With No Snow, What’s Causing All the Accidents?
A review of the shop’s activity from Carol Jordan.
In spite of a mild winter and a minimal amount of snow, the shop has been bustling with auto accident claims. Our average is 64-72 cars in the shop at all times. Most accidents are minor–rear end collisions and “hit while parked.” We do have several vehicles with serious damage – from T- bone accidents in intersections to deer strikes. On one occasion, a driver trying to avoid a large Recliner chair that was sitting on Rte. 495 lost control of his vehicle, hit another vehicle and pushed that vehicle into a ditch! The recliner was deemed a total loss. The other vehicle, a 2007 BMW, was towed to our shop and repaired to its original condition! Other unusual causes of accidents are bicyclists hitting cars, which are rare but cause lots of damage, tree limbs falling on vehicles (after a storm), and shopping carts and, again rarely happening–large dogs running into cars–sometimes causing major damage.
Parking garages can be another source for damage to your vehicle. Lime deposits on the ceilings of garages can leak onto a vehicle and can be cause for major repair work. This can happen in residential, commercial and airport parking garages. Watch the valets too! Valets parking your vehicle can sometimes cause (and sometimes not report) damage by hitting concrete barriers or other vehicles. Be sure to walk around your car after valet parking.
A fair amount of the accidents we see can be accredited to “driver distraction.” Texting, talking on the phone, applying make-up and eating fast food are common distractions. On one occasion, a customer of ours reported a gentleman talking on his cell phone and reading the newspaper on Rte. 95 in rush hour traffic.
Most minor accidents (such as bumper repair) take 3-5 days to repair. Major accidents can take two weeks to one month to repair. When the airbags deploy, the job is more labor intensive. We’ve not seen too many vehicles with air bag deployment in spite of the amount of damage to vehicles—a testament to the structure of new vehicles – meant to absorb the shock and crumple on the outside and keep passengers safe in the cabin.
That said, we are constantly busy with new accident claims and repair work. We are here to guide you through that process and can use our knowledge and experience in dealing with most every type of accident to make sure that the process is streamlined and informational for you.
