Please warn your family and friends about this!

[muck]

If I ever get tired while driving I chew and spit sunflower seeds. Keeps my mind active.

 

 

Seeds and a HUGH Coke or Dr. Pepper = survival of the fittest

 

[polksalet]

We left out of Corpus about 7:30 one night. Sometime around 3-4 am I was just south of Marshall. It was all I could do to drive 30. I was bad off. My buddy told me to pull over at a gas station. He came back with a giant black can of rock star energy drink. 15 minutes later I was screaming at my Honda. We were running in excess of the speed limit. An hour later we got home, loaded the truck with fishing gear and went carp fishing for a few hours.

[Lady.hawke]

I appreciate all the kind words. This happened on what most likely would be a 20 minute trip about 3pm on Sunday. My daughter just wants to warn anyone and everyone to think about driving tired. I think I would understand it better if it had ocurred during a long drive, but that is not the case.

 

I also learned there was a witness to the accident. For unexplained reasons, the eventual tow truck driver was parked on I-5. He was there at the junk yard when we arrived to get personal items out of the car and take the pictures. He told my daughter, "You spun in the air. Twice." Words you only want to hear when you know your kid is OK.

 

No airbags deployed. Is this because there was no hard stop? I would like to know if anyone does. I think the car earned it's good safety rating.

 

On a lighter note, as even the many policemen could not determine the route of this accident, and once she was medically cleared as basically fine, a relative suggested to my daughter that she might consider a career as a stunt driver!

 

She would prefer no one drives while tired.

[whomper]

Wow. Thank God she is OK. Scary stuff LH. Im glad she got out of this with just some bumps and bruises

[SEC=UGA]

We had a family friend who's son was notorious about falling asleep behind the wheel. Over the span of 3 years he destroyed 5 cars due to falling asleep and would seemingly do so on very short trips in the middle of the morning or day.

 

His was due to some medical issues most of which were due to the fact that he was incredibly obese. Dude was about 5' 8" and 550+.

 

Ever since this rash of accidents he had I look out for obese people on the road.

 

Reading this thread also reminded me of another episode. BAck in '86/'87 my family and I were awoken one night around 11:00. A lady had managed to drive her car into our lake. She was seemingly out on a midnight snack run and fell asleep, shot down about a 40 ft long bank that sits at about a 7% grade right into 3 feet of water. Thankfully she was ok, a littl embarassed, but ok.

[delusions of grandeur]

I appreciate all the kind words. This happened on what most likely would be a 20 minute trip about 3pm on Sunday. My daughter just wants to warn anyone and everyone to think about driving tired. I think I would understand it better if it had ocurred during a long drive, but that is not the case.

 

I also learned there was a witness to the accident. For unexplained reasons, the eventual tow truck driver was parked on I-5. He was there at the junk yard when we arrived to get personal items out of the car and take the pictures. He told my daughter, "You spun in the air. Twice." Words you only want to hear when you know your kid is OK.

 

No airbags deployed. Is this because there was no hard stop? I would like to know if anyone does. I think the car earned it's good safety rating.

 

On a lighter note, as even the many policemen could not determine the route of this accident, and once she was medically cleared as basically fine, a relative suggested to my daughter that she might consider a career as a stunt driver!

 

She would prefer no one drives while tired.

 

I believe that the airbags aren't supposed to deploy unless it's a direct front end collision... That's scary that she flipped it like that. I actually did the same thing, but mine was in an SUV that did 2 flips in the air after it lost control into a drainage ditch. My airbags didn't deploy either, and it was probably a good thing, but luckily it blew out every one of my windows except the one that my dog jumped over to.

 

He didn't end up with a scratch, but I was all cut up, and the roof crumpling had my scalp bright red... We were both extremely lucky to walk away from it, and it was only because I had my seatbelt on. Did she come away unscatched?

 

BTW, so glad to hear that she's alright. I didn't mean to hijack, just wanted to add some first-hand perspective.

[Hugh 0ne]

No airbags deployed. Is this because there was no hard stop? I would like to know if anyone does. I think the car earned it's good safety rating.

 

 

http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/airbags/airbags03/page3.html

[MikesVikes]

Glad she was ok.

[Lady.hawke]

Delusions: There was no hijacking, In all my years as a Huddler, I do not think I have ever seen this topic discussed. All input is valuable. I think that my daughter's spinning in the air was horizontal - and not over the top as you described. Scary. As a lifetime Alabama fan, I laughed at your avatar.

 

Hugh One: Thank you for the link. It validated what I was already thinking. I showed it to my daughter. She recalls that moment when she was headed back to the freeway and had some control, considering blown tires. It would have been impossible to maneuver with an airbag in her face. I think the bags would have deployed had she had a passenger in the front right side seat.

 

Shocker Alert! State Farm declared that car totalled at 5pm today. Unbelieveably, repairing it was only $700 more than its pre-crash value, about $13,000. I guess we will be auto shopping this weekend.