view of
the van from up the roadPICTURES OF EXTRICATING MY VAN 2/6/08
I never had an accident before, but here's what my van looked like after it slid off the very slippery road to my house. The road was icy and rain throughout the day made it ever slipperier all day. It slid off the road at about 20mph and sideways down over a vertical bank and into the brook. The RT passenger window was busted out when it hit a big rock sticking up out of the brook, and the brook was running through the RT (lower) part of the van. The impact of hitting the brook, probably tail first, also blew out the RT rear window and crunched the RT rear corner.
view of
the van from up the road
view of
the van from down the road, looking in direction of travel. My RT wheel
track is in the foreground. I couldn't get the driver's window open to get
out of the van, so I broke the driver's window and used a stick in the
car to knock out all the glass. Then I climbed out through the window,
onto the LT front tire, and out onto the bank. If there'd been even a
small snowbank here, it would have kept me from going over the bank. It
just slid over in slow motion.
The
tow driver didn't think he could get it out, but he was up for the challenge - I
later found out it was more than just the "challenge" - the guy charged the
insurance company over $700 for a couple hours work!
One
big problem was the one large and one very large sharp rock jutting way out from
the nearly vertical bank. He couldn't drag the van up over them without
tearing out the whole bottom of the van.
He had
to pick up the van by the nose and drag it down the road, rotating it on its
tail, away from the big rocks sticking out. You can see how close he had
to get to the edge of the narrow road to try to swing the bottom of the van back
around the big rock.
Slowly
getting it hoisted
This
was while he had it partially hoisted, then dragging it down the road, away from
the jutting rocks. The tree apparently creased the hood as the van slid
down the bank.
After
much work, he finally got the front end dragged down the road, past the rocks.
You can see from the reflection on the ground how slick and slippery it was
here. It was so slippery, we kept sliding and nearly falling, and
the tow truck was being dragged around.
Here,
he finally got it dragged past the second rock.
It was
still quite tricky getting it the rest of the way out. The back of his
truck kept sliding around on the ice. You can see where the passenger door
fell onto the big rock jutting out of the brook & dented it in.
Here, he rigged a second cable to a tree to help pull it out. You can see
the front of his truck is out in the snowbank on the narrow road, so he had a
hard time maneuvering.
Here, it's very nearly out. The second cable to the tree helped him get it
this far, but then prevented him from just heading down the road like this to
get it the rest of the way out. So, he had to jockey back and forth with
the two cables until the rear wheels were all the way out.
After the van was out, you can see the two jutting rocks that made it much
harder to get it out. You can also see the rock in the middle of the brook
that took out the passenger window when the van fell onto it (where all the
green glass bits are). The red is my USMC hat, which I later retrieved.
Here's some of the many things that came out the broken side window or the broken rear window. The van hit hard on the RT rear as it fell, taking out the RT rear window, too. Some more stuff fell out the rear window as we hoisted the van. The red is my spare gas can and the black thing beyond it is the case for my $500 aviation headsets. I went down and retrieved all the stuff I could find before we left. On the RT side of the pic, you can see the rocks that form the bank.
The tow truck driver said it's definitely a total. Bummer. No major damage, but lots of minor damage all around the vehicle. Looking at possible replacements now. New ones are $30K plus!
2009 FOLLOWUP - it was totalled, even though there was nothing functionally wrong with it. Some of the damage was just from getting it out. Mainly, the sheet metal was just well hammered on 3 sides. I bought it back from the insurance company and continued to drive it until hassles from NH DMV became too much - they expected me to return it to full appearance, and wouldn't let me get it inspected. I renewed the registration for 2008-09, but in 2009, they wouldn't let me renew the registration, and the hassles forced me to stop driving it in NH.
The right
rear quarter got pretty well crunched. I sealed it all up with spray
insulating foam, added the missing lights, and replaced the busted out window
with plexiglas. It had to be plexiglas (warmed up as I installed it)
so it would curve to follow the bent sheet metal. It's held in place by
lots of sheet metal screws around the perimeter, and sealed with plenty of
bathtub calk. It all works fine, except the back door. NH
claimed "all doors have to work", so they wouldn't let me get it inspected;
totally bogus. The side door works fine. I also replaced the
passenger door, as the mirror housing crunched the door frame in, preventing me
from just replacing the door window glass. The fit wasn't perfect, but
good enough. Total repair cost - maybe $100.
I could have
replaced the hood for a better look, but this works fine and stays locked down
OK, so why bother?
The other
side of the van looks normal. Wheel alignment all checked out fine.
I drove it in NH for a year and a half like this.
BACK TO MY RV BUILDER'S HOME
BACK TO BRIAN'S HOME