Right so today the GF and i decided to go for a walk on the beach. She passed her driving test yesterday and so she was driving and i'd duly agreed not to be a back seat driver!

So on the way there she decides to overtake a slow moving coach. She pulls out and gets 3/4 of the way past when an audi a4 appears in the opposite direction about 1/4 mile ahead. She wasn't going fast enough past the coach and swerved in to early, hitting the front o/s corner of the bus with the rear quarter. She then swerved again, bringing the car into over steer and into the path of the Audi, which hit our car's rear n/s wheel. We span off the other side of the road and came to a halt. The whole incident happened at approx 60mph.

Had the audi hit us 2 feet to the left i'd currently have half a corolla door and 4 silver rings sticking through me. I consider myself very lucky to be alive after the incident, although i'm nowhere near as shaken up as poor hattie, who is not only still shocked by the whole thing but feeling guilty for almost killing me.

The Policeman said it was definitely the worst accident he'd ever seen on that road .

Anywho, there are many morals to this story, and i didnt want to initiate a "women shouldnt drive" thing on here, but the main one i wanted to pass on is never overtake until your sure its safe and , cruicially, necessary.

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by dirt_monkey

totally agree, it was simply inexperience that caused that crash, nothing more, nothing less.

thankfully no-one's that badly hurt! Just a few bent pieces of metal and some cuts and bruises.

Her pride's probably taken the biggest hit though! and I'd recommend that you get your lass behind the wheel again ASAP, or else the whole incident may traumatise her for life!

I'm one of the lucky ones who's lass is a decent enough driver! I've only had to press the imaginary brake pedal on the passenger side a couple of times! :)

first of all let me say I'm glad you're both alive and well!

personally i don't think it is ever necessary to overtake, but that's just me. I do get annoyed sat behind slow moving vehicles but i never feel it is safe or necessary enough to overtake. This was drummed into me by my dad when i was learning to drive and i agree with it. But i will say i am usually quite a calm driver.

Can I ask what road it was? I presume you were headed to a beach round my way?

edit: i agree with panda on getting her out again asap!

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by CarbonImage

glad your ok dude, could have been well nasty

i used to have an ex when i was 17/18 who thought she could 'drive'

i used to crap my pants every time i went in the car with her, so many near misses like the one you just described

Ha tell me about it, I remember mostly just being a hugging post for her for the first hour. That and noting as we swerved "hmm, he's got the s line bodykit" or he had, until it hit the toyota. I guess that makes me a proper car nerd!

It was the B3070 into lulworth

Glad you are both ok, sounds like a very scary and horrible accident.

One thing I would take from it though (and something not everyone agrees with) is if your overtaking something, select the lowest gear you can and accelerate as hard as the car will allow until you are past the vehicle you are overtaking.

Something I've always done and to my knowledge I've never performed a 'bad' overtake, but the amount of people I see overtaking slowly and having to pull in just in the nick of time or back out of the overtake altogether is stupid.

ah, can certainly see why you'd want to overtake on that road! bloody long time to be sat behind a coach.

i will always overtake slow moving traffic but wait until there is ample room to see ahead, be it straight roads, or where you can see the road say traversing down a hill, obviously taking into account cars that could be hidden by foliage, or dips/crests in the road.

all about picking your moments opportunly, and also knowing the limitations of the particular car your in, even if it is fast, theres often things you cant overtake, a long line of slow moving traffic, if they are staying very closely bunched together. you often see drivers doing the marathon and taking on all the cars, which brings inherit danger as you are constantly accelerating with only one end point in side, which increases your braking distance, and the bit of free overtaking space in terms of what you could see ahead at the initiation of the overtake, is diminishing. too many people do it on the road from derby->buxton->macc, snakes pass and woodhead. the people that weave inbetween trying to make cars make space for them fucks me off as theyve just fucked everyones braking distances up, so everyone has to slow down and then it wastes fuel blaaaaah.

one of the best things i read mate which might be good for your missus was Roadcraft, the police drivers handbook thing, my aunt gave it to me when i was about 19 and it was weird to see how many traits id picked up that were explained in the book.

they really should make new drivers take advanced driving courses within a year of driving, it would be so beneficial. i keep meaning to get involved in one, as i cant say id know what to do properly in a car thats losing control bar brace and brown trousers.

well glad everyones safe dude and this aint a rant or owt, i agree with paul about it being inexperience.

out of interest what type of road was it, and was there a free view of the road, or were you none the wiser sitting in the passenger seat as behind a bus you aint gonna see owt from there

peace

oh i forgot to add about knowing the car your in, if I'm in the mk3 1 litre, you pick your overtaking moments very carefully and very wisely, its only on the very rare occasion in that little beast that its ever had to overtake on a single carriageway A or B road, i just used to cruise in the beasty

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by grungeisdead

shit man, at least you and the missus are okay!

