May the HR-V rest in peace…
13 minute read
October 20, 2022, 8:32 AM
In the early morning on October 9, I was involved in a car accident on the way home from work. At the intersection of Montgomery Village Avenue and Christopher Avenue/Lost Knife Road in Gaithersburg, the driver of a red Nissan Pathfinder on Christopher Avenue ran a red light at what appeared to be full speed as I was going through the intersection, and despite my slamming on the brakes, there just wasn’t enough space to stop in order to avoid a collision. As a result, my car got T-boned on the left side on the front fender and the driver’s door, with enough force to deploy the side curtain airbags and knock my car about 150 feet before it came to rest next to a curb.
After the impact, I remember that I was sitting in the car and noticed that the airbags had gone off, and also noticed that the windshield was shatered at the bottom left. Then I remember hearing a male voice telling me that I needed to get out of the car. I quickly realized that would probably be a good idea, because considering that the car had just gone through a pretty hard collision, for all I knew, it might be on fire. I tried to open my door, but I couldn’t get it open, so I ended up climbing out through the passenger side door. I was quite shaken, I was bleeding above my left eye, my left knee felt sore like it had been scraped, and I wasn’t wearing my glasses anymore for some reason, but nonetheless, I had managed to walk away from it. Then I saw the person who had been telling me that I needed to get out of the car. It was a gentleman wearing black eye makeup (kind of like what the band Kiss does) from an event that he had been at earlier who was also an EMT, and who had witnessed the entire thing. He also quickly told me that the accident was absolutely not my fault, which I appreciated hearing. There was also a woman present who had witnessed the accident, who also agreed that I was not at fault. One of them must have also called 911, because I certainly didn’t, but the police and EMS were there pretty quickly.
When EMS arrived, they quickly took care of me, wrapping some gauze around my head for the bleeding, and taking my blood pressure. Yes, they took my blood pressure. I’m standing on the side of the road next to my now-wrecked car, visibly shaking from the accident, and then the guy tells me that my blood pressure is “kind of high”, coming in at 172/116. I did not need to be told that. I’m usually pretty nice, but I just shot back, in a pretty sarcastic tone, “Gee, I wonder why.” He removed the blood pressure cuff from my arm and went away. Yeah, I just survived a pretty major car accident, got hit by an airbag, had to crawl out the other side of my car, was bleeding from my head, had no glasses, and was shaking. My blood pressure is high? No kidding. I would have been more surprised if it was 120/80 right then rather than some astronomical amount. I refused transport, feeling that it was unnecessary. Then the cops got my information, and took my statement. I also let Elyse know what had happened, and she quickly got an Uber to take her to the scene.
Meanwhile, I got mixed reports about the other driver, and so I don’t quite know what happened to them. I never saw them, and I was more concerned about my own affairs than about seeing the idiot that hit me. One report that I’d gotten was that the other driver was injured, and another report that I’d gotten was that the other driver had tried to make a run for it, heading towards the library on foot. All I knew was that their car looked to be in worse shape than mine was, and the engine compartment of their car soon caught fire, though that was quickly put out with a fire extinguisher. I doubt that I’ll find out what ultimately happened with the other driver, unless I have to be a witness for whatever they might charge the other driver with for this accident.
Here’s what I looked like after the accident:
On the left, this is the selfie I took to show Elyse what happened. On the right is a selfie after they wrapped me up.
And then here’s the HR-V:
The damage to my car.
The interior of my car, showing the shattered windshield and the deployed airbags.
On this photo of the interior, by the way, it amused me when I looked at it later and noticed the USB cable wrapped neatly around the gear selector lever. That is what I always did with my charging cable when I wasn’t using it. I don’t remember doing this at the time, but I apparently placed the cable in its usual place before getting out of the car, completely out of habit, I imagine.
The final mileage number. Throughout the HR-V’s life, it did 107,990 miles, which is still quite young for a Honda.
