Another crashed prius. Mine.

Yesterday, around noon, my family was going to my in-laws to help them move some stuff from storage. My 11 weeks old little son was going to be pamperd by his grandparents and I (and the others too) was to be rewarded for my effort with a delicious meal.
The weather was clear and sunny and the roads were dry. I was leaving Stockholm going south on Huddingevägen, a fairly large road with two lanes in each direction separated by a steel railing. The speed limit is 70 km/h and I had the cruise control set to 80 (70 km/h in reality).
I was in the passing lane passing a few slower cars when this Volvo comes up really close behind me. I do what I learned in driving school - I carefully slow down - by just turning the CC off. When there is room to my right to change lane, the other driver has already changed to that lane and is going to pass me on the wrong side.
Now things happen fast - the red Volvo taps my car once just by the rear wheel on the passenger side. Road rage is my first thought. The next time the Volvo slams into my car, I'm hit just in front of the front wheel, pushing my car into the central divider. I slam the brakes even harder and the Volvo, now traveling sideways hits the steel rail head on. I'm still thinking road rage, but now I'm very concerned about my son and my woman in the back.
We pull over to the right and I make sure to leave about 20-30 meters between the cars. I make sure that my family is OK, it turns out the are completely unscratched, the little guy didn't even wake up. While I telling my wife to be to call the police, I see the other driver approaching my car - I don't want him anywhere near my family. I grab the large Maglite (it runs on a few D-cells and is pretty big) and I move in between him and my car. I'm still thinking road rage. He asks me why I have the flashlight with me and I answer something in the line of "because of your driving, if you get aggressive". It's obvious that I intimidate him and that's my intention since I'm still thinking road rage.

After a while we exchange name, phone number and the Swedish personal number (everything here is build on that) and I ask him what happened. It seems that he changed lane too quickly and his rear wheels lost grip. When I checked his tires, they looked pretty new but it was obvious that they were under inflated.
I apologized for bringing the flashlight, but he said he now understood why I had it in my hand. He apologized many times for causing the accident. The police fined him on the spot for driving a car that hadn't passed the annual inspection and we were both tested with a breathalyser (I scored 0.0, I don't know what he got).

Since my car is under warranty, the "Prius Assistance" gives me a rental for a few days so I have time to get a rental from the insurance company.

Sorry about the lengthy post, I just need to get it out of my system.

 

That flashlight part is weird, I'm not a violent person but since we got our son, I'm very protective.
The Volvo got a fairly large negative camber from the visit into the guard rail but I believe it's difficult to see that from photo. None of the wars were drivable. Mine was just beeping when we tried to turn it on (to be honest, I didn't inspect the source of the beep). Also, I really wasn't my self at the scene, the police officers that arrived had to tell me several times not to wander of into the street when I was telling them what had happened.

While waiting, there was another accident. The traffic slowed down, mostly because people where curious about what had happened. When one car slammed his brakes, the driver behind him, in a little Fiat, was able to slow down in time to be safe but the large SUV behind the Fiat wasn't. The impact was hard enough to open the trunk of the Fiat (it's a hatch back), break the rear window and throw some of the cargo out on the road. No one got hurt in that accident either.

The little guy was sound asleep in his MaxiCosi-chair and is as happy as ever.



I don't know if the car is repairable or not but if I have to get another car, it will be a Prius. I just wish that Toyota made an estate version.
I'm on my way to work but it seems that I have to drive past the dealership where my car is since I forgot my id badge in it.

 

Thank you for all your encouraging remarks.

When I went past the dealership this morning to fetch my ID badge and some keys that I had forgotten to bring with me the first time I made sure to snap a picture of the side of the car that visited the fence. I noticed that neither of the front doors align to the cars body anymore.



I also took the time today to drive past the scene of the crash. One thing that I realized is that is the other driver had gotten out of control a few seconds later, there would have been no guard rail to catch us and we would have wound up head on into oncoming traffic. If you take a close look at the picture showing the front of my car, you'll notice a traffic light - that part is an intersection which naturally is fence free.

As you can see, we're not blessed with a proper Swedish winter this year and that results in a less fender benders and shorter waiting time for the body shop.

 

The airbags did not deploy and it seems that the bodyshop is repairing my car.
A person that used to work with VAG (Volkswagen & Audi) did a rough estimate with the photos we shot at the scene as source and he claims that my car will set the insurance company back about €15000 (that doesn't include engine and drive train since neither him nor I know the status of those parts of the car). €15000 is roughly half of what I paid for the car when I bought it new last summer.

 

I got the car back last week. It looks really great, just like new. During this time, my car got three new doors and a new hood. It also got new parts for the right front wheel suspension and steering system. Unfortunatley, they missed the part about alligning the wheels so in order for me to drive the car straight ahead, I have to turn the steering wheel a few degrees left. One would think that the almost three months that has passed since the car got towed to the shop, they would have had time enough to do it proper.
According to the manqager of the body shop, the bill from them will be around 179000 SEK, according to forex.se, that equals about $ 29190 (US) / € 18889. Then there is the bill for the rented car I've used during this time and I think it'll cost just over $2000.


Here are some pictures from when I visited the work in progress late april:



(sorry about the poor picture quality)