So I'm driving my brand new Clarity PHEV Touring model home from work minding my own business in the left most lane and I see a lunatic coming up on me fast. He's splitting the lanes between my lane and the lane to my right. He's not slowing down so I move to my right as much as I can but there's a jersey barrier. Mind you this is the middle of Los Angeles at peak rush hour. The highway is packed! I give him as much room as I can but apparently it wasn't enough. He smashes into my rear passenger quarter panel and I maintain vehicle stability. I was going about 45 and I'm guessing he was going about 65.
Right after he hits me, he rotates about 165 degrees and careens into the jersey barrier on his passenger side (now facing backwards) and he nearly breaks off his front passenger wheel. The knucklehead tries to keep going! At this point I'm looking in my rear view to see if there are police chasing him because I can't think of any other reason that someone would attempt such a maneuver. But there were no police.
I scramble for my phone to snatch a picture of his plate but I couldn't get it in time. He's driving ahead in between cars with 3 wheels operational and one dragging sideways. As luck would have it his wheel gave out and he's dragging hard on the front and his car only goes in one direction, to the right shoulder. He crossed 5 lanes and landed right in front of 3 Police that were already stopped for another accident!
So naturally I pull in too. I park my car on the side of the highway and get out. The maniac was already out of his car. All his airbags were deployed but he looked fine. So I say to the first Police officer I see "Did you see what just happened???" Of course he didn't so I start to tell them the story and a woman who was involved in the accident before me comes running up to tell the police that the maniac ran off. He fled on foot.
At this point my feeling changed from thinking I was a casualty of a police chase to thinking I'm on an episode of Reno 911. The police glanced in the direction he ran off and said "Huh, I guess he did run off". They had no sense of urgency whatsoever. So I finished telling them the whole story, then they searched his car and I could see them pull out a bunch of cash and weed. I don't know what this dude was on but he was out of his mind.
Anyway, my car is f@!ked. We took a pry bar and got the fender off the wheel so I could drive it home. It made it home fine. I don't dare try to open the rear passenger door because I might not be able to get it shut again. I think the trunk will open but I don't want to try that either. The front passenger door definitely operates normally.
I read some other threads about Clarity's and crashes but no one has updated them with status on repairs. I'm curious if this is an easy car to total with the battery back there or if this is going to be something they try to repair. There's definitely going to be cutting and welding and pulling. Both wheels are damaged.
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