Nearly got into two accidents this weekend, in a span of like 5 minutes on the 163 near downtown. First some lady in a BMW yapping on her cell phone couldnt handle the curve and merged into our lane. Nearly put us into the wall.
Second, someone swerved into the exit lane to get off on the 4th street exit and caused everyone behind to slam on the breaks. A VW and an Explorer wasnt paying attention and nearly slammed into us from behind. (they swerved into the shoulder (VW) and the other lane (explorer).
First off, neither were my buddies fault ( we had plenty of stopping room). Second off, in his big ass pickup, we were the bigger and heavier in all cases.
As AN points out, Neither would have been head on collisions. We would have either been rear-ended by a swerving vehicle, or sideswiped.
The VW would have taken the worst of the crash by far had they hit us straight on, but being a lighter car with good breaks and manuverability it missed us and didnt get in an accident at all, even though it was following too close and not paying attention. The explorer had way more room to stop and actually hit the breaks before the VW (actually paying some attention) but still had to swerve wildly and wasnt able to stop in time. I was worried that the explorer would flip if it hit us at that angle. Had the places been reversed, the driver of the explorer would have been buying my buddy a new pickup, no way he wouldnt have hit us.
THE BMW was driven by some tennis mom type woman yapping on her cell she was holding to her ear (illegal now BTW) and she couldnt hold the turn. Thankfully I had been talking about her just before she entered the lane, (remark about the cell) and we saw the loss of control happen. If we hadnt we would have been sideswiped into the wall.
Two points.
1) The smaller car’s (VW) manuvearability and good breaking overcame carelessness on the part of the driver and allowed the car to not get in an accident. I dont care how safe your SUV is, it is always safer to NOT be in an accident. The SUV could not have made that manuver in the same space, hell it couldnt do it in more space, with more time due to better driving habbits. We had to actually wave the SUV infront of us to keep moving beacuse they had come all the way around us.
2) I was much more affraid of the sideswipe than the rear ending. A heavy, low center of gravity hitting a high center of gravity heavy car is a great way to flip. Add in the increased speed, and it was certainly a much deadly sinario than the rear ending.
In both cases good driving habbits and increased manuverability saved the day, not weight or size. If you want to play crash test dummy and slam your self into a wall, strap into a H1, or better yet a semi. If you want to be safer, look at how you drive, where you drive, and what people around you are doing. Id bet you that VW driver is thanking high heaven she wasnt in an SUV.
