On Saturday, a friend and I went up to Vail to do some snowboarding/skiing. The conditions weren't very good. It was really cold, windy, icy. Visibility was not very good. But we pushed through to get a decent day in. As normal, we were done by 2:30 and ready to head back to Denver. And so we thought we'd be back by the evening. Instead, it ended up being pretty inconvenient.
I was driving and the weather wasn't so great. At some point, a semi-truck changed lanes and caused chaos. One car tried to stop and hit the truck. This caused everyone else to freak out. I was going with the flow of traffic, which wasn't that fast to begin with. I also started breaking, but my car hit some ice and skidded. I wasn't stopping and it looked like I was going to hit the car in front of me. So, my first instinct was to look for a way to swerve and minimize the damage. I was in the left lane so I moved right in the middle of the lane thinking that maybe that I can squeeze between two cars. But as I was going through that, my friend was yelling "Go right" as in trying to go all the way right to the right most shoulder. The right lane had more room as well, so there was a possibility that we could slow down. But, I kept skidding. And I wasn't going to make it to the shoulder. The minivan in front of me never saw me coming.
Bam, hit the minivan square in the back. First things first, no one was hurt. Thank god for that. But the damage was done. The back of the minivan was completely smashed in and the spare tire from the bottom of the minivan fell out. The back window was completely gone. My car, actually, wasn't as damaged as much as one would expect. The Subaru Outback is a solid car and it has a high suspension. So, my bumper was messed up and the hood caved in. But the air bags did not deploy and no damage was near.
Immediately, there was a tow truck near us, directing us on what to do and pulling us on the bed. A state trooper came took my information. I got a frickin ticket because he said that I should have been going slower because of the conditions. The whole process took forever. It took two hours just to get from the accident site to gas station where the car was dropped off. Apparently, we weren't the only the ones in accidents that day. It was pretty chaotic at the gas station, which was now a tow lot. My car was not drivable so, the car was going to have to stay at the station. Our best option was to get the insurance company take care of the towing. All we needed to do was figure out how to get home.
Unfortunately, being 120 miles away from Denver, we had no viable way back home. No shuttles were available. A cab ride would be almost $500. We don't know anyone going back from the area. So, the only solution was to find a place to stay for the night. My friend took care of that and found us a place to stay. Of course, it wasn't exactly close. So, we needed to walk to a bus stop and take a 20 minute ride to Avon where the hotel was. Of course, we missed the bus by 10 seconds, so we had to wait another 30 minutes for the next one. Luckily, there was a Safeway next door, where we could hang out until we caught the bus. We took the bus to the Avon stop and then had to walk from there to the hotel.
We did go grab a bite to eat and a beer. Definitely needed it. At least we could get a nights sleep and catch the shuttle in the morning. We were exhausted. It didn't help that we lost an hour due to the time change.
So, we caught a CME shuttle in the morning. Of course, they couldn't drop us off where we wanted to go, but only at DIA. And since we were the first people picked up, we had to wait through all of the other passengers getting picked up...that just added an extra hour to our time. We finally got to DIA, where my friend's dad picked us up and took us back to my house. Basically didn't get home until 2:30pm. A long day.
It just felt like and inconvenience more than anything. Everything went so fast at the time of the accident, and noone was hurt. So, this whole thing has just become an inconvenience. Just another thing to deal with now.
I was driving and the weather wasn't so great. At some point, a semi-truck changed lanes and caused chaos. One car tried to stop and hit the truck. This caused everyone else to freak out. I was going with the flow of traffic, which wasn't that fast to begin with. I also started breaking, but my car hit some ice and skidded. I wasn't stopping and it looked like I was going to hit the car in front of me. So, my first instinct was to look for a way to swerve and minimize the damage. I was in the left lane so I moved right in the middle of the lane thinking that maybe that I can squeeze between two cars. But as I was going through that, my friend was yelling "Go right" as in trying to go all the way right to the right most shoulder. The right lane had more room as well, so there was a possibility that we could slow down. But, I kept skidding. And I wasn't going to make it to the shoulder. The minivan in front of me never saw me coming.
Bam, hit the minivan square in the back. First things first, no one was hurt. Thank god for that. But the damage was done. The back of the minivan was completely smashed in and the spare tire from the bottom of the minivan fell out. The back window was completely gone. My car, actually, wasn't as damaged as much as one would expect. The Subaru Outback is a solid car and it has a high suspension. So, my bumper was messed up and the hood caved in. But the air bags did not deploy and no damage was near.
Immediately, there was a tow truck near us, directing us on what to do and pulling us on the bed. A state trooper came took my information. I got a frickin ticket because he said that I should have been going slower because of the conditions. The whole process took forever. It took two hours just to get from the accident site to gas station where the car was dropped off. Apparently, we weren't the only the ones in accidents that day. It was pretty chaotic at the gas station, which was now a tow lot. My car was not drivable so, the car was going to have to stay at the station. Our best option was to get the insurance company take care of the towing. All we needed to do was figure out how to get home.
Unfortunately, being 120 miles away from Denver, we had no viable way back home. No shuttles were available. A cab ride would be almost $500. We don't know anyone going back from the area. So, the only solution was to find a place to stay for the night. My friend took care of that and found us a place to stay. Of course, it wasn't exactly close. So, we needed to walk to a bus stop and take a 20 minute ride to Avon where the hotel was. Of course, we missed the bus by 10 seconds, so we had to wait another 30 minutes for the next one. Luckily, there was a Safeway next door, where we could hang out until we caught the bus. We took the bus to the Avon stop and then had to walk from there to the hotel.
We did go grab a bite to eat and a beer. Definitely needed it. At least we could get a nights sleep and catch the shuttle in the morning. We were exhausted. It didn't help that we lost an hour due to the time change.
So, we caught a CME shuttle in the morning. Of course, they couldn't drop us off where we wanted to go, but only at DIA. And since we were the first people picked up, we had to wait through all of the other passengers getting picked up...that just added an extra hour to our time. We finally got to DIA, where my friend's dad picked us up and took us back to my house. Basically didn't get home until 2:30pm. A long day.
It just felt like and inconvenience more than anything. Everything went so fast at the time of the accident, and noone was hurt. So, this whole thing has just become an inconvenience. Just another thing to deal with now.
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