Oops! How many of us have had this happen?

[Donny B.]

This is from many years ago and I just stumbled onto it, but I think it is timeless.  It CAN happen to you.

It's quarter to five in the morning. I'm sitting in the left turn lane at the intersection of Rose Garden Lane
and 19th avenue waiting for the light to change. I'll turn left then make a quick right into the parking lot
at work. I go through this same routine almost every day at this time. Thank God it's Friday!"

Thud!

"What the heck is that?" The car had just lurched forward and my head whipped back. I glanced in my
rear view mirror there was now a car really close behind me where just a moment before was the black of
night. The realization sets in, I've been hit. I've driven my car over 40,000 miles since I finished it in
April of 1995 and have yet to have an encounter with another automobile. Now sitting still waiting for a
light to change someone not paying attention runs into the back of me.

I got out of the car to assess the damage. I look into the eyes of the assailant. She stares back very aware
of what she has done. I look at the bumper and see that the normal curve is no longer there, but that
appears to be the extent of it. I know I won't be able to open the deck lid. It's going to hit the newly
reshaped bumper. I stare back at the woman in Ford Escort that hit me as she completes lighting here
cigarette. I'm guessing that that's what she was trying to do when she ran into me. My opinion of
cigarette smokers just dropped to a new low. I looked at her bumper, one of those large plastic 5mph
goodies. I'm beginning to be thankful for 5mph bumpers. "I'm going to let her off the hook, but first I'll
make her sweat a little." I stare at her again shaking my head in disgust.

I got back into my car. The light hadn't changed yet. When the light finally changed and I departed in
truely juvenile fashion; after all I'm still just a kid at heart. I dumped the clutch and lit up the tires,
squirreling kinda sideways through the turn. Then set up for the right turn into the parking lot. "...that
woman that hit me I guess I showed her. Probably thought I was crazy before and is now sure of it!"

If you plan on driving your car stuff like this is bound to happen. "...just not to me ...yeah right!" Well it
did all right! It's fixed now. I went out to Competition Engineering and bought a new bumper for thirty
something. It's on the car and actually looks better than it's predecessor! I did have to put on another
Gene Berg Cruise bumper sticker to make it right. I can only hope not to have another encounter of any
sort for another 40k miles.

[SlingShot]

If you plan on driving your car stuff like this is bound to happen. "...just not to me ...yeah right!" Well it
did all right!

I have never had this happen to me(knock on wood...check) but you have to be a very aware driver, I'm constantly checking the rear view when I slow down to turn or come to a stop, there have been a couple times were I could tell someone was not going to slow down.

[Fastbrit]

August 1st this year – my Alfa Romeo 156 was rear-ended and although the damage looked like bumper and not a lot else, it was written off by the insurance company as the repair estimates were in excess of £2200 (about $3600). Not happy...

[SlingShot]

August 1st this year – my Alfa Romeo 156 was rear-ended and although the damage looked like bumper and not a lot else, it was written off by the insurance company as the repair estimates were in excess of £2200 (about $3600). Not happy...

Must be Karma for driving an Italian car 

[deano]

Donnie, that sucks. Glad to hear it didn't take our your decklid or IDAs.

I lost three fenders on my old '67, and only once was I actually in the car when it happened. Once, with a car cover on, in front of my buddy's house.... his mom backed into the LF, and smashed my SB12 rim to boot.

