What have you hit while driving your Miata?

[BlitzWing]

every f**king speed bump in my town. I don't know why it is this way. My car is not super low but the local government insist on putting them all over the place and then don't maintain them so when the tarmac on each side breaks down they slowly get about 2cm taller over the winter and the gov are just too cheap to fix it until the following summer. I have no clue how the local dubbers deal with it.. I guess a lot of spare sumps in the VW scene

I did hit what I think was a plank of wood on the highway. I'm guessing it fell off the back of a truck heading for the dump. scare the crap out of me.

[Ihatecars]

~NOT MY ACCIDENT~

A guy I know was speeding through a neighborhood during a thunderstorm one night. He tried taking a corner way too fast and under steered right into a rain gutter. He luckily only bend his control arm, and screwed up a his wheels really bad.

[rebeljohn]

I've been in my Miata for a month now, and I think I've hit every bug in the state of NC. I work 3rd shift, so I travel mostly in the late evening. Hoping the deer hate red vehicles...........

[Ezalis]

Other way around. 16 year old girl does some texting and driving and plows into me at 50+ while I'm stopped waiting to turn left into my driveway. Still having to deal with Allstate to get the proper value of my car.

[KAL]

One of those exact sticks. Luckily, I ended back on the road after that. Small chip in the front.

[Big Red]

Hit a Kangaroo @ 60mph

I had no way of avoiding the kangaroo :/ so I decided to make a split second decision.
1.- If I went left I would have put myself in the marbles on the left shoulder & most likely putting myself off into the trees.

2.- Hit him straight on & have the chance of the kangaroo hitting the front of the car taking out my cooling system & the off chance of going straight through the middle of the windshield & who knows what else could happen?

3.- Maneuver to the right lane (oncoming) & try to beat him or minimize the damage to the front of the car. (Being 6am & being early there was no traffic around.)

It all happened pretty quickly. The kangaroo was moving at full flight out of the bushes from my left.... No time to brake basically & would have locked the front wheels most likely anyways.... So I took option 3. I wasn't lucky enough to get around the front of the roo. this experience of me seeing the kangaroo's head bounce off the windscreen was a very sobering moment. The noise of the impact & the dust and small pieces of glass floating around the cabin in nearly like a slow motion state. after the roo hit the screen & "a" pillar it took out my mirror clawed my side window & rippled my passenger door. Also left some fur jammed in my door handle & mirror stalk. And buffed some paint off the damage guard. :/


So the Damage :'(

-Bonnet
-Left front guard
-Front window
-Passenger door + Glass
-Passenger door mirror

About a 3 days after the impact I my wonderful girlfriend tracked down a decent panel shop to do the work. The owner came over on that Saturday to my house to asses the damage & quote the job. I'm usually a DIY guy & that's the whole spirit of things here I took the option of the panel beaters because they could produce a far better finish than what I could ever dream of.

[WASABI]

^^Gareth you win so far!

[ScratchNSniff]

This was back 5 or so years ago driving up in the mountains...the relay for the fog lights decided to fall out of the dash where it had been for close to a year if not longer...got stuck perfectly behind the brake pedal coming downhill into a turn...bounced into one guardrail with no brakes and then right back into another before I got it out...needless to say I didn't have that relay in there after that...destroyed the front end and 3 of the 4 wheels/tires...

Right before the crash...



Right after once home and pulled my rack to paint...



And day I picked it from being fixed and my Honda Express...

[DK Wolf]

There's a thread somewhere where I hit on a girl on the freeway and got her number in the Miata and intimacies took place at the local coffee bean and tea leaf.


That has to count.

[The Driver]

Hit a Kangaroo @ 60mph

I had no way of avoiding the kangaroo :/ so I decided to make a split second decision.
1.- If I went left I would have put myself in the marbles on the left shoulder & most likely putting myself off into the trees.

2.- Hit him straight on & have the chance of the kangaroo hitting the front of the car taking out my cooling system & the off chance of going straight through the middle of the windshield & who knows what else could happen?

