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Location: Fort Worth, TX | A week ago my wife and I left on a trip from Texas to Michigan for an uncle's funeral. While stopped on a freeway in Illinois for construction traffic our brand new car of two weeks was rear ended by a big pickup. There was another accident about 100 yards behind us the state trooper told me he suspected the driver who hit us was rubbernecking. The trooper said it appeared the guy was doing the posted speed of 55 and never left skid marks from hitting his brakes before hitting our car which literally exploded around us.
They wouldn't even let us out of the car until an ambulance arrived. While waiting I told a fireman there I had a valuable guitar in the rear seat that couldn't sit out in the heat wherever the car was being towed to. He offered to take it to the fire station in town for me to retrieve later. After being released from the ER badly bruised and being driven to a nearby hotel we had a rent car delivered the next morning. I headed off to get the guitar.
When I opened the case I nearly vomited. The guitar was crushed horribly. This was the guitar a wealthy friend willed me last year before his death. He had gone to Japan in 1982 and commissioned Kazuo Yairi to build it. I had it in the most expensive Gator bag ($150) that had two inches of padding all the way around the guitar. A beautiful heavily abalone inlaid guitar is destroyed that had a 36 year matured sound to die for.
The liable driver's insurance thinks 36 years means depreciation and that it's worthless. I have a high powered Houston attorney handling our personal injury cases as I had been dealing already with three back fractures and a dislocated disc in my neck. The accident horribly aggravated that. I'm virtually guaranteed a generous payday in the future for this, the car is easily replaced but the guitar is irreplaceable. I guess before long I'll be able to shop for another O with a decent purchasing budget. I know how lucky we were. A family of four was killed the day before in the same location. By the way, new Ford Explorers hold up well in a high speed collision. Gator bags not so much. |
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Location: When?? | Geeze, Dave, do you have a target on your back or something? Always getting banged up and broken necked. Seems that attorney could retire on you alone. And why, oh, why would you transport such a special guitar in a soft bag? Glad you didn't barf at the firehouse, and I hope you guys made it to the funeral. Good it wasn't yours. Try a GMC next time.. or a Hummer. Oh, and hard shell case. Meanwhile, waiting to read/hear your song version of the event.
Edited by Love O Fair 2018-06-21 6:37 PM
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Posts: 1555
Location: Indiana | Gig bags are just that... gig bags. Though I'm not belittling your incident.
Sorry for your loss(es).
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Posts: 10777
Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | 
If it wasn't for bad luck...
If it wasn't for real Bad Luck...
DaveKell wouldn't have no luck at all.
(I mean all that in the nicest way possible.  )
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Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | Urban legend has it that Jim Croce’s Legend survived the plane crash in its ohsc.
Glad you survived. It’s good you weren’t driving a Pinto. Sorry about the guitar. |
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Posts: 887
Location: Always beautiful canyon country of Utah | It couldn't happen to a more damaged guy!! Some folks have all the bad luck! |
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January 2006
Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | If the guitar was that trashed in a Gator bag with two inches of padding, I’m thinking an OHC wouldn’t have done much better. They’re made for normal handling abuse, not automotive crashes that cause your car to explode. |
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Location: NJ | ouch |
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Location: Fort Worth, TX | ProfessorBB - 2018-06-22 7:18 AM
If the guitar was that trashed in a Gator bag with two inches of padding, I’m thinking an OHC wouldn’t have done much better. They’re made for normal handling abuse, not automotive crashes that cause your car to explode.
Several comments similar to this were made on another forum. One guy even went into a physics explanation of velocity of a human body being thrown against a wall at 50mph. He asked how much less damage would you incur if you were in a padded cardboard box?
It's my own damn fault. I intended to add this guitar as a rider to my homeowner policy but forgot. I intended to insure it for $5,000. After my friend passed away who willed this guitar to me since it was his favorite, I sold the remainder of his awesome guitar collection for his fortunate brother who inherited his vast estate. I talked his brother into letting a local friend of mine buy a $6,000 custom factory order Taylor for two grand. This Taylor had a sound on a par with the 36 year old Yairi. This buddy who has the Taylor offered to sell it to me for what he paid for it. Very kind gesture I'm going to take him up on as well as sending the pieces of the Yairi to the former Martin repair shop employee to restore.