[nicolas]

well, similar luck, but not rearended.

when i got the squareback repainted i had a 1641 in it and i thought i ruled the world with that car. it had dual mastercylinderbrakes and stopped on a dime. so i got the nasty habbit of getting close behind the car in front of me. it's stupid now, i know. so one day i drive up the slight upwards hill a couple miles from home and catch up with a car with a small trailer with some gyproc panels on it.
of course i sit on their tail. but when we come up the hill i instinctively let them go a few meters in front of me and as soon as i start to think about it and want to catch them up again, the panels catch wind and fly up! like in that movie Twister (yeah we all saw it...) the panels flip in the air and come down at the spot where i will be in less then a second. so i slam the brakes and with squicking tyres the car stops and the panel crashes upright right in front of the car (10cms) all i can see is white. so the panel cracks in two folds away from the car and gently rests on the hood.
not a scratch nothing, just pure luck.
i could have been mad at the guy as he pulled over a few yards further and the first thing he says is: do you think i didn't tie the panels tight enough? 
anyway i was lucky and didn't want to cause a scene, or wait for a car to run into me, so i tossed the panel on the side and said: i think it was too lose. and took off.


off course i could tell you about the time a motorcycle ran into the car (again after a repaint, but the first time out this time). and all this about 20 meters from my driveway still in first gear...

[GreenTom]

poor You.. My first beetle was killed like that... also by a dumb blond bimbo and her toyta yaris... but I wasn't so lucky as You...
I was waiting in the lane (3 line road) all 3 lanes stuffed with cars - typical traffic jam in Warsaw at 17:00. and than buuuum... What the f***... why am I sitting with my seat on the back seat of my bug!!! Probobly that thing saved me... the hit was so hard that me and the my seat landed on the back seat. braking... nooo why should she brake... only over 1,5m brakeing tyre marks were made by my bugs rear tyres (e-brake on - I know thats dumb... to have it on in the traffic jam). My bug was shorter 1meter each end (I hit ford focus which was infron of me...) my bug didn't had bupers... and he had LPG on my 1200 pretty fast though (195/65 R15 all around and 130km/h was a typical cruzing speed - max 140km/h)...

of corse the insurace company said... thats just a pice of crap... so take 2000zl les than 450 euros... and f*** off. just grate... (the car was afther restoration :/ )

shit happens... but afther all I'm a proud owner of my recent bug so everything is cool now I hope it won't happen again...

[youngnstudly]

Poor Donny's car! My '63 has been "violated" in the rear 6 times now (!!!) and in the front once! Nobody can understand why I keep it in primer and never paint it .  My dad restores cars and everyone is always asking "Did you paint your car yet???"  and I always respond with "I'm never painting it because I drive it everyday!".  So far I have been hit by a guy that was really cool to deal with (honest/local business owner), a brunette bimbo that hit me at 25 MPH while I was in traffic, 3 tourists (yuppies in the "whine" country on a typical Sunday afternoon) and one illegal hispanic woman who didn't speak english, had no remorse, and just plain didn't give a "crap". I saw her in the rear mirror pulling up at 5 MPH looking through her viewing hole between the top of the dash and the top of the steering wheel and she simply didn't know where the bumper of her car ended! She kept creeping forward until "BUMP"! Luckily I didn't have any damge that was noticable from the last one. The rest of the accidents have made me $4-5000 total but everytime "rusty" (my car  ) gets less tolerant of being hit. Plus it stresses the hell outta me!

Here Rusty is getting his sheet metal "stretched out" and new fenders and apron fitted.


Here is the front end wreck where my coworker backed into my car:


Here the hood is being test fitted after we pulled the structure out...We started taking the car apart on a Friday night at 7pm, and this pic was taken the next day at around 6pm... By 11pm that night it was back together and the primer was drying!



Andy

[Rennsurfer]

That's a bummer, Donny... sorry to hear that your car got smacked. Only time I was ever hit, thankfully, wasn't in my VWs. I was taking my two sons to school and one their friends. I was around 1999 or 2000... was just sitting a red light on Pacific Coast Hwy. in Seal Beach. I always watch my rear view mirrors, so I noticed that the moronic fool two cars back was heading for us at full speed and not slowing down. I told everyone in my car to hold their heads against the headrests. BOOM! We get hit.

