Mattresses and Priuses . . . Oh my!!!

[Martin37]

Down visiting in the Buckeye AZ area from NE Oregon. Wife is assisting daughter in recovery from cadaver ligament placement in knee. Decided to take a Sunday drive to Scottsdale and a nice dinner out. Going north on the 101 between Mesa and Scottsdale a pickup in front of us lost part of a mattress set - the box platform under the mattress. Rather than crash into vehicles on either side of us I hit the piece in the process of slowing down. Extensive damage to right front bumper area. Innards of right wheel well stripped away. These parts and other damage (?) will have to be replaced, I assume. Waiting for other guy's insurance adjustor to come out and view damage. Pictures will be posted by next Tuesday. Like oil and water, mattresses and Priuses do NOT mix ... well!!! As I have to be back in Oregon this coming Monday to relieve pet sitters it looks like I will have to drive damaged Prius to my dealer in Lewiston ID; I can't see any way that claims adjustor, ordering parts and installing parts can be accomplished by this Friday. Could leave Prius in Arizona for repairs but will other guy's insurance company - Farmers - fly me home and fly me back when repairs are done? Further, flying home will require someone to drive 4 hours r/t to fetch me from Lewiston airport back to Joseph. Sheesh!!!

[danl]

Oy that's some bad luck.

[LRKingII]

Lets see. First rock chip. First mattress hit.
Damn if not for bad luck you wouldn't have any.
Get a Hummer maybe? LOL

Sorry for your damage.

[925PriusGuy]

Oh No! Hope you all weren't too shook up over the event. What a site that must have been, seeing a mattress coming at you

Safe travels back home!

[Tech_Guy]

I thought that the air bags were supposed to be inside the car, not in front of it.

Keith.

P.S. Sorry about your loss....

[EZW1]

You're lucky. If that mattress was airborne, it has enough mass that it likely would've come through the windshield.

In case you haven't already noticed, we get a lot of road alligators here in the summer - and if you hit one of those, they likely will do serious damage to some part of the underside of the car. It's the nature of where we live. When temps hit 100+ degrees, and people run around with under-inflated tires or nearly-bald tires or cheap tires, guess what..... bam! Either a blowout or the tread comes off.

Glad you came out okay.

[wvgasguy]

Originally Posted by Martin37

Down visiting in the Buckeye AZ area from NE Oregon. Wife is assisting daughter in recovery from cadaver ligament placement in knee. Decided to take a Sunday drive to Scottsdale and a nice dinner out. Going north on the 101 between Mesa and Scottsdale a pickup in front of us lost part of a mattress set - the box platform under the mattress. Rather than crash into vehicles on either side of us I hit the piece in the process of slowing down. Extensive damage to right front bumper area. Innards of right wheel well stripped away. These parts and other damage (?) will have to be replaced, I assume. Waiting for other guy's insurance adjustor to come out and view damage. Pictures will be posted by next Tuesday. Like oil and water, mattresses and Priuses do NOT mix ... well!!! As I have to be back in Oregon this coming Monday to relieve pet sitters it looks like I will have to drive damaged Prius to my dealer in Lewiston ID; I can't see any way that claims adjustor, ordering parts and installing parts can be accomplished by this Friday. Could leave Prius in Arizona for repairs but will other guy's insurance company - Farmers - fly me home and fly me back when repairs are done? Further, flying home will require someone to drive 4 hours r/t to fetch me from Lewiston airport back to Joseph. Sheesh!!!

Uh Oh. When my wife hit a pole in the HH it damaged the inner wheel well and it needed replaced. They have to remove the engine to do that. It's been 5 weeks so far with a couple more to go befor the repairs are completed and the HH returned to me. No Toyota bodyshop in the area so it had to be towed to get the engine removed by a Toyota Technician and then will have to go back to reinstall after the wheel well is replaced. Then they start on the body work

[tumbleweed]

Originally Posted by Martin37

. . . . . . . . .
. . . . . looks like I will have to drive damaged Prius to my dealer in Lewiston ID; I can't see any way that claims adjustor, ordering parts and installing parts can be accomplished by this Friday. Could leave Prius in Arizona for repairs but will other guy's insurance company - Farmers - fly me home and fly me back when repairs are done? Further, flying home will require someone to drive 4 hours r/t to fetch me from Lewiston airport back to Joseph. Sheesh!!!

Martin sorry about your problem. You are probably already aware of this but just in case you haven't thought of it you could also get your own insurance company involved if you had to. You can claim it against your collision insurance, pay the deductible, and let your insurance company collect from the other guy's company. Then your company will pay you back the deductible when they collect. May not be any advantage to doing it that way in this case but it's something to keep in mind.

If there is no suspension damage I would drive the car home and get it fixed in Lewiston by your dealer, you may get a better job and you will be there to keep an eye on things. Good luck.

[jburns]

Originally Posted by Martin37

Going north on the 101 between Mesa and Scottsdale a pickup in front of us lost part of a mattress set - the box platform under the mattress.

Ah so you hit a box spring, wooden frame and all. A mattress on the road would probably not have done much if any damage. Bummer.

[fuzzy1]

Does AZ have a 'secured load' law? And did you file a police report? If yes on both, then the criminal liability from damage by a lost load should convince them to cover your transportation while your Prius is unusable. My state has suffered so many deaths and maimings from dropped loads and vehicle parts that enforcement is being fairly harsh.

Would you consider driving a one-way rental home, then flying back to AZ after the car is fixed? When my only boo-boo happened during an out-of-state vacation, this was my best option. Got a second vacation out of it. The biggest problem was getting the spouse to calm down enough to allow me to make alternate transportation plans. The second biggest problem was TSA's more intensive scrutiny of one-way fliers.