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the death of my WRX

skinny mike

Turbo Monkey
Jan 24, 2005
6,415
0
ouch! :eek: sorry to hear about your car. but the most important thing is that the both of you are ok. if other cars were spinning in the same spot then i think you have a valid argument for court.

but maybe you shouldn't watch tokyo drift as much anymore... ;)
 

stoney

Part of the unwashed, middle-American horde
Jul 26, 2006
21,679
7,364
Colorado
Tosh,
I'm crying for you. IF it is totalled, are you going to buy it back to sell your upgrades? Let me know, because I'm interested in some of your stocker bits and maybe the sways.
 

Dirt rider

Pro Rider
Nov 18, 2001
505
0
redneck wasteland
i think he got the ticket because his car its a wrx, looks racey, and because of the white strip on the steering wheel.
the cop just went by the stereotype. that white strip is the cause!

My point exactly I got stopped at a road check and before I had the window halfway down the 5-0 barks " Are you a novice driver"? yes..

then wheres your "N" magnet?

the rules hre are if your a novice driver you have to have a green magnetic "N" on your car.

problem is this wasn't my car..its a company cargo van

so insted of risking my magnet getting stolen I made a "N" out of green electical tape. well that wasnt good enough.

"you can get an "N" for free from the driving office he tells me"
Problem: the driving office is open from 9:00 to 5:00 I work 8-5

also many people steal these magnets off the back of cars. so you can use a sticky clear envlope provided with the magnet and stick it to the inside of your back window.. cargo vans don't have back windows. but he says I cna stick the envolpe to the back of the van on the outside. I can't stick somthing to the back of a company van I don't own it...

but no he lets everyone over 30 go through....

feck
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,468
7,826
Tosh,
I'm crying for you. IF it is totalled, are you going to buy it back to sell your upgrades? Let me know, because I'm interested in some of your stocker bits and maybe the sways.
it depends on the price set whether i'll buy it back. if i do so and part it out i'll definitely crosspost the for sale thread to RM. already have the vultures circling on NASIOC... :D
 

ALEXIS_DH

Tirelessly Awesome
Jan 30, 2003
6,147
796
Lima, Peru, Peru
i might want the whole thing for the right price and condition... after all, toshi is near a major port. shipping wouldnt be an issue.

chalk up one more vulture here. a condor to be geographically correct
 

erikkellison

Monkey
Jan 28, 2004
918
0
Denver, CO
Terrible, but I'm sure you'll get out of the ticket considering the fact that everyone can't have been driving too fast for the conditions. Did anybody successfully navigate that corner while you were there??
As for the car, do buy it back - it's usually worth it with the upgrades you made. Though make sure it's towed to a respectable place (if you have any input in the matter) to prevent all-too-common aftermarket theft. If it's not totalled though, I would go with some of what Alexis said, though skip the '04+ front end, the bugeye rules. BUGEYES RULE!!!
I have done exactly the same thing in more dramatic fashion, with fewer consequences. I fishtailed to the L, back to the R, back to the L, and baaaack to the R into the curb, tagging a tree, ruining two wheels and one tire, and my rear quarter panel, and ripped the bumper clean off. I have since learned how to properly counter-steer in massive-sliding situations with my Impreza (thought not WRX). I'm not calling you a novice driver by any means, but it is all part of a learning experience. Counter-steer just as much as you need to and no more; in your case, just enough to keep you from going straight into the R guardrail. But enough consultation :)
Your insurance will deem it an at-fault accident even if you don't get a ticket for it. They're not going to blame the road for it, even if it was raining. It was pouring when it happened to me, and I didn't get a ticket, was able to drive home, but still got screwed on rates after that.
Cool car though. If you decide to part it out, I'd be interested in your rear swaybar and possibly exhaust. Not much else can be used on my car, though I might be interested in the seats too, depending on the price. I freaking hate mine.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,468
7,826
yeah, i will readily admit that i screwed up by countersteering too much. mental acuity while cruising down the freeway on the way to the autocross is nothing like that during an autocross run itself.
 

