Here it is. Rear ended another car at about 15mph because one of the traffic lights was out and an SUV driver blocking my view of the '97 Accord I hit(but he kindly swerved so I would hit them, thanks buddy!).

Well - just talked to the shop and this bitch is definitely totalled. Was way over $10k.

<edit>Sorry for the poor quality of some pics - it was a borrowed digicam and I didn't know how to change the quality higher</edit>

Front:




Front frame(keep in mind their bumper missed my front bumper completely, and no I'm not lowered at all):




Where's the PS pump?




Everything looks more.... compact:




More of the radiator loving on the header:




Yea - that bumper reinforcement REALLY worked(although I will say it was being stressed in a manner it was not designed for)




Airbags - and cracked front windshield from the passenger bag:




Better shot of the front - notice again that their bumper went straight into the frame




Another front shot:




I still feel sick looking at these pics, and can't believe that such a low speed collision could total the car. Even though no one was injured in the low-speed collision(I think the small bruise on my knee was the worst of it), I definitely would not feel safe driving an Integra again. If it had been an SUV or truck I might have had a hot engine block in my lap - at only 15mph...


Does anybody know how much my insurance will go up? I am 2 months away from being 21yrs old and have had 1 ticket for 11mph over 3 years ago. Definitely drive with your seatbelt on, because you never know when or where this kind of crazy stuff will happen. In this case, there was no out - I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was really looking at buying a '95 E36 M3 right before the crash(ironic isn't it?), but I don't know if my insurance will be outrageous with a wreck on my record. I would look at a '98-99 Subaru Impreza 2.5RS, but they are going for almost as much as a decent condition M3, and I think we can all agree that the M3 is a superior car in everyway. So give me some ideas guys, I autocross exclusively - no drag racing for me.

Keep it safe out there guys.



[Modified by Def, 8:27 AM 10/2/2002]

 

that'll buff right out

 

15mph? interesting.

sorry bout your loss

 

man the first pic looks like the car got punched in the face and the styrofoam is a bunch of busted teath. sorry about your car

 

15mph... Damn that looks weird, sorry about that bro. good luck.

 

Sorry to see that man, question for ya is your car satin silver?? If it's not
totalled I'm selling everything you probaly need to redo the front (going
JDM front end) I have the fenders, hood, lights, rad support, corners
even a Type R lip. This is coming from a Satin Silver 2001 GS-R. Let me
know if your interested I'll sell it for alot less then the body shop could
get it for.

 

JDM front time.......

 

You were only going 15 mph???

 

My car is a 98 Vogue Silver Metallic GS. The shop said their estimate was way over $10k, so it is going to be totalled. The insurance adjustor just needs to go out and have a look at it.

I was going about 30-35mph(or even less considering how much space I had to accelerate) and was on the brakes for a good 40ft or so. I'm guessing it was 15mph or so, because my head didn't even really move at impact. Never even came close to touching the airbag, and my knee only slightly banged against the dash(and I'm 6'3", so my knee sits a few inches from the dash). I've been in two <5mph fender benders and this wasn't THAT much worse from an energy transferance perspective. It just all went into the frame, and the bumper basically did nothing - hence the amount of damage and the... unique appearance of the car.

I hope they give me a decent amount if they decide to total it, my car had 50k miles on it and was absolutely pristine. I took such good care of her, and it's such a shame that this is how our relationship will end. I'm going to miss her...

 

i will buy your tranny if it's in working condition..

and sorry about your lose

 

I don't have a place to store or wrench on the car to sell off parts. But if anybody in the Atlanta region is interested, I'll sell the entire car for just a small bit more than I can buy it for.

Car is a 98 Integra GS 5-speed with 50,xxx miles on it. Interior is in very good condition. Trunk even has the new car smell.

Engine and transmission are perfect. Had an intake on the car for 3k miles then sold it. Otherwise the only other mods are a front and rear strut bar plus a rear swaybar. Also has rear Infinity Kappa speakers in it, which I'd kinda like to see if I can yank out before they tow it off. Other than the crash damage the car is in awesome shape. You can pretty much see which parts are/might be damaged from the pics.

Anyway - if anybody is interested in the whole car(can't part it out) - let me know.

