They see me rollin

M

Mtns2Skies

Final Approach
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Jul 12, 2008
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Mtns2Skies
They crashin.

Well had my first wreck. On a work trip in TN outside of knoxville, myself (driving) and a co-worker were in the right lane about to get off the highway and a semi merged into our left rear side and ran us off the road. This caused us to hit the ditch at 60mph and roll 4 times before coming to rest on our wheels. Luckily there was just a small cut above my coworkers eye and my shoulder is a bit sore. I can attest to the 2017 Toyota CoROLLa's crash safety. Front airbags did not deploy but the curtain airbags and seatbelts definitely did their jobs.

After we got out of the car but before the first responders arrived the semi pictured in the image lost control and skidded in the ditch into our car. Sure am glad we were out.

I was amazed at the helpfulness of the people in this area, we had maybe a dozen people trying to help us after the initial crash and maybe 2 or 3 stay with us until we left the scene, truly amazing people. One of them ripped my co-workers door open so we could get out and 9-1-1 was already called and dispatched before we were done rolling.

Tennessee Highway Patrol cleared me of any wrongdoing and cited the original Semi-driver for some sort of ticket. No damage on the semi that hit us though apparently their wheel was up on our trunk at some point :eek:.

Looking at the damage it's truly amazing that we got out with nothing but cuts and bruises, and that all of us and the people helping us got out of the way before the second semi made contact. FIrst responders told us when they heard the description of the crash they were expecting body collection.

Maybe @AggieMike88 will want this car :D
@Ted DuPuis Told his friends to stop dying... I'm working on it.
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holy shiznit! 2 semi's, 1 rolla. you are the ayatollah of a rockin' rolla!
 
Goodness! Glad you're alright buddy. Sorry for the not so warm welcome to the state of TN. Those semi's are a menace on the road.
 
Glad you're ok. That could have been BAD. You're right about people....There are still good people around, just a little harder to find. I'm a transplant from So California (now in KY....same kind of people...just slightly different accent than those from TN). The "sore/hurt" will really kick in over the next few days. Time for vitamin I (ibuprofen)
 
Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.
It appears that won't be an issue here.
I'm very glad you live to drive (and fly) another day.
 
interstate 81? - that is one treacherous route - many many big rigs and 4-wheelers who think they're NASCAR drivers, tailgating, passing on right, etc.
 
wrbix said:
interstate 81? - that is one treacherous route - many many big rigs and 4-wheelers who think they're NASCAR drivers, tailgating, passing on right, etc.
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This was I-40 East. Just past Newport.
 
Wow!!! :yikes::hairraise: Glad you are ok. Good to hear, that you had so much support after the accident.
 
Cheese whiz! Glad that you guys got out with only minor injuries! And good that the front airbags didn't deploy. They could have been Takata airbags. Nothing worse that surviving a crash and being taken out by your safety equipment! :p J/K - glad the car did its job to protect you guys!
 
Driving in Tennessee is like the wild west, anything goes. No enforcement, high speeds, people doing whatever the hell they feel like doing. Keeps you sharp, though. Glad you came out OK!
 
Wow, that's some serious damage. Glad you made it out safely. I think the survival rate for people getting hit by a semi and rolling 4 times in a ditch is pretty low. Go buy a lottery ticket :).
 
Holy crap! :eek:

Glad that you guys survived and walked away effectively unscathed. Yes, the new vehicles are built with incredible crash safety. Cars are replaceable, people aren't, so I'm fine with this.

About 11 years ago I was driving up I-15 in Idaho or Montana, forget which. It was late at night and the car next to me was driving rather erratically, and then after a bit floored it to pass me. Woman fell asleep at the wheel, ended up smashing into a guard rail, bouncing off, and facing the wrong way. I slammed on the brakes. The car was pretty badly damaged, but she didn't have even a scratch. Helped her out, moved her car off the road, waited for the police to arrive.
 
Wow, that's incredible. Glad you are both okay.
 
Wow.... 4 rolls.... I am impressed..!!! I never did 4 rolls, not even in the race car. However in a sprint car I apparently did two end overs in the air, followed by 1.5 more on the ground. I don't know since I have no memory of that night. Just glad it wasn't my sprint car.

And looking at the car, it did its job. The passenger compartment looks intact, all the energy went into the front and rear.

There are good people everywhere. Unfortunately most of the time it takes something like this to find those good people.

For a first wreck, you sure did it right, taking on two 18 wheelers....

How did y'all get home..???
 
I'm surprised that the side windows appear to be intact, aside from maybe the drivers side. I figured rolling four times would have surely put enough pressure on roof/door frames to bust the glass. Glad you made it out relatively unscathed. Time to buy a lottery ticket!
 