Snacks

Turbo Monkey
Feb 20, 2003
3,523
0
GO! SEAHAWKS!
That was you? We heard about that wreck today on the traffic radio. :shocked: Dude, so glad you and your passanger are okay.

That really really sucks about your car. The roads were horrible today for sure, I don't think anything you could have done would have saved you. We were driving home from Lynnwood (south bound), in a downpour, around 10a and saw some car flipped over on it side north bound on I-5 all by it's self. It must have just happened because it wasn't there 45 minutes earlier when were we headed that direction.

Thank goodness you walked away and for insurance.
 

erikkellison

Monkey
Jan 28, 2004
918
0
Denver, CO
I'm not ripping on you at all Toshi, don't worry.
The funny thing about drivers almost everywhere is that they forget that they can't drive the same in the rain, and so you see a lot of wrecks with a first rain or snow. The first rain though is especially bad because it floats all the residual oil up from being imbedded in the road, and makes for an extra-slick surface, moreso than just rain itself. But the flipside of the coin is all the people that drive 20 under when the rain starts to come down. It's a never ending battle, and I'm glad I don't live in Seattle, and have to put up with it! I have encountered this all across the country though. No matter how much rain or snow you get in whatever amounts and frequency, people still do a poor job of adapting properly to the situation. What kills me though is the people that consistently drive well under the SL just because it's raining, even if we haven't seen sunny skies for 3 weeks. Those people get passed :)
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,468
7,826
Amy, it might not have been me even tho it probably was given the car carnage: the tally keeps on rising, but my current count from other autocrossers who were headed each way on 16 at various times in the day is that there were at least 11 spins on that stretch today.

i personally witnessed 5 other spins, and 1 more had just spun before me according to the tow truck driver that pulled her away.

in addition, during the tow truck ride back up north we saw at least 10 (probably more like 15) cars on the side of the road, all rear enders. a couple of them looked like pretty vicious chain reactions, with 5+ cars all with damage lined up like ducks...

sanjuro, i fully agree, and indeed i plan to make the most of this situation.

kanter, that's not in the cards. i've decided to stay away from high powered street cars, not because they're big, bad, and scary, but because they have little place in my world. as it is i'm being given (thanks, mom and dad) an old(er) ford expedition, which i'll tool around in this winter. come spring the insurance mess should be all cleared up, and i might get something old and cheap that seats two...? :)
 

buildyourown

Turbo Monkey
Feb 9, 2004
4,832
0
South Seattle
Glad to here nobody was hurt.

Not to be a dick, but the ticket will stick.
Lets face it, if you weren't going "too fast for conditions", you wouldn't have crashed.

What kind of tires were on your car?
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,468
7,826
Nokian WR tires, lots of tread.

if all the other drivers who spun (and at least two of the ones i witnessed also were towed away) received the same ticket as i did then i'll roll over and play nicely. but if i got the ticket and they didn't then i'm fighting it to the bitter end as that's discrimination in my mind.
 

MMike

A fowl peckerwood.
Sep 5, 2001
18,207
105
just sittin' here drinkin' scotch
That totally blows... I had a similar situation about 10 years ago. And not only did I get a ticket, but I got sued. (Of course it happened in vermont....I was served abut a week before the statue of limitations would have expired. Totally bogus.)

But yep....that sucks huge.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,468
7,826
thanks for the implied sympathy, mmike :D . is vermont a very lawsuit-happy state?
 

MMike

A fowl peckerwood.
Sep 5, 2001
18,207
105
just sittin' here drinkin' scotch
thanks for the implied sympathy, mmike :D . is vermont a very lawsuit-happy state?
Dude! It'sa 3:30 am....what are you...Luc?

That wasn't so much at Vermont thing as a US/Canada thing. I was only in VT for the day.

Insurance companies are weird about what they total. They did total the car after my accident in VT. (If I can dig up a pic, I'll post it). But they DID total my integra when it was stolen and stripped. It almost always surprises me to hear what an insurance co. will deem to be the less expensive option for them.

