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"I Survived!"On Wednesday, November 27, Beth and Sharayah were involved in a 5 car accident on one of Rochester's local expressways. The car is in bad shape, but will probably be repaired. Beth and Sharayah both survived. Beth has some bruises on her legs and from the shoulder belt, but Sharayah, being a baby (and hence made out of 90% rubber) suffered no injuries at all. At the time of the accident, Sharayah was only 12 1/2 weeks old.! |
Note: The events here are described to the best of my understanding. Having not been there personally, I can not attest to the absolute validity of them, but I believe them to be fairly accurate.
November 27, 1996, was an interesting day in Rochester, NY. The weather was very unstable. The day before, we had had a fairly big snow (for November), but this day was clear. Well, not totally clear. The weather was very mixed. In one place it might be sunny, but just over the next rise or around the corner, there might be a white out. This was exactly what Beth found.
Beth was traveling North on I-590 (a 6 lane expressway). She was in the left lane, and it was clear. As she rounded a bend in the road (just north of the Monroe Avenue exit), she suddenly found herself in a white out. She started to slow down, when she suddenly came out of the white out and saw it. It was the vehicle stopped dead in the middle of her lane. She braked and swerved to the middle lane. The Galant VR-4's excellent handling and AWD kept her from loosing it. As soon as she missed that vehicle, she had to swerve back to miss the traffic in the middle lane. When she did this, she hit the uncleared section of road that had caused the first accident.
It was now that she knew she was in trouble. She tried everything from steering out of it, to powering out of it (something you can often do in an AWD car), to standing on the brakes. Nothing worked, and she ended up colliding with the first car in the line. Shortly after this, the Monroe County Sheriff's Department closed that section of the road.
The accident had started when a small truck (i.e. a Jimmy or Blazer) had lost it in the unplowed section of the passing lane. He had ended up going into the guard rail. Soon after, another car lost it and also parked it in the guard rail. Neither of these cars hit anything else.
The next to arrive on the scene was a Sheriff. He stopped to check on the accidents. While he was still in the car, another vehicle (the one Beth first saw), ran into the back of the Sheriff's car, flattening the patrol car's trunk. Shortly after that, Beth joined the mess.
Soon after Beth arrived, several Sheriff's cars arrived. They closed off the road, and called for an ambulance. The Sheriff's Deputy that was in the car that got hit, along with my wife and daughter, were take by ambulance to Strong Memorial Hospital to be checked out. No one showed signs of any serious injury, but they really wanted to be sure that everyone was all right, especially Sharayah.
Everyone checked out OK! Beth had a few bruises on her legs from where they hit the center console, and across her chest from the seatbelts, but nothing else was wrong. Sharayah had no injuries what so ever! In the hospital, Beth was heard singing an old Amy Grant song, "Angels Watching Over Me."
As I mentioned above, there was no damage to either Beth or Sharayah. The car is another matter.
From the looks of the damage to the car, I (in a very uninformed opinion) would guess she hit about 15-20 mph. You can see, from the photos below, that the hood is crumpled and the front bumper is pushed back a bit. Closer inspection shows that the right front strut has been pushed back and in almost 4 inches. Those familiar with the engine bay of the Galant VR-4 will also notice that the batter is where the air filter belongs, and the air filter has been moved back, and the windshield washer fluid container was pushed into the cruise control mechanism. The most startling thing is that there were no fluids leaking from the car!
Today (December 6, 1996) I stopped in at my mechanic's shop to remove some stuff from the car. When I got there, he started it up and pulled it out a bit so I had access to the stuff in the trunk. It still runs! [If this had been a rally car on a stage, the driver would probably continued on and finished the stage, if not the rally.] One of the mechanics at the garage guestimated about $6000 of damage.
While I was there, I also asked if the appraiser from the insurance company had come. He had. My mechanic told me that he was originally going to simply total the car because of the damage, until he realized what it was. The Galant VR-4 is not an ordinary car (or even Galant).
In 1991, Mitsubishi made a special run of 2000 Galant VR-4s. They differ from the regular Galant in that they have a 195 bhp turbo charged motor and AWD. They also carried a substantial price premium. The November 1996 edition of Edmunds Used Car Price Guide shows a wholesale value of $10,850 and a retail of $12,925. The next most expensive Galant from '91 is the GSX, which has a retail of $10,100, $750 less then the wholesale of a VR-4. [The base Galant has a wholesale of $6150 and retail of $7875.]
On Wednesday, November 27, 1996, Beth and Sharayah were involved in a 5 car accident on one of Rochester's local expressways. The was severely damaged, but nearly $9000 dollars of insurance money later, it returned to the roads on the second week of March, 1997. It appears since the car is so rare (only 3000 over the course of two years), the insurance adjustment was a nightmare.
Last modified: Thu 12 Dec, 2000
