Loud thud, pause, sirens

Yesterday someone ate it around the corner from our house. It's a 25 mph limit. Didn't hear any skidding. Kinda sounded like a tree falling--just a dull thud. Looked like the world is now one less Kia Soul. Hope all involved were okay. 

I grew up next to what became one of the busiest roads in central Florida, SR436 in Altamonte Springs. 

When we first moved there, there wasn't a traffic light in the city limits. When the light was installed near our house, we would hear brakes lock up at least once a month. Often the skid was concluded with a loud crunch. 

A couple of times, the crunch would preceed the skidding sounds. That's when we knew that it was a really bad one. 

Be careful out there, people.

In reply to David S. Wallens : 

You're lucky then. Every time I hear that noise either a car smashing through my foundation or into the cars parked in my driveway!

And here's that treacherous piece of road. It's the divided road in this map: one lane in each direction, 25 mph limit. Yes, there are trees and a few boulders. Sadly one of the wrecks involved a fatality. We've also had a rollover on this stretch, come to think about it. 

David S. Wallens said:

 Kinda sounded like a tree falling--just a dull thud. Looked like the world is now one less Kia Soul. Hope all involved were okay. 

I truly believe that the Soul goes to a better place after something like this.

Probably the junkyard.

I lived near several busy intersections in LA when in college, so the sounds of a collision are pretty familiar...

A couple of years ago, we were on a trip to Utah to hike some of the National Parks.  One night, we were asleep in our camper in an RV park off Hwy 89, which was the two-lane road through this little town we were staying in.  I awoke suddenly at 3AM, not knowing why, then heard a loud crashing sound I'd never heard and couldn't make sense of at the time.  It sounded like the world's largest aluminum baseball bat hitting one of those new metal power poles.

I threw some clothes on, and went outside to figure out what happened....  An SUV pulling a utility trailer with two ATVs had struck a deer, resulting in the trailer swaying badly, and hitting both rear fenders of the SUV, breaking all the windows behind the passenger doors... they ended up in the driveway of our RV park.  I'm pretty sure that was what woke me up.

The sound I heard when I was awake was a semi-truck hitting the trailer, which was still hanging out into the roadway!  It flipped the trailer and sent the ATV's a hundred yards down the road like a couple of bowling balls...  The semi had one of those giant aluminum cattle bumpers on it, which explained the sound.

Fortunately, no one was hurt... except the deer.

The sound of that truck hitting the trailer remains one of the wildest sounds I've ever heard.  

I had 4 people killed in front of my house as a kid. A crest with a blind curve. If you didn't know the road, were speeding, were drunk, or any combination therein, you were going to pay. The oak tree was merciless. It was bad enough once, that a couple of seasoned firefighters were puking in my yard because of the carnage. 

Yeah, I heard a lot of screech, thud.

I witnessed the second half of an accident yesterday.  A few hundred yards ahead of me, I saw a late model Accord glance into a utility pole. Air bag deployed.  I got to the scene and got out to see if the driver (an older woman) was ok.  Then I saw a Honda Pilot SUV with front end damage on the side street.  Apparently, the woman was trying to cross the road and didn't see the Pilot coming.  When the police arrived, the officer determined I didn't witness enough of the accident to be a reliable witness and sent me on my way.  The Pilot driver was out of his car, but the woman was shaken up and complained her knee hurt from hitting the dash. Pretty sure everyone will be ok, but one less Accord on the road.

It always sounds like a light bulb exploding, to me...

I am always amazed that for many people the majority of driving is on a two lane road with two vehicles driving in opposite directions and passing each other only a matter of feet apart with nothing separating them but a painted line.  Throw in the large disparity in vehicle size, driver ability, driver error, possible mechanical issues and weather etc.  I have a friend who was driving late at night on a two lane road when a young girl coming in the opposite direction crossed the line and they had a head on collision. She was killed instantly and came through the windshield onto my friend's windshield. He survived but was in a coma for 3 months due to severe swelling of the brain. He also lost an eye and a leg and now he has to live with that image of the accident in his head.  Sorry, I hope that wasn't too graphic. Be careful out there.   It's a gift that we survive each day.

