Content Categories ARTICLES General Automotive Articles Yikes! | Yikes! |
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| Written by Kacey Green | |||
| Wednesday, 12 September 2007 | |||
 Today there was a moderately stiff breeze. I gained a new appreciation for redundant hood latches, and I can even understand why for some of the races I considered entering my Prius into, many required hood pins. Thankfully, nobody was injured and property damage only occurred to a vehicle already declared a total loss.
I was just over halfway through my first day at my new day job and my manager asked me to help move some vehicles to service. My assignment was a Chevrolet Malibu that recently had a crushed bumper, creased hood, and it wore a spare tire in the rear. It started and ran fine around the lot. Speeds on the route we took were low, but not low enough, I completed the first turn and accelerated to 30 mph just fine, I thought, "Ok this will be quick and we'll be on to something else." Did I mention that today we had a mild steady breeze? Up until this point, the hood on this vehicle bounced about half an inch on bumps and in the headwind as if it were latched but had a slight bit of play (like many old cars' hoods). Did I mention the breeze? Continue reading Yikes! after the jump I accelerated to 35 miles per hour, and then the hood lifted 6 inches! I backed the speed down to 30, and simultaneously got a gust of wind head-on; the hood lifted one foot in the air. I activated the four-way flashers, and slowed to 25 miles an hour, immediately another gust of wind hit the car bluntly and the hood, in one graceful slow-motion movement flipped straight up and over smashing into my windshield. "Oh shoot, can't see!" Thankfully, this car like my Prius has an arch toward the center of the hood so that when the hood is up you can still look through this 3-4 inch gap to pilot the vehicle safely to the edge of the road, which I did. This road did not have a wide enough shoulder for me to get out of the car with traffic bearing down on me; once traffic cleared I got out of the car and tried pushing on the hood, it slammed back down. I could not lift the hood again because it bent many parts after free falling back into position, but I knew the wind still could. Now my dilemma, I was trailing the group and forgot to bring my company phone, and the other members of the group didn't have my personal number handy, nor I theirs. I waited for what felt like five, maybe ten minutes but didn't see any members of the convoy, so I headed to one of the areas I had been taken to during training and attempted to get a hold of one of the teammates. After what felt like 15 minutes, I met up with my escort and we proceeded at 20-30 miles per hour to our original destination. We later found out that either the latches were never on the car during my trip, or they sheared off along the way. The entire driver's side of the windshield was sporting deep spider cracks, other members of the team said I was lucky not to be hurt, and I agree, thank God. Despite the compromised aerodynamics, I still achieved 26 miles per gallon (in a car rated for ~30 MPG highway)! I was not thinking ahead enough to take pictures to post here, I didn't even think I would post the story but I needed to in order to work out the stress, thanks for reading. I will let management know about this post and ask if I may obtain pictures for posting. Accidents happen, it was my turn apparently, thankfully nobody was hurt, I do not feel there was any wrongdoing and I got a story out of it, as well as safety training, in case something like this happens anytime other than a sunny, slightly breezy day.
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Alexander
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Good grief, I'm glad you're ok, next time you get a car that you have reason to believe isn't in a condition to just hop into, you should check these sorts of things. Next time might not turn out so well... |
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