Crashed after 4 days!

EvenSteven21

EvenSteven21

Member
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. pic1.webp IMG_4562.webp IMG_4563.webp IMG_4564.webp
 
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I'm really surprised I didn't hit my knee on the center console. I hit my knee on it when I'm driving and it sucks that it is just right in painful location of the side of my knee.
 
From the details of your story I will guess you’re underestimating his speed.

VERY IMPORTANT: make sure the body shop your car goes to is certified to work on Tesla cars. That is the only way you can be sure they know the special needs of both aluminum body parts AND the paint both temperature limits of the battery electric systems.

An added advantage is not only would they do the repairs right but also the estimate will be higher so there is a greater chance the car will get totaled resulting in a new Clarity for you. However, the insurance company will choose repair over replace even if the savings is minimal.
 
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Bummer dude. Keep us informed of how the whole repair process goes! I'd love to see ONE wrecked Clarity brought to conclusion on this website. Those who report these accidents tend to fade away and not provide updates. Your firsthand experiences will be extremely valuable to others. And I sincerely wish you as positive outcome as you can possibly get, given the circumstances...
 
I promise I will update! As of now I am awaiting the police report. I'm not holding my breath that this guy actually has car insurance.
 
In a situation like you describe, you will be far better served simply filing under your own coverage and paying your deductible...no matter what the police report happens to say about his insurance. Even proving whether the driver was the car owner will likely be investigated. Intentional/criminal act exclusions maycome into play. Court appearances and subpoenas may be needed. This all takes eons of time. Let your insurance company worry about going after the other guy on the back end.

This is not your typical “oops my bad I flaked out” type of accident from the other guy’s perspective, where an at fault persons company just steps up and handles your damage. FAR from it. Even the police have no idea if this was a stolen car or not since they let the driver run, and they can prove little unless he was apprehended and confessed

As a retired claim adjuster, I can assure you that you will not want to wait the many months it will take to get the other insurance company to agree to handle a claim of this nature for you. The roadblocks and frustration you will encounter are likely to drive you ape-turd.

Just get your car fixed right now under your own collision coverage, and discuss your options for deductible recovery at a later time with your company. You don’t need a police report at all to do this thru your company immediately.
 
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When I was hit I looked for a Honda ProFirst Body Shop (https://owners.honda.com/collision/) All I can say is Big E Auto Body in Seattle did great work. I was concerned with matching the white pearl paint and their painter nailed it. Good luck and sorry for your trouble, I was hit 180 miles from home and it added some complications.
 
craze1cars said:
In a situation like you describe, you will be far better served simply filing under your own coverage and paying your deductible...no matter what the police report happens to say about his insurance. Even proving whether the driver was the car owner will likely be investigated. Intentional/criminal act exclusions maycome into play. Court appearances and subpoenas may be needed. This all takes eons of time. Let your insurance company worry about going after the other guy on the back end.

This is not your typical “oops my bad I flaked out” type of accident from the other guy’s perspective, where an at fault persons company just steps up and handles your damage. FAR from it. Even the police have no idea if this was a stolen car or not since they let the driver run, and they can prove little unless he was apprehended and confessed

As a retired claim adjuster, I can assure you that you will not want to wait the many months it will take to get the other insurance company to agree to handle a claim of this nature for you. The roadblocks and frustration you will encounter are likely to drive you ape-turd.

Just get your car fixed right now under your own collision coverage, and discuss your options for deductible recovery at a later time with your company. You don’t need a police report at all to do this thru your company immediately.
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I definitely plan on going that route. Unfortunately I still have to wait for the police report because my insurance has a "coverage concern" based on the fact that I only had the car 4 days. They just want to see that the accident did in fact happen on the date I claim.
 
The Gadgeteer said:
From the details of your story I will guess you’re underestimating his speed.

VERY IMPORTANT: make sure the body shop your car goes to is certified to work on Tesla cars. That is the only way you can be sure they know the special needs of both aluminum body parts AND the paint both temperature limits of the battery electric systems.

An added advantage is not only would they do the repairs right but also the estimate will be higher so there is a greater chance the car will get totaled resulting in a new Clarity for you. However, the insurance company will choose repair over replace even if the savings is minimal.
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I plan on getting it fixed at Service King in Pasadena CA. They seem like the best choice in Los Angeles.

https://serviceking.com/
 
EvenSteven21 said:
I definitely plan on going that route. Unfortunately I still have to wait for the police report because my insurance has a "coverage concern" based on the fact that I only had the car 4 days. They just want to see that the accident did in fact happen on the date I claim.
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Don't let them tell you to get them a copy of the police report. That will cost you money to buy it (probably 20 bucks or more). Just give them the file number of the report and what jurisdiction did the report. Let the insurance company pay for the copy. That's what your premiums are for. They'll let you pay for as much as you're willing to.

I'm retired from law enforcement and that's what I told folks to do when they were in a T/C.
 
I gave them the file number. It will speed it all up if I do a small bit of leg work. They gave me the choice to get the report on my own or wait 2 months for them to get it. It's $10 here in California and its on my way home so I'm not super worried about it. I'm kind of curious how everything got reported from the police perspective.
 
Insurance will always reimburse for police reports. Even if they order their own and get a duplicate. Nothing wrong with you helping them expedite obtaining a copy. Agreed your company just needs confirmation of date of loss. This is a typical short delay on new polices. You’d be stunned at the number of uninsured people who wreck, then buy insurance afterwards and try to make a claim lying about date and time of accident. If your excitement happened to make the news, sometimes a copy of the article or link to news story can suffice as proof too.

Hopefully the cop turns it in timely. Some police are known to sit on reports for a week or two before submitting, so you can’t even get it quickly. That sucks when it happens.
 
I called the CHP and they said the report will be ready monday.

The $10 report is really the last thing I am worried about. My insurance is covering new child car seats since they were in my car at the time of the accident. No children in the seats just empty car seats. That's $1000 worth of new car seats!
 
EvenSteven21 said:
I plan on getting it fixed at Service King in Pasadena CA. They seem like the best choice in Los Angeles.

https://serviceking.com/
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It sounds like you're in SGV -- I used to have a Civic CNG, which also has its own temperature concerns when painting the body since there's a 3600 PSI tank of gas in it. When I got rear-ended in that car, I first had the compressed gas system safety inspected at the Honda dealership then took it to C&C Collision in Alhambra as they don't use a heat booth when painting the car. They do amazing work, but they're also expensive and slow.
 
Finally after almost a month, I finally got my estimate. $7319.63 was the initial adjuster estimate. He expects a large supplemental. I dropped it off immediately after the adjuster estimate with the place I am getting it fixed. They sent me an estimated completion date of 5/24! Almost two months without the car!
 
I live in NJ. The report cost a few bucks but I end up getting like 3 copies, with a laminated info sheet explaining the different codes, for free thanks to overly eager lawyers sending it to me and begging me to hire them to represent me in lawsuits.
7K seems low to fix the car. I would expect the cost to go over 10k. Maybe the repair shop would just drop the batt pack before baking the car to prevent batt damage.
 
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