Wow, glad you're safe. He aimed straight towards you, not slightly on the wrong side, but completely in the wrong lane.
I like your positive attitude, @Az_Rael. As with others, happy that everyone's OK. You'll get a sweet 3 and love it, I'm certain.
OUTCH!! So glad your ok, Luckily you were in the safest car on the road!! Sorry about your Model S really tares me up to see a red Tesla like mine all torn up like that, but it did its job protecting something irreplaceable, YOU!! Take good car of yourself, Cant wait to see your model 3!!
That’s really effed up. Good to hear both you and the other guy are okay. Looks like it could’ve been a lot worse. Curious though if any of the automated systems on the newer Teslas would have mitigated any damage? Regardless, a car can always be replaced. Good luck.
Hard to say. AEB might have kicked in on a newer car, but I don’t know at what point the system would have seen him. I doubt AP could have swerved in time - he really looks aimed right at me.
That's one scary video. Echoing others, glad you're okay. Not feeling quite as glad about the other guy being okay.
Your dashcam video and the info you provided should be grounds (in my opinion...which sadly means nothing with regard to the law) for charging the other driver with attempted murder. Who wants anyone who would do something like that to be walking the streets freely -- or at the very least ever operating a motor vehicle ever again? I am extremely relieved to hear that you're OK. If that had been me -- especially if my wife and/or daughter had been in the car with me -- I'm not sure I'd have handled it quite as gracefully as you are.
Happy everyone involved is OK. Looking forward to seeing this on the evening bulletin about how safe electric cars (Teslas) are, how they catch fire less frequently than implied and possibly saved the life of the other driver too. (wakes up from dream)
SO happy that you were able to walk away from this accident and glad you got checked out. Frightening video. We've watched it several times and even if the guy was speeding around the curves and intending on hugging the inside of the lane where you were who does that on a blind curve? He had plenty of time to see you and correct. Noticed watching the video that there's no tire marks showing that he tried to brake either. Right before he hit you it looked to me like he wasn't in his seat but more towards the middle of the car. You can see the driver's head rest and he's well to the left of it in the footage. We both feel it looks like he was aiming to hit your car. We'll be interested to hear what charges the police decide to file against him; wondering if he will be charged with vehicular assault among other charges of negligence, etc. Good luck with insurance. While he might not have had insurance himself, I'm thinking the owner of the car had insurance, especially being a Mercedes. When my husband was in Arizona his car was struck by a guy driving his parents' car without their permission. Fortunately a cop was in traffic across the street and saw it happen as the kid tried to initially deny it was his fault. The parents' insurance paid out on the claim. Was your accident driver a young guy? Personally I think no driver's license, no insurance, just lock them up. BTW I have always admired photos of your car OP and sad to see it in this shape. Bet that was a phone call you didn't want to make to Mr Az_Rael. I remember when I had to call my dad when I was a teen and tell him the car I had been a passenger in had been in a bad car crash and needed him to meet me at the hospital. Your husband must have freaked out watching the video knowing you were in the car. Hope your M3 isn't a long wait. For anyone who doesn't believe it's worth having a dash cam, think about it. No witnesses around I assume and just the word of the two people involved. The video clearly shows what happened. Maybe not the reason behind how he ended up in the wrong lane but no mistake whose fault it was. Curious was the dashcam still recording after the point the video ended? I always come away from photos of accidents like this feeling good about owning our MS.
Holy crap, I've seen you around on the forums and always noted that you're not too far away. I grew up around Bouquet and Seco so this hits home. Glad you're ok, if you're ever down to meet up to bs I'd gladly buy you a few rounds.
Also glad to hear you are ok. That's a scary video. Couldn't imagine how it felt in real life. It surely does look like he was aiming for you as he didn't so much drift over into your lane as he seemed to just shoot diagonally at you. Glad you are OK and good luck in getting a Model 3. I'm sure it will be a great car.
I sent the police the video via email, as I couldn’t download it until I got home. I don’t know what he told the police, as they kept us separate while taking our statements. They told me they were just going to ticket him for not having a license at the time. I would be a bit concerned if it was determined to be intentional, as I think there are clauses in insurance policies excluding stuff like that. (Read a terrible case on r/insurance once where a pedestrian was intentionally hit by a car and they were denied any compensation by the driver’s insurance as intentional acts weren’t covered). Not sure how that would play out on my uninsured motorist coverage, which is what I will be using.
No, that was it. It was hooked to the OBD port in the drivers footwell (no microphone connector on mine), and the knee airbag yanked out the power when it deployed. I have a rear cam too, but the coax had been damaged several weeks ago and I hadn’t gotten around to re-running it, so no footage from it.
I think the camera also has a capacitor so it can continue recording for a few seconds after power loss.
Interesting. Hadn't thought about the airbags affecting it. Good thing you weren't hit from behind in that case. Yes it does, we have the 650S as well. I guess a few seconds after impact and bag deployment is what we saw then.
Amazingly it was much less scary in real life as it happened so fast, here is how my brain processed it: Oh, that guy is in my lane! Swerve to the right to miss him... think I cleared him...BANG! Oh, wow, those are all my airbags - didn’t know they were pink. Never crossed my mind at the time that it was potentially a life or death situation. I thought I was going to clear him (and if he had corrected, I might have). Our brains are weird that way, I suppose. Turns out I am not one to freeze up in situations like that, which is probably a good thing. I will do well in a zombie apocalypse.
Wow! Just Wow! So glad that you are OK. That is a profound video... a very scary "total" indeed! Good luck in getting it all resolved.