The bad news is that my car was rear-ended and totaled; the good news is that we got to go shoppin’.  I’m really not much of a shopper, but it was pretty fun to try out some new wheels.

Safety

My starting point for selecting a new car is its safety rating.  Both the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) publish safety ratings for dozens of car models.  I have a slight preference for the government organization since they would seem to be more objective, but the IIHS publishes a convenient list of their favorites.  I don’t know if the car manufacturers can get on the list by flashing a little cash, but the IIHS choices seem to agree well with the government’s list.

The two organizations seem to have slightly different testing methods:  the IIHS bashes weights into the car, while the NHTSA drives the car into barriers.  Instrumented dummies inside the vehicle measure the actual impact of the crash.  The government wins for thoroughness. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: collision insurance, new car, Subaru, used car, Volkswagen

This week my car was rear-ended while driving home from work.  True story.  Here’s what happened and the aftermath — financial and otherwise.

Crash!

After work I was driving home on RT-128 in Gloucester, MA.  There are two traffic circles.  I got through the first one and was waiting in line at the second, when I heard the squeal of brakes and almost immediately felt the impact from behind.

My car was pushed forward and into the vehicle in front of me.  The front impact triggered the airbags in my car to inflate.  The nose of my car became lodged under the bumper of the front car, dragging my car off to the side of the road as the front vehicle pulled out of traffic.

When my car came to a stop, I opened the door and just sat there, adenaline rushing — not in a good way — trying to get my bearings.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: car crash, collision insurance, comprehensive insurance