If there is a best part to the aggravated injuries I sustained to my already broken back and neck that needed a vertebrae fusion it's that the incredibly successful personal injury attorney in Houston guaranteed me a sizable payday in the near future. I'll finally be able to add the best Elite to my wall I can find. My life has never been complete without at least one O in my possession. I'd still have the last Elite were it not for the crack in the top my ocd wouldn't let me live with. |
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Posts: 4535
Location: Flahdaw | Were you Genghis Khan or some other evil creature in a previous life? I think, if there is a supreme being, that she really seems to hate you for some reason or another... |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | A similar occurrence happened here on Father's Day when a semi failed to stop for traffic backed up on a freeway construction site. 4 people died and at least one vehicle was a large SUV that caught fire. The size of the vehicle doesn't matter that much. SUVs can explode in flames from a ruptured gas tank, just like the Pintos did. Jeep CJ5s were prone to do that. Rigidity also doesn't prevent the damage. Having a crush space helps some. Unfortunately, your guitar was in that crush space. Compared to many you were lucky, Dave. You just had the bad luck to place you in harm's way. Distracted driving is a real problem. Statistically worse than drunk driving now. |
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Location: Cicero, NY | <rant>
Very few things bother me these days as much as seeing someone texting on the road. And it's adults as much as the kids. Way too many accidents, and too many fatal ones, to not take it seriously. But the car makers just make it easier by building in not only phone capabilities but Bluetooth text readers with "hands-free" response and music capability. They build in more and more distractions, then tell everyone that they cause accidents so don't use them.
Personally, I think they should mandate a "phone disabler" in every car. You need to use the phone? Fine. Pull over and shut the car off.
</rant> |
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Posts: 8307
Location: Tennessee | Weaser P - 2018-06-22 10:39 AM But the car makers just make it easier by building in not only phone capabilities but Bluetooth text readers with "hands-free" response and music capability. They build in more and more distractions, then tell everyone that they cause accidents so don't use them. And then they build in lane departure warning systems and automatic braking systems to make it ”safer” to text and drive at the same time. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | There were studies done years ago that showed hands free phone driving was not significantly safer than handheld phones. Talking on the phone is about the equivalent as drunk driving. But one study was shelved because one of the big 3 was coming out with hands free and didn't want to lose sales. All the touch screen systems are about as bad. Our Honda is very distracting. I backed into someone's car even though it had a back up camera. Too many things to look at, including a warning not to drive while looking at the screen. It's definitely not there to keep me safe. |
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Location: Flahdaw | I'm reading this thread on my cellphone while driving thru a school zone. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | Darkbar - 2018-06-22 6:12 PM
I'm reading this thread on my cellphone while driving thru a school zone.
You're just additional proof that Darwin was wrong. |
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Posts: 848
Location: Canada | Yeah the real distracted drivers are the ones juggling their coffee breakfast and happy meal that they just picked up at the drive thru. But hey with the fast food lobby in charge the real issues will never hit the headlines. |
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Location: Cicero, NY | Darkbar - 2018-06-22 7:12 PM
I'm reading this thread on my cellphone while driving thru a school zone.
Thank God you were responsible enough to put your makeup on before you left the house. |
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Location: When?? | Breaker-breaker good buddy. How dangerous were CB radios back in the day when so many people (millions) used them in their vehicles? I'm sure there must be stats somewhere, but I don't recall any type of world crisis or call to order about it like there is with cell phone calls today, hands-free or otherwise. And of course, the conversation matter was typically different for the most part with CBs than with placing/receiving a private phone call to anywhere or anyone you want, but still a significant distraction none the less. Texting and driving, on the other hand, strikes me as 100% crazy. |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I’m with you on on your rant, Weaser. |
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Never Trust a Gigbag!