Zeldman said:
How did y'all get home..???
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Still in TN. Another Co-worker brought us back to the plant and we took my co-worker's(the one that crashed with me) rental to the hotel. We're on the same flight so we'll just ride share through the week.
SoonerAviator said:
I'm surprised that the side windows appear to be intact, aside from maybe the drivers side. I figured rolling four times would have surely put enough pressure on roof/door frames to bust the glass. Glad you made it out relatively unscathed. Time to buy a lottery ticket!
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I couldn't see out because the windshield broke infront of me right away but the other guy in the car said he counted 3-4 rolls and the bystanders that came up to us said they saw us roll 4 times. It looks like maybe the axis of revolution was more centered around the trunk of the car, it's pretty well destroyed, though the top clearly got some damage.
 
I hate trucks. They are all a fatal accident just waiting to happen.

I'm glad your accident ended fairly well. Most don't.
 
Dang! So glad you are okay. I drove that I-40 from NC to TX last year. It's horrible, just awful.
 
I'm wondering how that phone call to the boss went... "Um. Yeah. About my rental car. You might be getting a call from the state police down here..."

We had some good rental car stories in the traveling engineering pool, but none that good.

Best we got was the dolt who tried to make a left where there was a median and got the car perfectly high-centered. It wasn't coming off. LOL.

The rental Mustang in a mini-blizzard in SLC with the top *down* just because we could, when we showed up at the customer site after going through a drive thru for "dinner" before an all nighter chasing a grounding problem that required a digital capture oscilloscope -- that was fun. (Kids, if you're a growing mid-sized company and you install massive wave solder machines for making boards in the back half of the building, and office space in the front, and have a voltage potential between multiple ground rods driven in crappy SLC soil hooked to different entrance panels... it's probably a bad idea to run TTL level signals in 1500' of twisted pair across the building and expect anything to work right. Just sayin'. When what you manufacture with those industrial machines in the back of the building is telecom equipment, having your vendor show up in a convertible with the top down in a blizzard and find the problem in an hour with a scope, is really embarrassing.

But not really anything compared to this!
 
That car looks amazing for rolling 4 times.

Glad you guys are ok.
 
SkyDog58 said:
I hate trucks. They are all a fatal accident just waiting to happen.

I'm glad your accident ended fairly well. Most don't.
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Skydog,

I have respect for trucks. 99% of their divers are very competent and do not wish to harm anyone. Their concern is getting their load delivered on time. I have been driving since I was fourteen. One could get a license in Michigan back in the fifties. It has been my observation that most wrecks involving semis are the result of foolish actions on the part of four wheel drivers.
 
Norman said:
Skydog,

I have respect for trucks. 99% of their divers are very competent and do not wish to harm anyone. Their concern is getting their load delivered on time. I have been driving since I was fourteen. One could get a license in Michigan back in the fifties. It has been my observation that most wrecks involving semis are the result of foolish actions on the part of four wheel drivers.
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Well your experiences are vastly different from mine. I have seen countless occurrences of reckless driving by truckers during my travels and most think they own the road.
 
SkyDog58 said:
I hate trucks. They are all a fatal accident just waiting to happen.

I'm glad your accident ended fairly well. Most don't.
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When I drove truck, cars were accidents looking for a place to happen with big trucks. I have seen it too many times. A car passes a big truck, then cuts back in the lane while braking hard to make the turn. Or top a hill to find someone stopped in the road so the kids can look at the pretty cows. Pure suicide. Drive truck for a month and see how badly car drivers really drive.

One time I topped a hill and granpa had stopped in the road so the grandkids could look at the deer. Well, the deer know that when a vehicle stops, the shooting starts So the deer ran away from the stopped vehicle, and two ran straight into me. Granpa drove by slowly to gawk at the damage to the truck I was driving. Slow enough for me to get a license number.

Just the other day a car pulled onto the interstate (coincidently I-40) and did not check traffic. One 18 wheeler took the ditch to save some poor fools life. The driver was life flighted out. The car did not stop after causing an accident, which closed the west bound lanes for 3 hours.

It amazes me the people that think because that truck has 18 wheels that it will stop quicker than a car.

I decided early on that I would not kill myself to save some idiots life. Fortunately for me it never came to that.

No intention meaning this was the cause of the OPs accident.
 
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In general, I feel that commercial truckers are much safer drivers than the average person. Now, there are certainly examples of truck drivers who are inattentive or sometimes dangerous in there driving, but it's the exception more than the rule. I almost think towing a trailer behind a light truck/SUV (even a 3K lbs trailer) without trailer brakes should be mandatory during drivers ed to help illustrate the limited stopping power and maneuverability of a vehicle with a load in tow. Have someone pull out in front of them, or cut them off, and see them panic when they can't get it shut down. Seeing people darting in front of semi-trucks in traffic just makes me shake my head.
 
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