Good grief that'll shake you up! That really sucks for the woman he hit. What an idiot.

Yow. I have seen many car wrecks and participated in one, but have never witnessed a high-speed chase.

Couple years back, early on a warm July 4th morning I was coming home on the last leg of my bicycle ride, coming around the drill field at Virginia Tech, when I saw workers loading a downed cyclist into an ambulance by the side of the road. I couldn't tell what had happened, but it was bloody. And it really shook me - not the blood, or the pain of it, but realizing the guy had set out the same as I had, reveling in a beautiful day, probably looking forward to fun plans for the day, and it all changed in one sick instant. Everything can be so fragile.

Wolfdog, I have been on the other side of that equation (loaded into ambulance after bloody high-speed run-in with a car). There need to be fewer 79-year-old drivers on the road.

I don't really remember too much about the aftermath, as I was sort of semiconscious. Thank god I was wearing a helmet.

My friends and I arrived at a car crash minutes after it occured, on a lonely highway in Victoria, Australia. An old man, who was apparently about 70, had tried driving across the highway from his driveway on one side, to another road through his farm on the other side. He'd probably done the same thing two-thousand times before. But this time, a double-length truck had been coming along the road at 100kph. Damage to the truck was, typically, minimal. The man's car, on the other hand, was almost unrecognisable - you really get to understand what they mean when they describe a car wreck as a "twisted pile of metal" because this car had virtually been torn in half.

We had arrived after the local police, but before the ambulance. A friend of mine, who was trained in first aid, attended to the man while the police officer gave me an orange vest and told me to direct traffic around the scene. I didn't see the old man, but my friend came back and told me it wasn't good, and he didn't know if there was anything he could do. He was trapped inside the car - as you might expect - was unconscious, and a fair amount of his skull was missing, and was bleeding furiously. Eventually, the ambulance arrived and we left. Just the violence of the scene, the pure violence to the objects involved, the tire marks, the twisted, crushed car, stay with me, and I can only imagine what state the victim was in. As we left, the police officer was trying to contact the old man's wife so she could get there before he inevitably died.

I'm glad you're ok, bunnyfire.

This is why I hate to drive. Seriously. It is the most stressful thing in the world to me. I'm pretty concious the whole time I'm behind the wheel that I could hurt someone and that someone could hurt me.

It's been two and a third years since my wife was run over by a farm truck while we were returning home from a day's motorcycle touring.

She is still in continuous pain, her limbs still do not function at full capacity, she still requires various therapies, our life of sports activities is mainly terminated, and the insurance company has still not made an acceptable settlement offer.

The kid had stopped at a T intersection, we had right-of-way, and because he decided it was more important to stare at the unusual sight of a child as passenger than to check that the intersection was actually clear, he came within literal inches of killing her completely.

I fully support most anything that increases traffic safety. I think our licensing regulations are foolish, I think the lack of mandatory driver education is mind-boggling stupid, and I think the consequences of being at-fault are far too soft.

The kid will never comprehend how much damage he has caused. Our lives are impacted continuously because of his carelessness.

I make a continuous effort to improve my driving skills. If I were to ever cause harm to someone else because of my driving, I don't know that I could live with it. I could never forgive myself.

Whoo! I know how jarring such an experience can be; driving for 33 years in L.A., I've been in accidents and seen some, but the one that will forever haunt me was on the Hollywood Freeway southbound between the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood. Cauhenga Boulevard runs right next to the freeway, about 30 feet up an embankment. Traffic was light and uneventful when suddenly an older car comes over the embankment and lands *BAM* two lanes in from the side. Semi-miraculously, nobody hit the intruder, and I was the third-closest behind its landing place and had to swerve to its right. After I and the other cars were clear of it, the drivers in unison looked back as I (and I suspect the others) thought "WHAT THE...?!?" It was like a scene in an action movie that you never expected to see happen in real life. Of course, it was the Hollywood Freeway.

Several years back I saw a man lay down in front of a train. I immediately needed to track down both of my sons. Even as I realized the irrationality of my reaction I still needed to talk to them on the phone to know they were ok. I still wonder about the engineer driving the train.

About seven years ago I was rear ended. My car was bashed up but I was able to drive away (the adjuster still totaled it because the frame damage was basically unfixable). The other car was just destroyed. Neither of us was injured so I tried to joke with the guy, even though we were both pretty shaken up. He explained, in not very good English, that the car was a rental as he had been in another accident recently. He looked very worried. As I drove away alone the shock kind of wore off and I got very mad and wished death on him, etc. In the end my insurance took care of it, and I put the whole thing mostly out of my mind (except when I would walk out to the parking lot and see my saggy ass car).

A few weeks later I got a call from a private detective who had been hired by the other driver's sister. Apparently he had committed suicide and naturally enough she wanted to find out why. The detective wanted to clarify my relationship with the man, which I explained was limited to a car accident.

After I hung up I felt very small and petty for being so angry at a man for what was in the end such a small thing to me, but might have been the final straw for him. Maybe not, but I'm sure the (second) accident didn't help any.

My accident stories include watching my mother react as she stood in our driveway watching a motorcyclist blow the stop sign at the corner and get separated violently from his vehicle by the hood of a car. He was actually not badly injured, but my mom's expression is hard to forget.

it's horrible--i saw a guy get hit on the West Side Highway years ago and fly and then go sliding down the road--awful...

I've seen/participated in several accidents. Reading this thread brings them all back and it's less than pleasant. I think fff's reaction is best - try to be the best driver you can be.

Ain't it the truth.

I can't say that I could call what I saw an accident. The kid stole the vehicle on purpose, he drove like an idiot on purpose, and although he might not have intentionally hit that lady, I would say him crashing into SOMEONE was inevitable.

I think it is a miracle he only hit one of us, honestly.