First prang

Just three weeks ago my Guardian Angel told me “Don’t drive aggressively as you did recently – you haven’t had any accident and may it stay so”. I have mended my ways in terms of style of driving and avoid risky manoeuvres, but there are several other factors that can contribute to accidents on the road. I had my first one, a scrape, rather than a full-scale collision, yesterday.

Funnily enough, I didn’t damage my own car, nor my father’s car…

The post for today was meant to be titled “Renault Clio IV – driving impressions”. I decided to accept a personal invitation for a test drive from the local dealership where I have my old Megane serviced and ventured there yesterday. Before setting out, I dropped in on the near garage, where I had my tyres changed for the winter ones. Forecasters had warned of winter attack over a week ago and arranged the visit, so the weather has not caught me napping (yesterday Warsaw saw the first snowfall this autumn, quite heavy). The difference between summer and winter tyres is noticeable, mostly on a slush which was on the roads yesterday. The car holds the road much better, reacts differently when accelerator and brake pedals are used. It’s all obvious…

I drove to Konstancin, took a test drive as scheduled. I was only stunned by the car’s magnificent design and drove rather carefully as the car lacked winter tyres and actually wasn’t impressed by the dynamics of 0.9 litre turbocharged engine. To get back to the dealership I had to make a u-turn on the roundabout with traffic lights. I drove through such roundabouts several times, including this one, with which I was familiar. I knew very well a green light on one road allowed me to turn left, where I would encounter another, red light for a perpendicular road, before which I should have stopped. It was a moment of my inattention or lapse of concentration and I realised it a bit of too late, just ahead of the traffic light and ahead of another road. I skimmed on the brakes, but did not avoid rubbing against the left side of another vehicle, moving straight ahead on the perpendicular road. My fault…

Damages: first of all, no injuries to people travelling in both cars (at such low speed little bad could happen), brand new Renault Clio had its front bumper severely scratched and number plate board ripped off, Fiat Palio Weekend had both left doors sternly scratched and slightly dented and side lath on driver’s door torn away. Both cars were still roadworthy.

First advice in such situations: stay calm and plead guilty if you are. Any attempt to shirk responsibility is an open invitation for the owner of a damaged car to call the police. It only make things worse – who needs a fine of a few hundred zlotys on top of the collision? Both the Fiat driver and a salesman who travelled with me as a passenger kept cool heads. We all drove to the dealership to write out a “culprit’s statement” (in which I concede I had caused the accident) to secure covering the costs of repair of the Fiat by the Renault’s insurer. In the meantime mechanics from Renault garage reattached the number plate to the new Clio so that other clients could test the car. Then I looked after my own business and made sure Renault’s own damage insurance policy also covered all damages inflicted by clients, so the insurer would not have recourse to me. The only way the prang will hit my wallet is that instead of having a maximum, 60% third-party liability motor insurance discount next year, I will see it go down from 50% to 40% (assuming no accident along the way) and it will take two years to reach the maximum amount (expected loss over two years: roughly 300 PLN – still little compared to cost of repairing two damaged cars which I estimate would be between 3,000 and 5,000 PLN). I could of course try to conceal the collision, but my data will be recorded in the central registry of culprit, run by Insurance Guarantee Fund and available for all motor insurers, so it would not pay off…

Yesterday’s smash-up only borne out how I have changed. When over two years ago I dented the front bumper in (then my father’s) Megane I reacted very emotionally and didn’t feel like sitting behind the wheel the next day, but my father forced to me to overcome the trauma. Yesterday I stayed very calm, not to make things worse and secure my interests. Then I cleared my car of snow and drove safely back home, told my parents about the prang, informed about it on facebook… A lesson learnt – drive more carefully.

Funnily enough, I have driven around 15,000 kilometres, almost all with my car, went for a short (less than 10 kilometres) trip with a dealer’s car and damaged it, while saving my own one. Actually if the same had happened if I had driven my Megane: (1) the accident might have not happened, as Clio was on summer tyres and on winter tyres the car might have stopped, (2), even if I crashed, I wouldn’t decide to repair my car, I would just carry on driving with scratched front bumper…

As long as nobody is injured and only cars are damaged, there’s no point in dwelling on an accident. Accidents happen and will happen, but I hope I won’t have any, even such minor scrape in the future…