 

sorry for your loss. Hopefully you'll get something out of it in the end (like a new project). If you decide to part it out, I got dibs on your interior

//Alex

 

sorry about the car

 

There is quite a bit of kinetic energy in a 15mph crash, and their bumper completely missed my bumper reinforcement - so the only thing to stop it was plastic and my front core support(part of the frame).

BTW - I seriously doubt I could hold my head up in a crash approaching 30mph+. I never even touched the airbag, and there were absolutely no injuries. In fact, I'd estimate that the other car's damages were less than $1,000. The car just didn't hold up well at all in a collision of that type.

I'm also pretty sure it wasn't much, if any faster than 15mph. I was in traffic and had only been accelerating very lightly(less than 3k RPM) for about 50 yards and had about 40ft of distance to stop. But obviously it was not enough. Another 10-15ft and the wreck wouldn't have happened.

 

yeah it does look a little faster than 15mph...

also the car did exactly what it was supposed to do...absorb the energy from the impact. in other words, it is supposed to smash into that. if you were driving a 1980's Caddy you'd probably have a few broken ribs from the seatbelts restraining you that much more...

 

hHahhahHahHaHAHhahaHAHHahaHAHaH
aHahaHhahaAh
rofl.

 

man that sucks ***

 

*sigh*

Yes, cars are supposed to "absorb" the impact energy. That's what the plastic honeycomb and styrofoam was *SUPPOSED* to do, but didn't. You guys are missing the point. It WAS a ~15mph impact, and the bumper was "in the wrong spot." My frame had to absorb the impact, which is why the car is totalled.

I could take the bumper and all "impact absorbing" materials(minus the styrofoam which just kinda dropped out the front) and they'd look almost as good as new(see the side picture of the bumper support).

Trust me, I'm well aware of the physics principles behind a crash and why car design is the way it is. My point is that on a "normal" sized car, the bumper on my Integra was too low to do anything. Therefore the crash looks much worse than it was.

BTW - the Accord just has to have it's bumper cover and styrofoam replaced(maybe). If the wreck was more than 15mph, I'm pretty sure the other car would have received more damage. Not to mention the fact that I was in bumper to bumper traffic that was moving 30-35mph and had a good 40 ft to scrub off speed with fairly good tires.

But of course, you guys would know better than me...

 

I can sympathize hehe, I had a similar accident in a 97 GSR. THe point of impact for my car was about 1-2 inches above yours, so it basically missed the entire bumper and peeled the hood back. They totalled mine, but just barely, but in yours case, its gone

Best of luck with insurance, its going up.

 

Oh man....sorry to hear about the lose. Glad that no one was seriously hurt.

 

your car looks like it got its teeth busted out in the first pic...

 

Hey sprry about your loss. It does look like your were going faster tha 15 mph. Maybe when you started slowing down you saw your car doing 15 mph on the dash.
I hit someone in the back at 20 mph and my air bags didn't even pop out, my front bumper was cracked in the middle and my hood buckled, but my headlights were fine.


[Modified by davanca24, 3:56 PM 10/2/2002]

 

maybe 15mph into a COW (;

 

Look guys, I'm not posting pics so everybody can tell me that I'm lying about my speed. I have no reason to lie about this guys, saying I went 10-15mph faster doesn't change anything - and I would say that if I was at the time of impact. I didn't see the speedo, but know that my velocity couldn't be that far off from about 15mph(give or take 5mph, but i'd say at 20mph+ it would have been quite a bit worse). The frame(what took the most impact) only deformed about 2-3 inches. It's not like it takes running into a brick wall at 70mph to do that.

My collision was ~15-0mph in a foot or so since they had their brakes on. That's a very rapid decelleration, and alot of force per unit area. If you guys would like me to do the calculations and show you that there was alot more force in that collision than "common sense" would dictate, I'll do so.

You know all those government crash tests for frontal collisions that completely destroy the car? Those are done at 30mph and uses a large brick wall, not a smallish bumper(thus the bumper causes more force per unit area - otherwise known as pressure). So please people - stop telling me that I'm coming on here and lying for no apparent reason just because your rudementary understanding of physics dictates that my story is impossible.

I was chugging along in rush hour traffic and a freak occuranced caused me to rearend somebody and totalled my car at an impact speed of ~15mph. Wish I could say I gloriously wiped it out into a cement wall at 60mph, but alas, my story is much more humble and depressing.

 

Sorry man, feel for you and the teg....