And yes...there is sympathy in there! It's killing me to not throw in some snide comment about how you've become a "Seattle driver" already! (But I won't kick you when you're down.....
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,468
7,826
heh, i know how to merge therefore am not a true seattle driver.

i'm up late since i can't sleep, since i can't get this whole mess out of my head. tried to do as much as i could given that it is, er, was, sunday (for instance, booking a train [!] ticket home to pick up the expedition), but i am still far too restless to nod off.
 

ALEXIS_DH

Tirelessly Awesome
Jan 30, 2003
6,147
796
Lima, Peru, Peru
And yes...there is sympathy in there! It's killing me to not throw in some snide comment about how you've become a "Seattle driver" already! (But I won't kick you when you're down.....
hehe, somebody emailed me a funny animation....
funny animation. i´d post it here, but its too soon to be a smartass.

i also got a hole punched in my yaris rear bumper a few weeks ago. left my car while buying a pizza, and when i got out, my bumper was all scratched with a 4in dia hole on it.... my car doesnt even have 2800km on the odometer.
damn woman drivers on their suvs. (i knew it was an suv because of the location of the impact, and i know it was statiscally probable it was a woman because it was inside a market where 80% of customers are female, and 70% of suv drivers are female).
 

Snacks

Turbo Monkey
Feb 20, 2003
3,523
0
GO! SEAHAWKS!
if all the other drivers who spun (and at least two of the ones i witnessed also were towed away) received the same ticket as i did then i'll roll over and play nicely. but if i got the ticket and they didn't then i'm fighting it to the bitter end as that's discrimination in my mind.
Kevin got sideways in the mall parking lot yesterday afternoon. It was a good time
 

Acadian

Born Again Newbie
Sep 5, 2001
714
2
Blah Blah and Blah
ouch...just saw this thread now. Sorry about the incidnet..Sad pics to look at, but at least you and your buddy are okay - and ultimately that's the most important thing. Can't believe the cops gave you a tix - that's probably because of the car you were driving – good luck fighting it.
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
"The Fast and the Furious: Tacoma Drift"

Starring: Toshi



Shame about the car, glad you're ok.
 

stoney

Part of the unwashed, middle-American horde
Jul 26, 2006
21,679
7,364
Colorado
If they don't let you fight the ticket, request exploration, specifically the ticket book from which your ticket was written. If the other individuals received tickets, you're sol, if not the cop needs to explain to the judge why you got a ticket and not the others.
 

ElTORO

Monkey
Jun 27, 2006
369
0
With all the other Tards!!
It's super easy to get out of that ticket. If the cop did not have you on radar he has no claim. All you really have to do is tell the judge it's a BS ticket (What's the proof I was going to fast, Everyone else was spinning out to) and he will have it thrown out.
 

erikkellison

Monkey
Jan 28, 2004
918
0
Denver, CO
It's super easy to get out of that ticket. If the cop did not have you on radar he has no claim. All you really have to do is tell the judge it's a BS ticket (What's the proof I was going to fast, Everyone else was spinning out to) and he will have it thrown out.
Nah man, that's not going to help. The cop's proof that he was going too fast for the conditions was that he crashed. Many people get tickets at accidents. Toshi's salvation may be in the chance that he was the only person that got a ticket (discrimination), or in the fact that so many people did the same thing that he did, proving there was something unpredictable on the road surface that was not concurrent with the required driving in the present conditions e.g. while he should have been driving slow in the rain (which he was, especially for a AutoX car with good tires), there must have been something else besides the rain that was causing all those people to misjudge the maximum speed, something that he cannot held be accountable for and expected to change his speed accordingly.
 

RhinofromWA

Brevity R Us
Aug 16, 2001
4,622
0
Lynnwood, WA
Nothing a little duct tape and bailing wire can't fix.

Glad you are OK.

