Simple Simon
Active Member
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2014
- Messages
- 189
Well I wasn't sure on wether to write about this or not, but now the shock has worn off and I have come to accept what's happened I thought I would post up a description as to what exactly happened as I know a few people will be wondering. This may be a quite an essay just to warn you all.
So we started off the day meeting up at Hedge End services, I had picked up Alex, who had kindly come in my car as I would have been on my own otherwise. From there we started the journey up to Japfest. I was under the impression we were heading straight up there, however we stopped off at another service station to meet up with some more people. Whilst there I ran over to a cash point as I had no money, when I came back everyone had already left. So we set up my sat nav as I had no idea which roads to take. Now my sat nav, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to take us down country roads and through little villages instead of sticking to the dual carriageways and the like.
I admit straight away that I wasn't driving in line with the road conditions, with it having rained all morning the roads were greasy and I really should have been taking more care, along with the fact I had never driven on these roads before. The excitement of the day mixed in with the fact we had lost our convoy and trying to catch them up led me to drive like a dick. No that isn't an acceptable excuse at all, just an explanation.
As most of you have seen or heard, this is what resulted due to my reckless driving:
As I came up to the bend I wasn't paying 100% attention to the road layout and it is slightly blinded by a group of trees on the left, before I knew it the road tightened and as I tried to turn the wheels I had massive understeer and continued to travel straight on due to my entry speed. As soon as I saw the Jaguar I slammed on the brakes as I knew there was no time to avoid the collision so I just tried to slow my speed down.
This is the corner on google maps:
And this is the view from google earth, you can see the trees on the left, they now overhang most of the pavement:
I still am amazed how nobody was injured at all, I had a scratch on my arm and bruising on my ribs from the seatbelt and that was it:
I realise I am very lucky to not have seriously injured anyone involved as this was quite an impact. Also the gentleman I crashed into was very understanding and a decent man as he said he didn't want to press charges against me, which he would have had every right to do, so I have him to thank massively.
The police as well have decided not to issue me with 3 points and instead are sending me on a driver's awareness course. I think this is the best outcome, as I will learn something rather than just having the points and being left to drive around again with no further action being taken.
As for the car, once the insurance company collect it, access the damage and offer me a settlement price I will probably look into buying it back as there are a few things which can still be sold on, hopefully the engine + gearbox if they are still ok.
It should be settled quite quickly as I have already admitted to full liability.
As for myself, well I am truly sorry for putting Alex and the other driver's life's at risk. It is unfortunately a lesson that I have had to learn the hard way, but isn't one I will ever forget. It is a big embarrassment and of course I am massively gutted about the car, having waited so long and getting such an amazing example, but I am more thankful I didn't hurt anybody. As the saying goes, "the car can be replaced, people can not".
As annoyed as I am, I have realised there is no point as I have nobody to blame but myself and what is done is done. I will be going away with the navy in June until 2015 so that will give me time to concentrate on something else. When I am back next year, hopefully I can get myself back into a Honda. although I doubt it will be anything with Type R at the end for a few years.
There have already been a few meme's floating around the web, just to let everyone know, we were still 1 hour away and in a small town when we crashed. So whatever the accident that held up everyone entering Gate C I can assure you it wasn't us as the traffic still flowed as there was enough room behind my car. This was one from yesterday, doesn't really bother me though:
Lastly, just a thanks to everyone who has commented on the forum hoping that everyone was ok, the vast majority of you I have never met. Nice to see everyone's first concern was our well being.
This is the last picture of her before the accident which Alex took at the services:
Simon
So we started off the day meeting up at Hedge End services, I had picked up Alex, who had kindly come in my car as I would have been on my own otherwise. From there we started the journey up to Japfest. I was under the impression we were heading straight up there, however we stopped off at another service station to meet up with some more people. Whilst there I ran over to a cash point as I had no money, when I came back everyone had already left. So we set up my sat nav as I had no idea which roads to take. Now my sat nav, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to take us down country roads and through little villages instead of sticking to the dual carriageways and the like.
I admit straight away that I wasn't driving in line with the road conditions, with it having rained all morning the roads were greasy and I really should have been taking more care, along with the fact I had never driven on these roads before. The excitement of the day mixed in with the fact we had lost our convoy and trying to catch them up led me to drive like a dick. No that isn't an acceptable excuse at all, just an explanation.
As most of you have seen or heard, this is what resulted due to my reckless driving:
As I came up to the bend I wasn't paying 100% attention to the road layout and it is slightly blinded by a group of trees on the left, before I knew it the road tightened and as I tried to turn the wheels I had massive understeer and continued to travel straight on due to my entry speed. As soon as I saw the Jaguar I slammed on the brakes as I knew there was no time to avoid the collision so I just tried to slow my speed down.
This is the corner on google maps:
And this is the view from google earth, you can see the trees on the left, they now overhang most of the pavement:
I still am amazed how nobody was injured at all, I had a scratch on my arm and bruising on my ribs from the seatbelt and that was it:
I realise I am very lucky to not have seriously injured anyone involved as this was quite an impact. Also the gentleman I crashed into was very understanding and a decent man as he said he didn't want to press charges against me, which he would have had every right to do, so I have him to thank massively.
The police as well have decided not to issue me with 3 points and instead are sending me on a driver's awareness course. I think this is the best outcome, as I will learn something rather than just having the points and being left to drive around again with no further action being taken.
As for the car, once the insurance company collect it, access the damage and offer me a settlement price I will probably look into buying it back as there are a few things which can still be sold on, hopefully the engine + gearbox if they are still ok.
It should be settled quite quickly as I have already admitted to full liability.As for myself, well I am truly sorry for putting Alex and the other driver's life's at risk. It is unfortunately a lesson that I have had to learn the hard way, but isn't one I will ever forget. It is a big embarrassment and of course I am massively gutted about the car, having waited so long and getting such an amazing example, but I am more thankful I didn't hurt anybody. As the saying goes, "the car can be replaced, people can not".
As annoyed as I am, I have realised there is no point as I have nobody to blame but myself and what is done is done. I will be going away with the navy in June until 2015 so that will give me time to concentrate on something else. When I am back next year, hopefully I can get myself back into a Honda.
although I doubt it will be anything with Type R at the end for a few years.There have already been a few meme's floating around the web, just to let everyone know, we were still 1 hour away and in a small town when we crashed. So whatever the accident that held up everyone entering Gate C I can assure you it wasn't us as the traffic still flowed as there was enough room behind my car. This was one from yesterday, doesn't really bother me though:
Lastly, just a thanks to everyone who has commented on the forum hoping that everyone was ok, the vast majority of you I have never met. Nice to see everyone's first concern was our well being.
This is the last picture of her before the accident which Alex took at the services:
Simon
