasn't hurt but was trapped in the jeep and needed to be extricated. She was so uninjured that she was able to have a relaxed conversation with me while we waited for the extrication crew. Well, the vehicle started on fire before the fire crew could get there and she died in the fire. Just thinking about how hard it was to walk away from her for my own life still chokes me up. One of the most traumatizing calls I ever had and it caused me to stop wearing my seatbelt for a long time before I realized how RARE that scenario actually is.

The one rear end I ever responded to was a guy driving a minivan (belted) who rear ended a slow moving tractor on the other side of the hill. The guy who did the rear ending was injured, but the guy who got rear ended walked away.

The only accident I responded to in town was a grandma and grandpa who were babysitting and decided to bring the baby to church (3mo IIRC). I suppose they were going about 25 and a kid on a bike came out behind a vehicle and grandpa slammed hard on the brakes. He didn't hit the kid but grandma was holding the baby in her lap and he got crushed between her body and the dash. Baby ended up with a broken arm and broken ribs and punctured lung and need a chest tube but ended up ok after weeks in the hossy. Grandma ended up with a concussion and head lacs.

There was a grain truck vs grain truck where a young boy driving the first truck ran a stop sign and hit the second truck (with a mother and a 5y/o) and caused it to roll. The driver of the first truck wasn't belted and we transported to the hossy. TG the mother and kid were buckled and walked away from it.

A Praxiar (oxygen) truck lost control and rolled into the ditch. The cab of the truck rolled over an approach and was crushed down to the dash. The driver wasn't belted and was thrown down to the floor (avoiding being crushed by the roof of the cab) He had a pretty bad head injury and blood loss but recovered.

A jeep driven by 2 teen boys rolled about 5 times in the ditch and both were ejected but had minimal injuries (about a 40mph roll)

A family in an SUV (mom dad daughter and son) were going down a gravel road about 55mph. There was a guy driving the Otter Tail (power company) truck approaching an intersection at the same time going about the same speed and ran his stop sign. He got T-Boned by the family (frontal for them).
He wasn't belted and wasn't hurt (large, high, truck) TG the family was belted and airbags but they still suffered injuries and the daughter had to be lifeflighted but all recovered.

My friends mother was coming to pick her up at the airport at 5am. It was down a lonely gravel road in the middle of corn fields. A couple of teenagers who were out booze cruising were approaching the intersection going about 80mph. They didn't see each other bc of the corn fields the the drunk driver ran the stop sign and T-Boned my friends mom. She was belted and didn't have a scratch on her, but was killed instantly from a broken neck. The 2 boys weren't buckled, and had massive injuries and *almost* didn't make it. They both required many surgeries and were given low chances of making it through them but they both eventually recovered.

2 of HS girlfriends were out booze crusing with one of their boyfriends. He was drunk and probably high. They were going about 85mph on a gravel road when he lost control, hit the ditch, hit an approach which caused them to go airborn about 20 yards and then rolled when it landed. None were wearing seatbelts. The girl in back wasn't ejected and had a head injury. The male driver was DOA, and his girlfriend was ejected very, very far away from the vehicle and was lifeflighted from the scene in critical condition and almost lost her leg in the weeks afterward.

Those are the ones that really stick out in my mind. There are lots more but they all followed about the same scenario as on of the few I listed above.
I would definitely say that the majority of crashes were T-Bones and rollovers. Not very many head ons and rarely rear ends. One of the reasons I insisted on a RF tether bc they are very helpful and rollovers and side impact crashes which are the most common around in rural areas. Also another reason I think that carseats should be tested in side impact crashes, because they ARE so much more common in rural areas....

Sorry for all the extra details you didn't ask for, but its just kind of second nature to tell the "whole story" when describing them.
 

mimieliza

New member
Full side impact, drivers side door. Luckily the other driver wasn't going very fast at the point of impact. Neither of us were seriously injured (I smacked my head on the side window and got a goose egg), but if he had been going even a little faster, I would have been.
 

Laurenc0101

New member
Amy, what you are ideally protecting Connor from is a head-on collision with another vehicle. These are the most severe and would require him to be rear-facing in order not to be severely injured (assuming that the crash is survivable). In this type of collision, Connor's body would try to move toward the collision, but because of the abrupt stop that the vehicle and his body must come to to change direction, his body would be yanked back toward the seat while his head was still trying to move forward, hence putting the most strain on his fragile neck.

In a frontal where you hit someone in the back, both of your vehicles are moving in the same direction, so neither vehicle must come to an abrupt stop and change direction.

It was explained to me with hand claps. Try clapping your hands once. Both hands come together and must stop (your hand cannot pass through the other). Now hold one hand still and clap it with the other with your arms relaxed. The hand that is still is allowed to move away from the hand that hit it without having to stop abruptly. Coming to stop is considered ride-down time. The more time you and your body have to stop the less likely chance of an injury. You have the benefit of ride down in a rear-end collision because typically the vehicles are moving in the same direction.

Your biggest concern right now with Connor rear-facing, is rebound into your back glass. That is why it is recommended the your CR is tethered. Britax has a bit of an explanation about ride-down and the tethers too in the manual. I am sorry if this is kinda scatter-brained, it is hard to explain in typing. I am going to try to find the article I read and share it with you.

Hope I helped a little though ;)
 

Car-Seat.Org Facebook Group

Forum statistics

Threads
219,656
Messages
2,196,898
Members
13,530
Latest member
onehitko860

You must read your carseat and vehicle owner’s manual and understand any relevant state laws. These are the rules you must follow to restrain your children safely. All opinions at Car-Seat.Org are those of the individual author for informational purposes only, and do not necessarily reflect any policy or position of Carseat Media LLC. Car-Seat.Org makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. If you are unsure about information provided to you, please visit a local certified technician. Before posting or using our website you must read and agree to our TERMS.

Graco is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org! Britax is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org! Nuna Baby is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org!

Please  Support Car-Seat.Org  with your purchases of infant, convertible, combination and boosters seats from our premier sponsors above.
Shop travel systems, strollers and baby gear from Britax, Chicco, Clek, Combi, Evenflo, First Years, Graco, Maxi-Cosi, Nuna, Safety 1st, Diono & more! ©2001-2022 Carseat Media LLC

Top