There's a primary road that winds up the hill near me. It's way too narrow for the volume of traffic that it get's, but it's an old road on the side of a hill, with houses all along the way, so redoing it would be a monumental task. What amazes me are the people who buy homes on the inside radius of those turns. The possibility of an accident is so frickin high coming out of their driveways it's absurd, because there are cases where the sightlines are as little as 50 feet or so. So let's do a little math: 25 MPH (the speed limit) = roughly 36 FPS. The guy is pulling out of his driveway, and the oncoming driver has less than 1.5 seconds to react and come to a stop.............  It's amazing that accidents aren't a daily occurrence.

Coming home yesterday afternoon I see police are in front of neighbors house. Neighbors car in driveway was backed in as usual but skewed with right front damage. Another smaller vehicle has bad right rear damage and also in driveway. Damage is waaay beyond something that should occur in driveway. I park perplexed as to how damage could have occurred. Heading back out 15 minutes later police are gone so I look and ponder how could the damage have happened. I decide to take a pic.

After I return, neighbor comes over to ask if I saw the accident, I say "No". She explains that apparently the kids in the car were doing like 30-40 MPH in REVERSE and veered off the road striking her car. Neighbors heard the whine of reverse gears at high speed then the thud.

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I was sitting in our home office one night and heard a loud smash. I live about half a block from the highway so I walked out back and there's a semi with a giant push bar on the front sitting there and a dodge journey smashed into a stretch of iron fence. Apparently the semi punted the car at 35mph. Everyone survived and the semi didn't even look scratched. Was the only wreck I've ever heard happen.

I hate that sound of cars crashing, and I hate how these discussions always turn into war stories.

In reply to Floating Doc :

Yeah, we moved to Altamonte in 1989, 436 & 434 were two lanes in each direction, there were still dirt roads off of them to houses.

Now they are like 5-6 lanes on each side.

I've seen three rollovers as they happened. I'm always surprised by how slow and quiet they are.

Used to hear them outside my building quite a bit.  Top of a blind steep hill and it's usually someone driving way too cautiously meeting someone driving way too stupidly.  The silver car has been secondary nerfed twice and one time all I heard was the cop knocking on the door to let me know.  The same model red car hasn't been hit in the exact same spot yet. 

I had a light pole fall across the freeway directly in front of me about two weeks ago. Swmbo saw it,  I was busy arguing on the internet or some E36 M3. Come to find out, a Ford escape and had some very intimate time with the base of it following a tire explosively decompressing. 

I saw the tree. It's on driver's left. It wasn't a direct hit--more like a glancing blow. Be careful out there, everyone. 

I've witnessed some pretty horrific crashes, but to me the amazing thing is how relatively few there are and recently how remarkably unharmed the occupants are vs the 80's.

Tyler H said:

I've witnessed some pretty horrific crashes, but to me the amazing thing is how relatively few there are and recently how remarkably unharmed the occupants are vs the 80's.

To me it is remarkable how few there are today compared to even 20 years ago. It really shows how far we've come in terms of safety.

I used to live on a busy 40mph street - which of course meant people went 50-55mph - that backed up pretty badly during rush hour. People would be driving along, not paying attention, and traffic would come to a stand still in front of them with predictable results at least once a week. One day I came home and had one such rear end accident in the cleanup stages in front of my house with the deputy blocking my driveway, doing paperwork in his cruiser. No big deal - I went around him in the yard and parked. He looked up to check on me just as the tow truck was going to pull out, and the van coming up on the tow truck stopped a bit short to let him out. Well, the car behind the van wasn't paying attention and - blam. I saw the deputy's shoulders droop as he looked back down at his notepad, reached out for his hat, and stepped back out of the cruiser. I wonder if he was past the end of his shift and just plain ready to go home.

Some say he's still there, filling out consecutive accident reports, stuck in a loop. I should take him some coffee.

This happened about 10 years ago on Christmas eve. 

Thud, Mexican music and yelling proceded. 

Couple guys stole a truck and ran it into our tree outfront of the house drunk....

For years I worked right at a busy intersection between a 4-lane local collector and a small but heavily-travelled side road that teed into the main road.  Lots of turning onto and off of that road from the collector, which averaged speeds of 50-60 mph.

My office mate and I would grab the phone and dial 9-1- as soon as we heard sliding tires, and finish dialing the last 1 as soon as we heard an impact.

Woody said:

I've seen three rollovers as they happened. I'm always surprised by how slow and quiet they are.

I've been in three rollovers, and I was surprised at how slow and quiet they were.