The car that hit me was a red 2005 Nissan Pathfinder.
The HR-V, getting loaded onto the tow truck.
Note the missing license plates in those last photos. I made sure to remove both of those at the scene and take those with me, especially since they were undamaged. I have organizational plates, and it’s a pain to get those replaced. My next car will have the same tags as this one.
That loading onto the tow truck brought back memories of when the Soul was loaded onto the flatbed following its own death by fire in 2018. However, I also knew that this would not be the last time that I would see the HR-V, as I was told that I did not need to remove all of my stuff from it right away, and one of the police officers told me exactly where it was going. After they loaded my car on the flatbed, they hooked up the other car behind it, and off they all went.
So with the accident cleared, Elyse and I were about three and a half miles from the house. While everything was going on, Elyse contacted our friend Montigue, who was one of the operators at the DASH event, and he came over to get us home. In the meantime, we walked over to a nearby 24-hour CVS store in order to stay warm, because it was around 36 degrees outside. The folks at CVS were quite nice, and helped us out by letting me into their bathroom in order to wash my hands and clean the blood off of my head. That made me feel a lot better.
The next day, despite some level of soreness and no glasses, we took the Metro down to National Airport in order to pick up a rental car, since I needed a car right away, and couldn’t wait until Monday, because I had stuff that I had to take care of immediately. We ended up getting a black Jeep Renegade, which was definitely a change from what I’d been used to driving. It was a bigger vehicle than I was used to, and it took some time to get accustomed to driving it, but at least I had wheels again. Here it is:
On Monday, I had things that I had to take care of related to the accident. First, I had to spend a lot of time on the phone with people related to the insurance claim. Everyone had their specific role, and everyone wanted to talk to me individually. Starting out, the first person that I spoke with told me that based on a cursory review of the photos that I sent, the car was probably going to be totaled. I was not surprised about this. Considering the deployed airbags and other damage, I had already assumed that this was goodbye, and not see you later following a trip to the body shop. That photo that I took of the final mileage at the scene is proof of that assumption. I then had a few other calls from the insurance company over the course of the day, with one party’s talking about damage assessments, others discussing medical needs, and so on.
Our first stop of the day was Morton’s, where the car was taken following the accident. I still needed to clean out the car, and there were a few things that were unaccounted for from the accident. I had only managed to recover half of my glasses at the accident, so the left side was still unaccounted for. Additionally, my work radio was missing. That thing is super expensive, and I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of reporting and replacing a lost radio, even if the insurance would probably reimburse my employer for the cost. We also wanted to see the damage to the car in the daylight, in order to get a better idea of what happened and pay our last respects to the HR-V.
First of all, good news: in the daylight, we quickly recovered the missing items. I found my other lens in the floor on the passenger side, and Elyse found my radio wedged under the accelerator. The location of the other half of my glasses wasn’t much of a surprise, because it was located in the direction that the airbags blew, i.e. it made sense where it was, and we just missed it in the dark. The radio, however, was a bit of a head-scratcher. I would typically place the radio on the passenger seat when I was going to and from work, and the final trip was no exception. Plus the center console goes all the way to the front of the car, so it shouldn’t have been able to cross to my side of the car and end up under the accelerator, of all places. Go figure, I suppose, but at least the radio was undamaged (I even did a radio check with the yard tower to verify). We then finished cleaning out the car, removing all of my remaining items out and transferring them to the rental, i.e. I formally “moved into” that rental.
Then I got photos of the HR-V in the daylight:
The HR-V looks pretty normal from this side.
The view of the front left, showing the damaged area.
Detail on the damaged area.
The damage to the windshield.
I found this bit of damage to be somewhat curious. These are little dents on either side of the moon roof – one on each side. I can understand how the one on the left side of the car (top photo) happened, since that’s the side that took the impact, but the one on the right (bottom photo) surprised me, being on the off-side.