I'm very cautious when overtaking, i dont like to do it alot.

Yeah right, i cant blame her for it but i just guess she misjudged her car.

Whats funny is the coach was full of kids on a school trip who were well glad to have something to put in their week diary!

The chap in the A4 was an RQMS who was really cool with everything and had an obvious "theres a million worse things in the world than this" attitude, especially considering it was 59 plate 2.0 TDI .

The only thing i'm worried about now is i'm smack bang in the middle of A level exams atm, and i really dont want this to affect me

It was a 60mph main B road , quite straight and reasonably clear, i'd probably say that was the only real spot to overtake on it

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by dirt_monkey

^ Wise words from saf.

One thing I can say re: any advanced driving courses, is that no amount of theory can match practical experience. No two lack of grip incidents are the same, it's be all very well if every road surface was perfectly flat and equally grippy, but alas, they are not. I did a 1 week long intense IAM driving course and that involved a day at a skidpan, and without trying to be cocky, I was making the guy with the control box look stupid, the only time I lost control of the car was when he took the entire weight of the car off the ground.

However, I daresay it would have been more beneficial as you say if it had been not long after passing my test, but it wasn't, it was after 3 years of driving like a dick on rural unclassified roads where a bit of oversteer is part and parcel of it all!

What 99% of people need to do though, is read Roadcraft as soon as they've passed their test, disregard the highway code to all intents and purposes, and learn road manners as much as safety.

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by tobyk

oh i forgot to add about knowing the car your in, if I'm in the mk3 1 litre, you pick your overtaking moments very carefully and very wisely, its only on the very rare occasion in that little beast that its ever had to overtake on a single carriageway A or B road, i just used to cruise in the beasty

Ha, I borrowed one of the L200 pickups from work to drive into Aberdeen, and driving back, had to overtake a lorry, I honestly can't say I've driven anything as slow as an L200, pretty sure a 1.0 Mk3 would feel rapid in comparison. I'm used to driving Nissan Navara pickups and they actually accelerate if you want them to.

I'm too used to just dropping the Mk2 into 3rd and overtaking everything I think. 50-90 is pretty impressive even in a bog standard valver!

Redlining overtakes FTMFW .

I can bet neither of us are going to do any flying overtakes for a while.

As everyone above mate, atleast you and your missus are okay. Nothing lost but some metal.

Defo agree with panda about getting her driving again, otherwise she going to build a fear for it. Take her to a car park or something and let her go wild :p...in the car...driving...

Ha maybe i'll see if i can get it moving and then we'll razz it round a field perhaps

Nothing like getting straight back on your horse and all that.

glad that your both ok apart from the bumps and bruises,

but make sure she gets back behind the wheel alot of people crash within the first year of passing at least you survived it and didnt become a statistic, but this will make her a better driver because she knows the consequence first hand, but chin up life goes on etc,

and glad you both ok

the reason id like to do a course, is i had a few moments when i was a nipper at 17 driving my car on a provisional blatting it about and had a couple of moments of understeer in my mums focus caning it on country roads, i froze and stamped on the clutch and gently braked and stopped going off into the other lane and into oncoming traffic, the thought of making my mam carless when we lived 14 miles from the town and getting murdered by my dad was enough to calm me down from driving like a complete dickwad!

even in a standard mk2 when i was like 23, i went round a roundabout on 14 inch baloons ditchfinders literally 2 mins after starting driving, roundabout at 20 mph on moist conditions and the car piroeutted twice! luckily hit nothing, but if that happens again, its all about what your instincts tell you, and id rather not fully trust my instinct, and have some kinda safe experience there to boot.

she will drive again man, as its such a loss of freedom otherwise, it opens up bare possiblities, some say trains and planes do, but they smell like old, babies and sick. id rather smell my own sick in my own car =D

True that, after stepping back from the scene it was amazing to have walked away from it. Nothing a half pack of benson and hedges cant fix! And a good glass of port

It is good to know noone was hurt

Got to agree - get her back driving, and if possible - back along the same road!

When I had a roll in my first b-reg polo bready (only 3 weeks after passing my test!) - it shock the hell out of me (came out with only 2 scratches though ) i was out with my instructor a couple of days later and she took me that way. I still feel uncomfortable about going that way when its wet and that was over 4 years ago!

Just being nosey here - any chance of pictures of the damage? I'm a damage whore

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by NEPolo

Shes got a few pics on her camera, i'll see what i can do but no promises The skidmarks were well impressive!

Any damage pics are interesting to me :-D

Still glad noone was seriously hurt though :)

Gladd to hear your ok buddy! :-)

NEPolo....have you by any chance seen the movie CRASH?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/

showing the skidmarks would be a step too far