This morning I was taking the Esprit V8 to a nearby town to get some fresh tires put on it. While running down this country road I wandered a bit too far to the right and hit a patch of gravel. The car swerved to the left, I swerved it back to the right and reflexively hit the brakes -- and the brakes locked up, and then I was just a passenger on the roller-coaster ride.
The car spun and launched over the barditch and through a barbed-wire fence, taking out a cedar post, a steel post, and four strands of barbed wire. I continued sliding to a stop in a field of soft dirt. If the fence hadn't been there, I believe the car would have suffered little damage. As it is, there was no mechanical damage, but almost every part of the body was skinned up in some way, and several fiberglass components were damaged. It's going to be an expensive repair bill.
As you might imagine I'm still a bit shaken up. This accident came out of nowhere, under nearly perfect driving conditions -- going in a straight line down a clean, smooth road, in clear weather, with no other traffic around, and I wasn't driving super-fast. It's the first accident of any consequence I've been into in my life. So. . . I don't know yet what conclusion I'm going to draw from it in the end.
One obvious lesson. . . It made me a quick believer in antilock brakes. If this car had antilock brakes -- or if I'd had the presense of mind to stay out of the brakes -- I'm almost certain I wouldn't have lost control, and this would have been a non-event.
The car spun and launched over the barditch and through a barbed-wire fence, taking out a cedar post, a steel post, and four strands of barbed wire. I continued sliding to a stop in a field of soft dirt. If the fence hadn't been there, I believe the car would have suffered little damage. As it is, there was no mechanical damage, but almost every part of the body was skinned up in some way, and several fiberglass components were damaged. It's going to be an expensive repair bill.
As you might imagine I'm still a bit shaken up. This accident came out of nowhere, under nearly perfect driving conditions -- going in a straight line down a clean, smooth road, in clear weather, with no other traffic around, and I wasn't driving super-fast. It's the first accident of any consequence I've been into in my life. So. . . I don't know yet what conclusion I'm going to draw from it in the end.
One obvious lesson. . . It made me a quick believer in antilock brakes. If this car had antilock brakes -- or if I'd had the presense of mind to stay out of the brakes -- I'm almost certain I wouldn't have lost control, and this would have been a non-event.