Picture this:
I'm headed to my parents' place this morning to drop off my kid, nestled safe and sound nicely secured in the back in his child seat.
I'm on a 2-3 lane highway headed towards a bridge crossing the river to the South Shore of Montreal Island. Traffic slows down a bit in front of me, then speeds back up. Being the type to regularly check my mirrors and be aware of my surroundings, I instinctively pick up on a silver/champagne-coloured car that just isn't driving to my 100% satisfaction. It's a pre-2004 Honda Accord 4 door.... you know where this is going.
About 20 seconds later traffic once again comes to a halt, no big deal, right? I see the Accord coming at me at a VERY decent clip, with the #$%$$#% old hag on her cell phone. Alarms instantaneously go off in my head, I'm pretty sure I emitted an unrepeatable expletive or two, and I turned the wheel and mashed the gas pedal as quick as I could (the lane to my left was shut down... further ahead, it's used as a reserved bus lane).
Too late. Contact.
It wasn't a bad hit... my primary worry was my priceless occupant in the back seat. I've hit potholes that felt worse. But it was a contact nonetheless.
I pulled to the side of the highway. Got out to check the bumper, hoping for the best. Damn. Could have been worse... lots of grey dust from her car, which seemed to wipe off, but the paint was sc***** in some spots and spider-cracked under the Marauder lettering. And one gouge that didn't go through the bumper. From 2-3 feet it simply looks like a dirty bumper, and sadly the spider-cracks and the gouge/scrapes will be unmaskable.
The Accord... the front end was completely demolished. I'm sure it was her front decorative license plate that tore into the surface of my bumper, otherwise I'm sure the damage to my car would have been even less!!! I'm not sure what her damage would cost her, but she'll need a new hood, new bumper, fenders, headlight equipment, and who knows what underhood hardware was damaged. While angrily taking down her insurance info, I noted there was visible damage to her back end as well, and there were two other cars stopped on the other side of the highway. 5 lanes of quick moving traffic separated us at that point, so I didn't really feel like walking over and trading war stories with them. Let them work it out with her, I immediately called my insurance company with the details 'hot off the press', on the spot.
Honda makes good durable cars, to be sure. Too bad they don't include a built-in ignition cut-off sensor to keep them from being operated by morons. When she idled by me after the impact, she had her cell phone still stapled to her ear... from her business card, she appears to be a real estate agent, and judging by the time of impact and where she works, was late for work. My advice... get a better alarm clock, b*tch.
(Which leads to a secondary point... now that I've calmed down, I noticed something different about my reaction in such a situation. My first worry was obviously my kid, not so serious considering the lightness of the impact thanks to having mostly moved out of the way in time. Then I checked my bumper... as I was headed to the rear of my car, I saw her idle by me to a stop. My first reaction to her was to hold up my thumb and scream "Great job!! Good work!" in French (turns out she was English speaking, with a foreign accent). Not ONCE did I even give a flying farg about her state of health. Amazing how a family situation can change a person... I honestly couldn't have cared less if she had lost all control of the vehicle and gone spinning off the bridge into the cold waters below... except for the fact I would have had a harder time getting her insurance information. At least I'm being honest... all I cared about was my family...)
So there you have it, ladies / gents / those-yet-to-be-classified. With a lesser performance vehicle, I probably would not have had the handling or acceleration response available at hand to avoid a worse situation. When used with respect and care, you cannot put a price on having good brakes / handling / power when it comes to keeping you and / or family safe on the road! And by all means, driving defensively allows one to be aware of what's happening around you, which allows ample use of the safety margin provided by the higher performance vehicle (as long as you're not driving near the car's limits).
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phone. 
Originally Posted by TripleTransAm
Too many idiots drivin' 'round... Beware on your bumper, your cover would've popped back, but you probably took fairly significant damage to the bumper infrastructure underneath the cover. Won't be evident until the cover's pulled off...