If it were Grand Turismo I would have powered through the slide. :D

Man you non-seattle drivers sure can't drive in the rain (I saw your merging comment above :p)
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,468
7,826
i was running Nokian WR tires. 225/45/17. as posted earlier in this thread, plenty of tread life in them.

i think i'm going to hire a traffic attorney given the grey area of the officer's discretion in writing such a ticket...
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,468
7,826
here's a draft of my proposed statement to the traffic lawyer/court. please suggest revisions as appropriate:

statement said:
Statement of events surrounding car accident of 10/15/06


On 10/15/06 I was involved in an unpleasant wreck on the freeway. The wreck happened at the start of Highway 16, as it branches off from Interstate 5 in Tacoma, Washington. I was at the wheel, with a single passenger, Chris Han of [town] ([address]). I was driving through a downpour in Tacoma on the way to Bremerton. There is a 40 mph section from the Highway 16 onramp extending for about 1/2 mile, and upon entering the onramp I cautiously slowed to a safe speed, for the given conditions. It is of note that I was following approximately 3 seconds behind a gold Toyota Highlander SUV at this point, and maintained this 3 second gap throughout. In other words, I was traveling at the prevailing rate of speed chosen by other drivers during identical conditions.

At the end of the onramp is a right turn. As the turn begins an additional lane appears to the right, and I merged over into that lane in what I believe to be a smooth fashion. In doing so the car's balance was somehow upset, by what I believe to be some sort of oil spill or other unanticipated (and unanticipateable) road condition and the tail of the car slid to the left. The tires then regained traction, the rear end of the car swung back from the left to the right, and I ended up hitting the left hand wall at an oblique angle. This whole series of events transpired in approximately 3 seconds.

After the impact Chris and I unbuckled ourselves and exited the car. As we surveyed the damage another car, a white late-model Toyota Camry, spun at the same spot and nearly hit my car.

A Washington State Patrol trooper arrived next and pushed my car approximately 1000 feet down Highway 16 to the right hand shoulder. It is of note that in front of me in the shoulder was a Kia Sedona minivan with front end damage. I called for a tow truck and in the hour spent waiting for the tow, we observed 4 additional cars after the Toyota Camry spinning out at the same spot in the road. At least 2 of these additional cars that spun hit the wall and were towed away.

About the black Kia Sedona in the shoulder ahead of my vehicle: Later that day the tow truck driver who towed the Kia informed me that that vehicle had also spun in the same spot as I had and had hit the wall in similar fashion. Its accident transpired approximately 30 minutes before mine, and it is my contention that the Kia Sedona may have released oil or other debris during its spin that in turn caused my spin at no fault of my own.

Significantly and somewhat disturbingly, the tow truck driver contacted the Kia Sedona driver on my behalf and asked if she would be willing to speak with me. His reply, quoted verbatim with punctuation and emphasis added by me: “She said no[,] that the officer said not to talk to anyone else that got into a accident in the same spot [, she said,] like it might not help her on her behalf.”

Furthermore, in consultation with other passers-by who drove that particular stretch of Highway 16 on the morning and afternoon of 10/15/06, I have discovered that at least 4 additional cars spun on that section of road, on top of the 6 detailed above (with these 6 in chronological order the Kia, my Subaru, and the 4 vehicles detailed three paragraphs above). The following are statements from two individuals who saw these vehicles first-hand.

[witness1] states, “I drove the stretch of westbound Highway 16 from I-5 to the Union St exit at approximately 7:30 AM on 10/15. At that time I saw two cars with front end damage, presumably as a result of contact the concrete barrier on the left side of the offramp. I returned on eastbound Highway 16 along the same stretch at approximately 2:30 PM, and saw three more cars in the same spot of westbound Highway 16, each with similar damage. I make the drive through that area at least 4 times a month and more often than not there is evidence of a recent accident on the offramp.”

[witness2] also reports seeing one vehicle damaged after hitting the concrete barrier at approximately 7:45 AM on 10/15/06 at the same turn described above as the scene of my accident.

I believe that the sheer number of accidents reported and witnessed at this single location suggests that the road conditions were compromised to the point that a reasonable driver driving at a prudent rate of speed would have had trouble negotiating the segment of road. Furthermore, given the close temporal proximity of the accident of the Kia Sedona and my car, I believe it possible that oil, coolant, or other debris from the Kia contributed to my car losing traction unexpectedly in the corner in question. Both of these factors indicate that I was not “speeding too fast for conditions”, but rather that the conditions were such that my reasonable, legal rate of speed resulted in an accident beyond my control.

This ends my statement.

-[myname]