Nice bit of parking...
Had a bit of an "oops" moment on Friday night...

Was driving home, a friend called (on hands-free, don't worry!) to say she was home and did I want to pop round. Yes, I did, I hadn't seen her for a few days. So going through the next village I took a left to head back down to her house, about 10 minutes away.

Somewhere down that stretch of road I nodded off at the wheel. Because the next thing I knew I was on top of a T-junction (on the side road) doing nearly 60mph with no time to stop.

Obviously I hit the brakes - hard. ABS or no ABS I wasn't going to stop. The car hit the kerb opposite (which was a raised kerb, about 14 inches off the road surface), the front end lifted, the back end followed, the car went straight across a 20-foot wide grass verge and ended up burrowing into a hedge.

Being a modern German car the doors unlocked, the interior light came on and the hazard lights turned on automatically.

The first thing I thought... "oh... FUCKSOCKS!"

I opened the door and realised I was 10 feet into a bramble hedge. Oh, great, I don't have a scratch on me and now I'm going to get shredded by brambles! As it turns out I got past the brambles without getting scratched.

When the car was pulled clear of the hedge the damage seemed minimal. It wasn't drivable, but it's been assessed and they've said it's repairable.

Turns out that because I was still doing over 50mph when I hit the kerb the front end lifted and the lower bumper took most of the impact. Had I been going slower the front of the car would have gone square-on into the raised kerb and probably written the car off.
(RabidRodent I'm the person your mother warned you about, Wed 20 Sep 2006, 9:45, Reply)