After making sure that all of the kids were okay, I got out and walked over to the car two more down. The cute college girl behind me was all apologizing. I told her not to worry and kept walking. Her car was a little bent up. The clueless one behind her was who I wanted. I told the person to wake up and take some driving awareness classes. I left everyone my contact info and told 'em all that my car's fine. Everyone else's... not-so-much. Thank God for old '80s Volvo wagons! Didn't put a scratch on my car.

I feel bad for anyone that's driving their air cooled VWs and gets rear ended. That's no fun, at all. Glad to hear that you're alright, Donny... could've been much worse.

[kingsburgphil]

Several times, the best....a ladies Nissan kills it's radiator on my type 181's ball hitch.

The worst....nailed by a squareback doing 40mph while stopped at a light. My customers Siata "Spring" was a messy total, a fitting end
to an ugly car.

[Sam K]

I've had a couple "love taps" at stop lights in the bug, but thankfully nothing more than that. A good friend of mine got rear ended last year in his bug at a wierd intersection that I have to sit at every morning and it made me nervous, so I bought a spare 'vert deckild as an "insurance policy". My WRX has been rear ended four times though, twice while parked and twice with in it. The last time, the guy took off and I had to chase him. When he finally pulled over, I got out my car ready to give him a serious beating but he turned out to be a little 82 year old man with bright orange tennis shoes. 

[TexasTom]

Donny!
Sorry to hear of your unfortunate incident.
I think you handled it perfectly ... I would most likely have thrown in a few choice words.

Something similar happened to me just 2 weeks ago ...
I rarely drive my car to work (30 miles one way), but decided to since it was such great weather. Everything went great on the way in, but didn't turn out so good on the way home.
I left an hour early as I wasn't feeling so great; turned out to be the flu coming on! About 5 miles from the shop it starts running crappy so I bail off the hiway to find the right manifold has come loose! Making the wrong decision, I decide to tighten it up by hand rather than head back and go through all the traffic again. I end having to pull over every 2 to 3 miles to tighten it back up again! If I push it farther, the massive intake leak and accompanying over-lean mixture overheats and sends the head temp over 300. Anyway, with all this going on, I've just pulled back into traffic and we're cruising along at about 50. All of the sudden a BOOM from the front of the car and a shiny thing flies past to the left. I thought the wheel had come off! I blow off to the side and screach to a stop! After traffic goes by and clears I jump out to survey ... everything is cool but for a dent in the lower section of the left front fender. The shiny UFO was the horn grill flying past. I look back in the road and see another object so I run back to check it out about 100 yards ... a claw hammer. Some moron had this thing rolling around in the back of his pickup and it finally fell out, bouncing across lanes and smacked the crap out of MY CAR!
To say the least I was LIVID. Fortunately for them, I didn't have a grenade launcher in the car ... that day.
So I saved the hammer and my, now flattened, horn grill.
Still had to continue pulling over to tighten the manifold for the remaining 20 or so miles.

I've vowed to never drive it in weekday work traffic again. We'll see if I ever soften up.
For now, looks like I've got my work cut out for me AND I have to deal with a bodyshop!

Take care,
Tom

[louisb]

Three days after getting my '67 someone rear ended me. A young girl in a hurry to get to her part time job. It didn't do much for the bumper but I was not planning on using them anyway. Its one of the reason I plan to add a third brake light to the '66 and maybe the buggy.

--louis

[Sarge]

Luckily, I wasn't in the '69 when it got rear-ended while parked out in front of the house.  Driving a bug on SoCal highways with behemoth trucks and SUVs can be a life changing experience... if you got "tapped" by one, you'd be done.

[Rennsurfer]

Ouch! Those pics hurt, Tom & Sarge.

 

Thankfully, you're both unscathed.

[javabug]

Sucks to hear all these stories.  I love driving my car when I can, but traffic is so stupid around here it has become just plain frightening to drive a car you care about.  It is a real mental battle to drive my car to work on rare occasions, because with the specialty insurance if I get tagged and the insurance co. finds out I was taking it to work I probably won't get the money.