3.- Maneuver to the right lane (oncoming) & try to beat him or minimize the damage to the front of the car. (Being 6am & being early there was no traffic around.)

It all happened pretty quickly. The kangaroo was moving at full flight out of the bushes from my left.... No time to brake basically & would have locked the front wheels most likely anyways.... So I took option 3. I wasn't lucky enough to get around the front of the roo. this experience of me seeing the kangaroo's head bounce off the windscreen was a very sobering moment. The noise of the impact & the dust and small pieces of glass floating around the cabin in nearly like a slow motion state. after the roo hit the screen & "a" pillar it took out my mirror clawed my side window & rippled my passenger door. Also left some fur jammed in my door handle & mirror stalk. And buffed some paint off the damage guard. :/


So the Damage :'(

-Bonnet
-Left front guard
-Front window
-Passenger door + Glass
-Passenger door mirror

About a 3 days after the impact I my wonderful girlfriend tracked down a decent panel shop to do the work. The owner came over on that Saturday to my house to asses the damage & quote the job. I'm usually a DIY guy & that's the whole spirit of things here I took the option of the panel beaters because they could produce a far better finish than what I could ever dream of.

Geez, Crocodile Dundee had to show up, and take the wreath! :jelly:

There's a thread somewhere where I hit on a girl on the freeway and got her number in the Miata and intimacies took place at the local coffee bean and tea leaf.


That has to count.

No, not really... Unless she somehow cracked your windshield, then all bets are off...

[Big Red]

^^Gareth you win so far!

Geez, Crocodile Dundee had to show up, and take the wreath! :jelly:

Not something I really want to be winning at ;)

been a bit bummed lately.... been 5 months since the accident & I still have not got the car back on the road. Its still sitting in the panel shop awaiting paint.
bare metal respray because I was over the 50 shades of red & the clear coat was peeling in various places on the car... So its getting a new coat of red

SO KEEN TO GET HER BACK!!!!!!

[The Driver]

^ Been that red (among other colors) did not have clear coats, I'd say your Miata had been previously painted, and good thing you are doing it right!

[★ revlimiter ★]

I was driving Sharka to the track one morning for an autocross. It was cool and lovely. I had the top off and race tires on. Zooming along about 80 on the backroad to the dump, jail, and track (yes, really). Not a care in the world.

I notice a flock of birds in the sky they kinda fly low and past the windshield by maybe 50 feet.

They swoop around and past again.

Then one bird decides to land on the ground. Literally not 1 second before my driver's front was going to occupy that space. I felt a very small thump.

I still feel sorry for that bird.

[DK Wolf]

Alright, I guess I'll share my actual stories.



Driving through Carbon Canyon in SoCal (seriously.. that NFS game? Carbon Canyon? rumored to have been designed around that specific canyon). I'm with a girl I was seeing at the time, blasting away going balls out at what seems like the top speed of a 1.6 at 70mph.. and a freaking dumb ass bird just flies straight at the window aiming at Diana.. she's screaming, I'm laughing yelling out "HAHA IT'S ALL SMASHED AND STUFF" and it left multicolored liquids on my windshield... I think it dedicated itself upon impact.


And this story was getting actually hit.

Rear ended driving out to VA from CA in NC. I was 2hrs from my destination, it's like 6am and an SUV just plows right into my rear, sending me off the side of the road into the guardrail, they never stopped and kept going. My rear suffered significant damage, was deemed a total loss... I rebuilt it myself. Check my build-thread to see.


Then I've hit a fair amount of monkeys in Algeria in my R4. You can't stop or slow down because they will throw feces at you or climb onboard and try to crack the windows open to get that sweet smelling food.

[Big Red]

^ Been that red (among other colors) did not have clear coats, I'd say your Miata had been previously painted, and good thing you are doing it right!

There was a bit of damage around the front indicator holes around the rad support & a little bit of damage on the rear bar.... I'm assuming its damage from the previous owners (my car was not in the greatest condition & looked very unloved when I got her.)

So yes I'm trying to do the job right rather than doing a band-aid coverup.