I had some work done on my 1994 nsx on Wednesday/Thursday, and took the car out Thursday night for about an hour, before a tuning appointment Friday morning.
It was a clear night, and I was going home from San Clemente, when I got into an accident on the onramp; Basically, the onramp consists of a sweeping right turn from Pico Ave. onto the I-5 freeway; at the end of this right hand turn, by the signal light, there was just a wall of water, caused by a broken high-pressure sprinkler, that hit the car like a fire hose. As soon as the water hit the car the rear end broke loose, towards the left, I steered towards the left, started to recover, but then the car snapped to the right; I started to steer towards the right, but ended up off the road, up a curb, and on the hill towards the right of the car. There wasn't a full rotation, only a half-rotation, onto the curb; speed was around 40mph. If there was an additional lane, or some run off, on the right, likely everything would have been in order, but its a 2-lane relatively narrow onramp, bounded by curbs and vegetation.
Here is an illustration of the accident:
Not much distance was traveled, after the accident I called 911 right away, then watched for 3 minutes as two other cars nearly lost it on the same patch of water, a Honda Accord, and a Mitsubishi Eclipse. After 3 minutes the sprinklers turned off, and a passer-by helped me push the car off of the hill, and onto the road surface. I started the car up, pointed it in the correct direction, and 15 minutes later the CHP showed up, after the sprinklers had turned off. I got the impression the officers didn't realize the large amount of water being sprayed onto the road surface, as they said it was the same as a small pool of water, and equated it to a 'sudden down pour', saying I should have been able to adjust my speed to avoid an accident. They insisted I must have been going too fast for the onramp, and said the existence of the hazard was irrelevant to my accident; the car basically broke loose as soon as it hit the water, I was going straight ahead at this point, after having made the turn onto the onramp.
Here are some additional pictures:
Here is the sprinkler in question, its hard to get a feel for the amount of water, but this picture is from approx 15 feet away:
Here is the aftermath... the lip is destroyed, the front left fender is bent/destroyed from the wheel slamming upwards into it, the front fender liners are trash, and the right rear wheel seems like it may be askew - not really sure what the extent of the damage is until I can have it inspected tomorrow:
The most important thing, I came away uninjured, the new safety systems seem to have done well in this accident, I was calling '911' within seconds of the car stopping, and physically am 100%; I am optimistic of the car's condition, it runs fine, wasn't leaking any fluids, and remarkably the wheels have no visible bends. :frown:
It was a clear night, and I was going home from San Clemente, when I got into an accident on the onramp; Basically, the onramp consists of a sweeping right turn from Pico Ave. onto the I-5 freeway; at the end of this right hand turn, by the signal light, there was just a wall of water, caused by a broken high-pressure sprinkler, that hit the car like a fire hose. As soon as the water hit the car the rear end broke loose, towards the left, I steered towards the left, started to recover, but then the car snapped to the right; I started to steer towards the right, but ended up off the road, up a curb, and on the hill towards the right of the car. There wasn't a full rotation, only a half-rotation, onto the curb; speed was around 40mph. If there was an additional lane, or some run off, on the right, likely everything would have been in order, but its a 2-lane relatively narrow onramp, bounded by curbs and vegetation.
Here is an illustration of the accident:
Not much distance was traveled, after the accident I called 911 right away, then watched for 3 minutes as two other cars nearly lost it on the same patch of water, a Honda Accord, and a Mitsubishi Eclipse. After 3 minutes the sprinklers turned off, and a passer-by helped me push the car off of the hill, and onto the road surface. I started the car up, pointed it in the correct direction, and 15 minutes later the CHP showed up, after the sprinklers had turned off. I got the impression the officers didn't realize the large amount of water being sprayed onto the road surface, as they said it was the same as a small pool of water, and equated it to a 'sudden down pour', saying I should have been able to adjust my speed to avoid an accident. They insisted I must have been going too fast for the onramp, and said the existence of the hazard was irrelevant to my accident; the car basically broke loose as soon as it hit the water, I was going straight ahead at this point, after having made the turn onto the onramp.
Here are some additional pictures:
Here is the sprinkler in question, its hard to get a feel for the amount of water, but this picture is from approx 15 feet away:
Here is the aftermath... the lip is destroyed, the front left fender is bent/destroyed from the wheel slamming upwards into it, the front fender liners are trash, and the right rear wheel seems like it may be askew - not really sure what the extent of the damage is until I can have it inspected tomorrow:
The most important thing, I came away uninjured, the new safety systems seem to have done well in this accident, I was calling '911' within seconds of the car stopping, and physically am 100%; I am optimistic of the car's condition, it runs fine, wasn't leaking any fluids, and remarkably the wheels have no visible bends. :frown:
Hopefully it won't have a lot of damage. Looks like the lip took the brunt of it. Sounds like you have a good case, good luck!
Let us know which path you are choosing to march down. I think the city (or is it CalTrans) is responsible for the high pressure sprinkler; especially whe you are not the only one that had an accident there. Good luck on putting all the pieces back together.
