By Major I mean where the cars received extensive damage and not just a fender bender. I have had just one
When I was in high school, I was a backseat passenger in a car that hit an 18-wheeler at a speed that was at least 80 miles an hour. Both people in the front seat were killed on the scene, while both of us in the backseat were relatively unharmed. My knee hurt for a couple of weeks, and I don't think my girlfriend had any problems at all. Also while I was in high school, during one of only a few times when I was drunk, I rolled my dad's Ford station wagon over with ten people in the car, and none of us were injured. The car didn't do so well but it rolled over one-and-a-half times, landing back on its wheels, and I was able to drive out again. Dad bought another car, however. Again, while in high school, I hit a deer with my $30 VW bug. The deer kept going, but my VW didn't. I was unharmed. When I was about 20 and living in Southern California, some guy who I didn't know wanted to sell me his car. Insisting on showing me how well it ran, he drove like a maniac along the access road to the 91 Freeway, I think it was, and hit another car, completely wrecking his car. I had tried to get him to slow down. Since I figured he was either drunk or on something, based on his bizarre behavior, I walked away from the wreck. Again, I wasn't hurt. He was, but not seriously, and I didn't care. When I walked away, I told him that I didn't think I wanted to buy it. I was working for a towing company at the time and our company took the wreck in and, looking at it the next day, it was hard to imagine anyone living through it. However, as a paramedic later, I came across several people who were not seriously injured despite major damage to the cars they were in. That was about it, as far as major wrecks go. There were several minor ones, where I was testing my limits. When I was fourteen or so, my uncle let my cousin and I drive an old car of his in the field. It was one of those heavy-duty, 1940s models, with the rounded roof, and we found that if we hit a dry streambed at just the right angle, it would roll over and usually come back on its wheels, so we did that dozens of times. By the way, in none of these wrecks was I wearing a seatbelt. Maybe the one in California because the guy was driving like a raving maniac, so I may have belted up.
Two. The first was not long after I got my driver's license. It had just rained, I lost control, went through a ditch, popped out where a driveway crossed it, got thrown into the oncoming lane of cars innocently waiting at a red light, and hit one in the rear quarter panel and another in the front quarter panel. The guy in the second car got out screaming "I just picked my wife up from the hospital!" The stupid thing is I should have been going home in the other direction. I was off work, I lived only a mile from my job, and was giving a friend a ride several miles the opposite way so he could pick up something to eat and then finish out his evening shift. The second was about 4 years later in a company van. I was sitting at a red light in DC. I was the only car waiting for it to turn (yeh, it was that long ago.) In my side-view mirror I could see a taxi come screaming up on us doing about 45MPH...the driver was looking down at something on the seat next to him and didn't even hit the brakes. BOOM!!! It really buckled the deck on that thing. I got out and asked the taxi driver if he was OK. He looked at me and said "Why did you stop?" Lying S.O.B.
When I was twelve, one of my slightly older cousins asked if I could drive. It wasn't uncommon for kids in our rural area to learn to drive at very young ages but, at twelve, I had never driven. He had gotten his dad's car stuck on the next road over from our house, and wanted me to pull him out with my dad's station wagon. No one else was at home at the time, I don't remember why, but my parents must have taken the truck since the wagon was home, and my brothers were off somewhere. Embarrassed to admit that I had never driven, I told him I could. I made it down to his car, okay but, in trying to position the station wagon in a place where a rope could be attached, I got the station wagon stuck. So there we were. One of the few people in the area who I didn't know well, although I may have been related to him, came along on his tractor. He must have seen us there because his farm was nearly a mile away. He pulled both of us out, and not a word was said to my parents. That wasn't a wreck though, as no damage was done.
I don’t recall any serious accidents. Three or four fender benders across my driving tim and one homemade trailer destroyed.
Just one. When I was 21. I pulled out in front of a car in a residential section of town. Not looking carefully enough. Major exterior damage to the front driver's side. Head hit the sun visor bracket resulting in a few stitches, and lots of bruises, none of which would have happened with seatbelts. The man in the other vehicle sued for $25,000 damages claiming whiplash, and settled with the insurance company for $2500. They surmised he was exceeding the speed limit at the time. Not making light of whiplash. Someone rear-ended me once at a stop sign and I got to experience true whiplash. It wasn't pleasant.
I had 1 when a teenager. Going home after a date and a drunk broadsided me only the car was wrecked. However one of my son's when coming home from getting a father's day gift for me had a real doozie. He was speeding when he saw a cop car chasing him. He sped up lost control and hit a utility pole that carried the power to a town car totalled. No electricity for 3 days. Got a bill for 25 k from utility
I've been lucky. Only minor accidents so far. I was broadsided once while crossing an intersection by a person who was speeding down a downtown street. Literally saw stars from the impact. No injury other than a weird sideways whiplash, which was relieved by a combination of chiropractic and guided visualization. Years later, my little Honda Civic was rear-ended at a stop light by someone in a huge SUV whose foot slipped off the brake, she said. No injuries to me or my passenger but my car had a lot of trunk damage.