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How Often Do You Witness An Accident?

I

itcheroni

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 23, 2005
550
1
CA
I seem to witness accidents more often than I would expect to occur statistically. I have seen more accidents than I can remember. I would guess within the last 5-6 years I've had at least 20 accidents occur within a 30 meter radius of me. I see one every couple months. This summer, I was eating a kebab in Vienna and was watching the cars go by when I saw one get rear ended. I was staring right at the first car before it happened.

Yesterday, I was looking up something on my phone in a parking lot when I hear a crash from the street. It was a car and motorcycle. After a moment, I heard a women screaming through sobs, "I can't move! I can't move!" I was very unnerved and left as the ambulance came.

I know logically that I couldn't have anything to do with these accidents, but I seem to see them regularly, especially considering the fact that I don't work and am rather reclusive. In fact, yesterday was the first time I left the house in 3 or 4 days. In 2 months, I probably cover less ground than the average working person does in a week. Is this a normal frequency of accidents or am I a dark omen?

I'm not a spiritual or religious person, I just find it hard to believe it's normal to see so many car accidents.
 
Someone please develop an iPhone application that warns you if you get within 30 meters of itcheroni. :D

I've seen 4 in my 4+ decades on this planet.
 
I drive 150 miles round-trip to work a couple times a week, and travel a lot besides that, so I get a little more exposure than average. I'd say I see a minor wreck every day or two, sometimes 3 or 4 in a day. Major wrecks with dead/very injured people, probably one every month or so.
 
Witnessed an accident, not seen one that's already happened.
 
I've only witnessed one accident while it was happening in the past year or so. Not including that one, I have seen at least two accidents that have already happened in the last year. However, a year or two ago, I had a huge truck coming at me. I was walking, and it drove right up the sidewalk, and crashed into the tree about 6 feet away or so. And that's with me already dodging. Had another car coming at me when I was crossing the streets couple months later. It was going at least 100kmph in the city, and it had really bad brakes. It started braking at like 25 feet away, and it still kept going at an alarming speed. The tires screeched and there was smoke because the tires were rubbing on the road so hard. I ran back to the sidewalk, and it just glided right past me.
 
Sort of a weird variation on Unbreakable. :eek:

unbreakable3.jpg
 
With over 55,000 miles in the last six months I have seen quite a few accidents.

I've only seen minor accidents happen, mostly rear-enders in stop-and-go traffic.

I drive past major accidents a LOT. If I didn't know any better I'd think American drivers think they are invincible no matter what they do behind the wheel.
 
I've actually only seen one accident happening that I can remember specifically and that was when I was on vacation in Copenhagen. If I remember correctly, the car was trying to make a U-turn or something when another car crashed into it. It wasn't a bad accident, but it wasn't a fender bender either. I see accidents that have already happened all the time though.
 
Maybe I should clarify. I don't mean I was driving and I drove past an accident site. I mean an accident takes place in my presence. Driving past an accident wouldn't alarm me. It's the fact that it takes place when I'm around that shocks me. I'll be at a red light and see two cars hit each other at the intersection. I'll be on the highway and two cars to my left will smack into each other. I'll be driving on a rural road in Japan and whoever is in the car in front of me falls asleep and drives off the road. :(
 
rdowns said:
Someone please develop an iPhone application that warns you if you get within 30 meters of itcheroni. :D

I've seen 4 in my 4+ decades on this planet.
Click to expand...

Haha. I kind of feel like I owe it to people to warn them about my presence. :(


iJohnHenry said:
Sort of a weird variation on Unbreakable. :eek:

unbreakable3.jpg
Click to expand...

Haha. I swear, I'm not causing these accidents! I might get mad but I'm no genius.
 
itcheroni said:
Maybe I should clarify. I don't mean I was driving and I drove past an accident site. I mean an accident takes place in my presence. Driving past an accident wouldn't alarm me. It's the fact that it takes place when I'm around that shocks me. I'll be at a red light and see two cars hit each other at the intersection. I'll be on the highway and two cars to my left will smack into each other. I'll be driving on a rural road in Japan and whoever is in the car in front of me falls asleep and drives off the road. :(
Click to expand...

You must be HOT! ;)
 
I came damn close a couple weeks ago while walking to my parking garage from work. Some jackass in an SUV was speeding and swerving and cut off another car and was about a foot away from hitting him.
 
yg17 said:
I came damn close a couple weeks ago while walking to my parking garage from work. Some jackass in an SUV was speeding and swerving and cut off another car and was about a foot away from hitting him.
Click to expand...

So you've never seen an accident occur right in front of you?
 
itcheroni said:
So you've never seen an accident occur right in front of you?
Click to expand...


Not unless an accident I was in counts :D

Edit: Actually, I take that back. I remember, I did witness one in Chicago years back. A taxi driver ran a red light and t-boned one of the cars in front of us, we narrowly escaped. I don't know what happened after that since we left (I know, probably illegal but we were on our way home to St. Louis and didn't want to get held up for a long time), but I hope the passenger in the taxi didn't have to pay his fare ;)
 
Several, I used to walk along a dangerous main road on the way back from school each day, the amount of moron drivers was insane.

I've seen at least 10 serious accidents and dozens of minor ones, I try not to be around the places where they're known to happen though :p
 
I haven't actually "witnessed one" but i have seen the ambulance come screaming past to help this dude that got owned on his motorbike.

As we were driving past, they were putting him on the gurney, neck brace etc and then they sped off.
 
I've seen one happening as I was looking, (I'm 14). I was...WE were at a stop light. and on the right of our car, these 2 cars came (it was 1 lane,and to the right of that lane was a metal barrier) one hitting the barrier, the second trying to push the car into the barrier even more as to avoid hitting another car( us). And, then the cars stopped right next to our car. and I saw the driver right on the right of me drop her head onto the steering wheel(on purpose like "god damit, I'm broke now)
 
I never see such accidents but last year my pops, whilst driving through Germany, had some fancy shmancy car speed past him. About half an hour later he came upon its reckage. Whole thing was destroyed and he could only assume the driver and passenger were squished... to pieces.
 
Funny timing with this thread.

I am about 100 miles east of Fargo, ND right now. We had eaten in Clearwater, ND then I replied to this thread and climbed into the sleeper for some rest.

About 30 minutes ago I was almost asleep when I herd the CB start squawking, it woke me up. I looked out from the sleeper in time to see that we were driving on solid ice, cars were in the ditch everywhere. For about 20 miles the road just turned to ice. I counted about 10 cars in the ditch on I-94 and there were more on the frontage road.

Lucky for us, my student already knows a thing or two about driving on ice so he just slowed down to about 35 and put the 4-ways on, never slipped once. We are also loaded heavy, about 75k lbs, so that helps with the traction.

The cars kept flying past us as if the road was just wet.

Looks like we have snow from here to our destination in eastern Washington.
 
it really depends on where you live. Back at school I saw about every other week a pretty bad wreck in front of my apartment. Just the way the roads where it happened quite a bit.
 
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