[StratComm]

Ok, I finally have something to rant about, my car.  Lets backtrack a bit, shall we?

September, 2001:  I am driving home after some volunteer work I had been doing at my high school, and an old woman pulls out right in to me in her new Mercedes and completely totals my car.  It's her fault, but I'm beat up and notably without car.  I get a new one a couple of months later.

Fast-forward, May 2003:  Getting ready to leave for home after my first year of college.  A guy in a Bronco loaded up with way too much stuff backs in to me and tears my fender right off.  Car's still drivable, but only barely.

July, 2003:  Coming home from a softball game, a Mexican (looked high ) runs in to my other fender, not a week after I finished getting the damages from the last accident repaired.  He drives off, it's dark, and his liscence plate isn't illuminated so I can't get insurance to cover this one.  Fortunately the damages weren't as extensive, but I've still got the marks on the car.  I'm now ticked.

Back to the present; November 2003:  I'm going home for thanksgiving, and I see that my hood isn't shaped as it should be.  On closer examination, ot would appear that some @&$^ idiot got on my hood and jumped up and down.  Again, no record.  I have to get the police report and my insurance should cover it, but I'm extremely ticked.  I've had such bad luck with the darned thing, but not once have the damages been my fault

Ok, end rant.

[Hippo]

hm... atleast my dad is giving me his old truck... you should put shape charges in your car, so that when someone hit is, it blows off part of their chasis or something...

[karajorma]

Electrify it and use a remote to turn it off. Just don't ever forget and use your key to open it

[Sandwich]

*restates desire for private armored Hummer*

[Kosh]

Now you know why I never bothered to get a car (or a liscence for that matter).

Public transportation all the way!!!!

[phreak]

[IceFire]

Good thing you aren't in Canada.  The way the insurance companies are treating people in Ontario...they'd just take away your insurance stating that you're costing them too much money.  Rediculous things like that...even when its not your fault...even when you weren't near your car when the accident happened.

Unbelievable people on the roads however.  I've been lucky so far (touch wood!!!!) but I've never been hit, smashed, backed into, rammed, and run over by people who fail to obey lights, signs, right of way, the speed limit (both under and over), refuse to let you pass them (when driving 20kph under) by speeding up and blocking your attempt to rejoin the outside lane....

Just incredible utter stupidity on the roads.  Nevermind the private Hummer...I want to drive a tank around.  Someone wants to do something stupid...fine...I point my 120mm smoothbore cannon at them.  Then we'll see how stupidly they behave.  Roadrage?  No problem...come on, ram my reinforced armor plated tank.  See what happens.

(just thought I'd join into the rant)

[castor]

..not once have the damages been my fault

One of the reasons I never got a car.. (and won't, unless I absolutely need to).
Survival out there is a matter of luck more than anything else.

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by StratComm
Ok, I finally have something to rant about, my car.  Lets backtrack a bit, shall we?

September, 2001:  I am driving home after some volunteer work I had been doing at my high school, and an old woman pulls out right in to me in her new Mercedes and completely totals my car.  It's her fault, but I'm beat up and notably without car.  I get a new one a couple of months later.

Fast-forward, May 2003:  Getting ready to leave for home after my first year of college.  A guy in a Bronco loaded up with way too much stuff backs in to me and tears my fender right off.  Car's still drivable, but only barely.

July, 2003:  Coming home from a softball game, a Mexican (looked high ) runs in to my other fender, not a week after I finished getting the damages from the last accident repaired.  He drives off, it's dark, and his liscence plate isn't illuminated so I can't get insurance to cover this one.  Fortunately the damages weren't as extensive, but I've still got the marks on the car.  I'm now ticked.

Back to the present; November 2003:  I'm going home for thanksgiving, and I see that my hood isn't shaped as it should be.  On closer examination, ot would appear that some @&$^ idiot got on my hood and jumped up and down.  Again, no record.  I have to get the police report and my insurance should cover it, but I'm extremely ticked.  I've had such bad luck with the darned thing, but not once have the damages been my fault

Ok, end rant.

Do you live in Florida?

[StratComm]

No, North Carolina

Originally posted by castor

One of the reasons I never got a car.. (and won't, unless I absolutely need to).
Survival out there is a matter of luck more than anything else.

Well it's not like I have much of a choice in the matter.  When you live on 100 acres of land, have a soybean field one one side of your property, and live 20 minutes away from the nearest stop light, having a car goes from being a luxury to being necessary for survival.  Of course I am learning all too quickly that I should never have brought my car to school with me, but that's only half the problem.

[Stryke 9]

Well, that explains it, then. You're in the South.

Your lookout, really.

[J3Vr6]

Not everywhere in the US is public transportation-friendly.  In Miami you absolutely have to have a car.  Using the public transportation here is a nightmare and would add hours to your travel time if u have to go what would normally take 15 minutes driving.

Stratcomm, sounds like u hit a patch of bad luck  I remember when I had my VW Jetta the reason I had to sell it.  Driving one day from work on the way to a class to have my final exam (presentation) some guy driving a really old saab in the opposite lane of traffic decided to make a left turn and either thought he can make it before I got there or turned without seeing me.  I was in the far left lane when he decided to turn.  I swerved to the right (trees on the left) and he managed to hit the left side of my car, from the front bumper all the way to the back door before I rebounded off him and slid on the right sidewalk.

The week after I got my car back from the body shop, I was driving to work (just feet from my house) and got sandwiched in a multi-car accident.  The people ahead of me got into an accident and the person behind me wasn't paying attention and sodomized my VW  It looked like an accordian.

The car should have been a total loss, but the insurance company and body shop both screwed me.  If repairing the car is over 80% of the value in a car, it's classified as a total loss.  The first estimate from the insurance company came out to be like 70% of the value.  So they couldn't total it.  At the body shop, they found more damage in the frame, bringing it up to like 87% of the total value of the car in damages.  Insurance company didn't want to total loss it after that because the body shop had already started working on the car.  Like 2 months later, I sold it.

[Stealth]

i've never had problems with people running into me, etc. but i did have someone jab a screwdriver into my hood a few times, leaving little dents and paint scratches

other than that, it's all been cool


/me hates slow drivers on the highway and/or people that accelerate to block you when you try to switch lanes

[phreak]

i can't stand really old people though.  then there's this one fool i see on the road sometimes that goes 30 in a 55 zone.  to make it worse he's probably ~25 years old

[Liberator]

Sounds like me, you been in North Alabama lately?

[phreak]

nope.  i haven't been to the deep south in a long time

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by StratComm
No, North Carolina

Move.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by StratComm
[rant]

8am beltline traffic. Dickwit in his overcompensating, giant ass pickup truck decides he needs my space in my lane more than I do. Without looking to see that he might be right next to another, albeit shorter, car, he starts to move over, with no signal or anything. Mere moments before he slams his truck into me, I swerve into the median and end up taking down about 150' of safety wire. The entire left side of my car was shredded. Rather than stop, dickwit kept driving. Since I didn't let him hit me, my insurance won't cover the damages. I'd only had the car for about two weeks.

We live in the wrong state, Strat.

[StratComm]

Yeah that's what you get when rednecks and money meet.  Not that we're rich around here, but there are more oppertunities (RTP, Nascar, etc) for the idiots to have enough money to not care about that crap.

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by StratComm
No, North Carolina

Oh. I've driven through Florida, and they're really bad. The drivers down there are stupid, obnoxious, and selfish. "Turn signal? Whuhzuh turn signal?"