Still trying to get over this.. happened 8/19/20 in the morning headed home after dropping my mom off at my grandma’s (we had dropped her car off at the shop earlier in the morning so she needed the ride).
I was getting off the highway and turning left onto a bridge that’s been under construction for months now (there is only half the bridge drivable now as the other half is having the support beams replaced) - and I guess traffic was starting to pile up so the guy in front of me stopped short unexpectedly. I stopped perfectly on time but not the Amazon delivery van that was behind me... and as hard as it felt, I guess it wasn’t that hard because no airbags deployed. So I get smacked and hear my ABS pump freak out (probably because I had brakes fully applied and wheels still turned from the shove) and end up pushing the guy in front of me too.

I was actually mad for a split second at my Pumpkin for not deploying the airbag, thinking surely he wanted me dead. I was just inches away from kissing the steering wheel after all (I’m short, so unfortunately I have to sit a bit closer than normal to the wheel but I try to not be that close). Then I thought, eh whatever no air bag means maybe there’s a chance my car didn’t get a*spacked like I thought he did, so maybe he can be saved (that would be my worst nightmare after all). I’m glad I remembered to bring the dash cam back into the car before leaving that morning. But the one thing I couldn’t find... my phone. I swore I had my phone in the cup holder before it all happened, and I thought I saw something go flying next to me (besides my sunglasses that abandoned my face too) but I couldn’t find my damn phone ANYWHERE - under the seats, under the mats, nowhere. Later on when I got home we found it somehow went flying forwards then slid back underneath the floor console. I had actually convinced myself at the time that I somehow forgot my phone at home, and I ended up having to borrow the Amazon driver’s phone to try and call a family member (which, NOBODY would answer at first but eventually I got a hold of someone to let them know what happened). I feel bad because when my mom found out, she told my grandmother what happened and that she needed to come find me and my poor grandmother (who suffers from COPD and has lung cancer) seemed to start to panic and have a harder time breathing) likely thinking that I was in worse shape than I was.
Anyways... the three of us vehicles involved had to relocate further down the road past the construction zone because as I said, only half a bridge available and we were blocking traffic. Guy in front of me seemed fine (just upset, actually looked like he just got rudely awakened) and just had a small hole in the left half of his bumper from my front plate. My front plate was kind of bent, right headlamp appeared to slightly pop out of place on the inner corner (I realized that when I got home). My rear bumper has a decent sized dent, a crack above it and wrinkled paint (if that even makes sense) where it creased on impact. Bumper is slightly jutting out to the right beneath the tail lamp, the locating pins along the top of the bumper (only visible with trunk open) have all mostly popped out and shifted to the right also. This I noticed a day after - the trunk lid seems to be crooked. It opens and closes fine, but the gap on the left side is bigger than the right. Hard to tell, but I can fit my pinky in the left side gap and it does not fit in the right side. It looks like the left side hinge is somewhat bent inwards as well. Got a big scrape with all the paint gone in the lower left corner of the trunk (and same part of the bumper) from the bumper being pushed into it, and a small scrape underneath my Comp G badge too which I think might have been from the broken plastic bumper on the ProMaster that hit me.

Timing couldn’t have been better as the next day my boyfriend had a job interview at a good spot south of us, so I guess I’m glad the airbags didn’t deploy because that would have rendered the car undriveable. The next morning we drove some 10 miles south and on our way back while on the highway, thought we heard something like a rock hit the passenger side door... to which I thought great more road debris that has to get kicked up and hit MY car and nobody else’s. Later that afternoon is when our insurance company’s adjuster was to see the damage at a designated location. I went with my father because he knew where the location was, I didn’t. $1,740 in visible damage according to him. When we left, we temporarily heard some weird rattling from the passenger side and thought must be something loose from the damage (even though never heard it before/immediately after the accident. The day after... I thought I was good to go drop off the car at the shop of my choice (wrong).. I’m just desperate already to get my baby fixed. I took all the junk out of the trunk and drove to a shop I was going to pick and when we got off the highway, this guy just sounded like we had a flat in the front passenger side... didn’t feel exactly like a flat but sounded like it. If tires were really low then the trip computer would tell, so I knew it wasn’t that. At least we were close to the shop and pulled into the parking lot to look.
....... 2/5 lug nuts are MIA on the front right wheel. Just gone. Bye. We came to realize that’s what we heard the day before on the highway. But how?? Nobody has touched the wheels in a while. My dad immediately assumed someone sabotaged the car and that I needed to check our surveillance cameras at home... doubted it but checked anyway. Nothing. My sister insists that the only way was if my mechanic left them loose last time he touched them. No... the last time he did was in May and I’ve driven enough since then for them to have become noticeably loose if that were the case. It happened after the accident.
All I can think of is, when I was hit and shoved I had the brakes fully applied and I never let go, hence the ABS pump reacted as well. It is audible in my dash cam video too (which I wish I could upload here - maybe I should send it to MegaDrivingSchool on YT to add to one of their compilations). My guess is with brakes/wheel hubs locked and tires forcibly turning from the impact, it was enough to get them to barely break loose. By the way, had to limp over to my nearest O’Reillys to grab a small set of lugs and a wrench (because I did empty the trunk and didn’t have my lug wrench in there) and my boyfriend fastened me two shiny new chrome lug nuts to match the remaining three black ones we had on there. Because they didn’t have black. I didn’t think to check the others... but that helped anyways. When we got home, later that day I said well it might be a good idea to check all of them... and yup, ALL of them were loose on both front wheels. I’m glad I did not get back on the highway that day. But now I’m still mad I’m going to have to buy a new set of black ones so they match again. Definitely still keeping the chrome ones in the vehicle as spares because this is the second time I almost lose a damb wheel.
It has been a week and we still have not heard back from our insurance or Amazon’s insurance to know if they are going to send someone of their own to look at the damage and agree to pay for the repairs because by gosh they will pay my baby’s medical bills one way or another. I just wish they’d hurry the eff up.

I wonder if I get an award for record long rant...


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