I gather there are two types of fender bender.

1) An accident.

2) An accident caused by someone driving at 15mph in a 40mph lane, and constantly braking while the person behind them is following at a hair's length. One can accumulate a lot of rage driving behind a zombie driver, and when they finally brake their way into a fender bender... KABOOM.

People need to remember that accidents are accidents. Unless they're DWAI, like many people I know these days, nobody goes out thinking they're going to have and accident. Many of the people with substance problems I know actually brag that they did NOT have an accident when they drove home from the bar "totally sh*t-faced".

I'm going to have to completely disagree with you here. Short of something falling from the sky, there is no such thing as an accidental accident. At some point in every crash, someone made a wrong decision that ultimately resulted in the crash. Whether it's someone following too close, or driving too fast for the conditions, or not paying attention, the fact remains that if everyone was driving properly, there wouldn't have been a crash in the first place.

I challenge anyone to put forth a situation where a multiple car crash is really accidental.

I think we're using the word "accident" in this context to mean "it wasn't done with intent."

You know, I wish I had an answer about this... I guess it just ties into everything else in our general slide into decline as a civilization. I think "violence as response" has been so played up in our culture and popular culture that we've raised generations whose first response to ANY setback is to punch someone and ask questions later.

Honest to god, I see high school kids every day who almost come to blows after bumping into one another unintentionally in the hallway.

I would suggest that if the conditions are really that crappy, you should probably wait until the road is sanded before you take it. Part of safe driving is knowing when to not go out.

Damn, I think I just got... how do the kids say it nowadays?.. oh yeah, pwned

That's why we have the emergency brake.

Well, technically anything that an insurance company considers "not at fault" was accidental, while anything "at fault" was not. So, for example, if a deer jumps out of a bush in front of your car, that was an accident. If you swerve to avoid a deer, but end up in a ditch, that was not an accident. It was your own doing.

I think I might get upset next time I'm in an accident. My insurance companies seems to not believe anything I say, and 'loses' every request for an appeal I file. Even if someone backs into me, I'm going to be found at fault, somehow.

hehe this Topic has brought back a funny memory. When I was in high school, there was a really accident prone intersection at Machado and Lincoln in my home town. Lincoln is a single lane road in both directions but it was wide enough that if you wanted you could pass on the right with ease. At this intersection when people are on Lincoln turning left onto machado people would drive past the the person turning on the right continuing at full speed (30-45 mph) Well if you get two of people turning left its hard to see behind the vehicle turning left so its chancy at best when turning there.

Ok enough setup... One time a guy driving a beatup pos 1990 something Civic hatchback drove on the right side of the lane passing someone turning and did a headon with a BMW that was turning. After coming to a stop, he gets out of his car (which is totalled) and starts scream LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY F___ CAR!! Over and over and over again. Pointing from the front of his car and then to the other driver (I think it was a girl) So for like 15 minutes this guy is just fliping out running around on the road blocking traffic and screaming curse words at the top of his lungs about how his car is smashed and how great his car is and how he is sad blah blah blah. Then it happens.... a fat lady comes out of house on the corner and screams at the top of her lungs, "QUIT F____ CURSING YOU F____ A___HOLE, I GOT F____ LITTLE KIDS IN THE HOUSE AND THEY DONT NEED TO HEAR ANY OF THE S___ YOUR SCREAMING!!!!"

Needless to say, the guy shutup. But I couldnt stop laughing for hours!

I have only been in one accident (or "collision as accident implies no one is at fault") I was going into a fast food joint drive thru and some guy comes flying out of a parking stall in reverse almost T-boning me. I gassed it and he ended up taking off my rear bumper cover only. He was going so fast in reverse he left rubber on the ground. But being the dumbass kid that I was, told him forget about it (well his car did have bodywork damage) and I stopped by the hardware store and put two bolts with a big washer and nuts to hold the cover on.

People tend to be jumpy in "accidents" because driving is inheriently very stressful.

I recently saw a BBC documentary where it was demonstrated that a man doing his normal commute (he didn't even have too much traffic to deal with) had similar stress level as a man (who had no prior riot suppression experience) trying to suppress a heated riot with the rioting squad.

After some thought, I think the finding made sense, driving IS very stressful because driving contains all the stress inducing elements that could drive us nuts:

1) lack of control
2) lack of communication, thus lack of means to resolve or prevent conflict. ( I mean say you are walking towards a junction on the road, you see someone else also hastily approaching the junction from another direction. The two of you would very likely establish some eye contact, maybe one of you would nod a little as a gesture of "you go first" or maybe one of you change your pace, but either way, no conflict. Now when driving, the situation is different, we are all isolated by big metal (or plastic) boxes and have no way to really "communicate" to others, and that lack of communication could increase the risk of conflict )
3) fear of the danger involved in the activity. Car accidents are no joke...
4) fear of lawsuits, or Hightened need to protect oneself. Okay I just had to put this here, because it is so prevelent in the current society. What happened to the good o' "live and let live" mentality?

Anyway, I am no stranger to accidents, in fact, in one month period, I have been Ramm'ed by a Dodge Ram (oh the irony) truck that ran a red light. (my car was totaled both on the front and the back because the force of the truck was so great that my car spun around and the rare also got trashed...)
At that same intersection I bumped into a van who had to slam on the breaks because the car in front of him decided to completely stop in the middle of the intersection, AFTER the light has turned green...
And I chiped the paint from a parked SUV with my dad's van while trying to park in a crammed parking spot...
The worst accident we had happened when we first came to the state, and my dad was near fatally injured by a red-light runner while an ex-friend (ex, instead of coming to see my father at the hospital, they came with a lawyer and told us that it is legally not their fault...) of ours was driving the car (the driver was completely okay, but since my dad was on the passenger side he was severely injured, broken chest bone piercing your lungs is no joke...)

In all these experiences (some I didn't list) we have tried to be nice, we never actually pursued lawsuits (besides compensation for my dad's hospital bills). To some we (my family) are pretty "stupid." But from all that I have experienced, there are really good people out there, so it is not worth it to make a big deal out of mistakes in driving that we all some times make. In fact, from every accidents that we had to deal with, I become more convinced of the "goodness" in people so really, no need to mind the few bad apples.

Time to get another insurance company.

I was part of an accident where a guy rear ended a car (which pushed it into me) and then got out yelling and screaming. I calmly got out of my car, walked over to him and told him in a dead calm voice to "shut the f*ck up and get back into your car until the police come". Something in my voice and/or demeanor must have worked, because he complied instantly. I then walked over to the car that got tagged (which hit mine) and checked on the lady to ensure she was ok...

A few weeks ago, I got rear ended in my BMW; there wasn't a huge amount of damage, but it was a pretty obvious total loss to me. I wasn't terribly angry or anything, just got out, checked on the other lady and went on with life.

Sometimes you just don't really have that option if you want to keep a house over your family's head and food on the table.

Driving to work versus "suppressing a heated riot"?

...Seriously?

I mean... that would be like having an anxiety attack fretting over whether or not to eject the pop tart yet for fear of burning it.

Not normal.