Well, it happened again.
Good news is that I'm alive and unhurt. If you've read some of my comments, you may know that I own(ed) a BMW 335i that I bought two years ago, and paid off in March. If you stalked me exquisitely, you might know that I also used to own an A3 that suffered the fate of a 19-y/o texting and driving.
Man. No more BMW. This shit actually sucks. This time it was a 40+ y/o dude, who was on his phone 'changing the music' and drifted right into my lane. More specifically, he drifted into my lane, which held the same position as where I was. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with I-66 (I hope you aren't), but they've been retrofitting the ENTIRE interstate to add HOT lanes throughout the middle, which means constant construction, lane shifts, and barriers on either side - this basically means you get about six inches of shoulder before it's concrete.
I was in the rightmost lane of four, headed eastbound towards DC. Right before we hit the dreaded 66/495 interchange (an absolute fucking mess, I may add) all four lanes shift roughly 20-30ft to the left, probably over the course of 150 or so feet linearly. This means that every car has to actually slow down and PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT GOD DAMN LANE THEY'RE IN so no one takes out like nine cars at once.
So, here we are. I'm approaching the shift. Traffic is slowing down, probably rolling at 25-30mph, which is standard for this stretch of highway (or really any part of I-66 at any given time, to be honest) and this dickhead in a trap-mobile-minivan is about to scoot past me in the lane to my left. Do I care? No. What I do care about is the fact that he just decides to keep driving straight, right as every car is turning left, causing him to absolutely smash right into my left rear door. To be honest, I'm not sure how he didn't PIT maneuver me on the spot, and I'm more impressed that he didn't overcorrect and proceed to take out every car within a 20ft vicinity based on how out of it he was. I was the only one that got fucked.
After he hit me, he pushed my car so aggressively that I went right into the concrete barrier. Thank fucking GOD my fiance or any other passenger wasn't in shotgun, as that side got pretty mangled and I'd hate to think what would have happened if someone had hit their head on the pillars or the passenger window (which also cracked and splintered... didn't shatter though! Good job BMW).
Since there's not exactly a 'shoulder' literally anywhere, we had to drive up on a construction entrance and wait for the cops to come there. If any of you DMV heads saw a really pissed-off dude in a BMW near that interchange today, I apologize for the inevitable traffic delays I caused. Know it wasn't my fault, and we gotta stop giving idiots driver's licenses.
Car is undrivable, I could barely get it to the siding before it died completely, spewing fluids everywhere (I see how sexual that sentence sounds now, but I'm not going to change it). FCPD came and were actually surprisingly very helpful, other guy straight up admitted to being on his phone during the thing right in front of me. Seemed unphased, and even annoyed by the holdup. His 1990s Honda minivan had maybe one dent in it, so that's a plus for him I guess. Fucking hell.
Looks like I gotta go car shopping again now. Wonder if insurance will try to nickel and dime me as aggressively as they did last time for this same exact thing... I swear to fucking God if my premiums raise a damn cent then I'm going to be fuming. People - get off your damn phone while you're driving. We got CarPlay and Siri and shit now, just yell at your car or something.
OK, rant over. Let's hear which car I should get now!
Glad you’re ok. Seriously.
Glad you’re safe.
Damn bro, glad you’re ok and no one was seriously hurt on your side. These spatially retarded phone-pricks are a nightmare on every stretch of road they choose to inhabit.
For real, man. While I understand that not everyone has CarPlay, ever since I've got it my phone has stayed in my pocket or in the console. I can respond to messages with my voice, skip songs on my steering wheel, all of that. Too many people just scrolling on Insta while operating a 3000lb piece of heavy machinery. It's madness!
Jesus man, glad to hear you're ok. As a fellow car enthusiast, I hope your car is deemed totaled so that you arent stuck with a vehicle that 1. Will be in the shop for somewhere between 1 - 6 months and 2. wont come out of the shop with a fraction of its pre-accident retail value.
Sucks that you were in a spot where it was impossible to keep an out. Normally when driving I try to always have an escape route due to the number of bad drivers on the road these days. Obviously that wasnt an option due to construction (I was worried about this exact scenario as I drove home yesterday in a high construction area with no possible exits due to high levels of traffic all moving quickly as the lanes shifted significantly).
Cant tell you how many times Ive had guys / girls swerve into my lane while texting and driving. I just pre-emptively honk now any time someone's wheels hit the lines, just to make sure theyre paying attention.
Im just glad you're ok though. Cars are replaceable, lives are not.
Really appreciate the response, brotha. It'll take a couple of weeks for insurance to officially deem it totaled, but I'm not concerned. We're in agreement - as soon as I saw the damage, I was like fuck... really hope this thing is all the way done for, as I didn't want anyone to even attempt to fix what had been done to it. C-Pillar on left side was obviously bent up, B-Pillar as well from the initial hit. Major engine damage on the right side from the concrete contact, right headlight, right sensors, front axel, right front wheel, left rear wheel, and presumably, rear axel is irreversibly damaged. Not to even mention how the entirety of the right side of the engine is crumpled and barely fitting in the car.
As I said, I was honestly surprised the thing could drive 30 feet to get onto the siding. My left rear wheel is completely bent out of shape, felt the whole car just dragging on the pavement - looking back on it, it was probably a stupid decision to even attempt to move the thing. I just wanted to avoid shutting down a lane in the most congested area of this highway, so I squeezed the last little bit of juice out of her. Not that it mattered really, there were BMW parts all over the road so they shut the lane down anyway.
If they tell me it's not totaled, I'll tell them to eat a dick. There's just no way. Still an unfortunate situation, but I'm hoping that my provider will get me out of this with minimal headache... although if last time is any indication, then I'm going to get dicked over on every small little detail.
Totally also understand being aware of an escape route at any given time. This was literally the worst spot to be in - I had no room in front of me to speed up, no room to either side to swerve, and he came from the back so I couldn't emergency brake my way out of it. In general, I'm pretty conscious of people drifting into my lane - hell, half the time my thumb is always on the horn, just waiting to give that friendly reminder to get out of my car's personal space, please.
Just totally unlucky this time. Went to see the doc to get checked out (safety precaution) and besides a bruise on my elbow from the initial impact, I'm 100% OK. Appreciate the warm wishes from you and everybody else who commented. Maybe this is my sign to get a 911...
Glad to hear you're okay.
Assuming you had a good time with the 335i, I personally feel like the default answer would be to re-up and get the closest equivalent now which is the new M340i.
Happy you’re ok. Had a similar scenario on a highway in my state years ago and the number of times I’d have to slam on my breaks to prevent some idiot from accidentally merging into me for not paying attention was too many to count. Eventually, I said f-it and used the back roads. Most people are retarded when it comes to driving to begin with. Add a distraction and that just gets multiplied.
Glad you and your woman are fine.
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