The front seats, with the deployed side airbags.
I also got some photos of the HR-V’s assailant:
It’s clear how hard they hit me based on the extent of their damage. Meanwhile, at this point, the insurance company didn’t have much information about the other vehicle at that time, and so they asked me to see what I could find out when I went over to the tow yard. I told Elyse what was going on, and so she helped herself to the contents of the glove box, where we found the vehicle’s registration. Excellent. I got some nice, detailed photographs of that, and sent it along to my insurance company, Progressive. They were then able to use it to find the other vehicle’s insurance policy, which was through Allstate. We both had zero qualms about rummaging through this person’s stuff, because if they didn’t want a relative stranger rummaging through their car, they should have paid more attention to what they were doing behind the wheel.
After that, Elyse popped the hood and took a look around, because she had never really gotten to explore under the hood of the HR-V before:
Then it was time for some final photos with the HR-V:
Group selfie in front of the HR-V.
Selfies while sitting in the passenger seat. I only ever sat in the passenger seat in this visit. I didn’t want to sit in the driver’s seat again, even though that’s where I sat for nearly 108,000 miles of driving with this car.
Then Elyse joined me in the driver’s seat, after she managed to get the door open. If my smile looks forced, it’s because it was. My car was wrecked, and I was still hurting quite a bit from the accident.
Elyse gives the HR-V, which she had named “Timothy” on its first day with us, a hug.
I was definitely feeling down during this visit. I loved that car, which I called “The Herv” (pronouncing “HR-V” like a word), and prior to Sunday, I had expected many more happy years together, perhaps with an electric fleetmate alongside one day. But sadly, it was not to be, as Elyse and I were standing in a tow yard, saying goodbye to the car that we loved. I definitely had “Gertrude, old girl, my heart’s in a whirl, ’cause these goodbyes are hard to come by. We’ll try not to cry as we say goodbye,” vibes as I got my last photos and then bid the HR-V farewell, since I knew that this was truly goodbye, as she was headed off to that big parking lot in the sky. Perhaps she will be parked next to the Soul and the Previa up there.
Looking back, I can’t help but think that the HR-V and I had a different kind of relationship than I did with the Soul, but it was special nonetheless. The Soul was my first brand new car, and I adored her like she was my first love. You may recall that I not only ran a Journal entry about the memories that I made with the Soul, but then I also made a full photo set about the Soul. The HR-V was a different kind of relationship. I admit that it took me quite a while to warm to the HR-V, because I had not yet gotten over the loss of the Soul when I got her, and that affected how I viewed this new car, which was quite different from the Soul. But eventually we bonded, and I soon came to realize how much better of a car the HR-V was than the Soul. It was kind of like a second marriage of sorts. I came to love that car, but it was a more mature kind of relationship, as it wasn’t the same sort of feeling with this car as was the Soul. But we made a good team over 107,990 miles, going to Toronto, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, Morgantown, Roanoke, Goldsboro, New Bern, Cortland, and so many places in between. The HR-V didn’t stay as long as the Previa, the Sable, or even the Soul, but the HR-V and I did more miles together than both the Sable and the Soul.
Meanwhile, I have nothing bad to say about Honda. Their safety engineering worked exactly as designed, and I credit it, along with wearing my seatbelt, for my being able to walk away from the accident. Seriously, I did really well despite everything. My left knee got skinned, I lost my glasses, I got some cuts around my eye from my glasses’ being destroyed, and I was sore all over, but I got out on my own, and after I got new glasses and made a trip to my regular chiropractor to get straightened back out, I was doing pretty well. If it tells you anything, Elyse and I were able to do a planned weeklong trip to Tennessee as intended, albeit in a rental car rather than the HR-V (more on that adventure later on).
As far as where to go from here as far as vehicles went, I immediately started making plans for my next car. I liked the HR-V, and so it seemed like a no-brainer to get another one. The question was then whether to get something similar to my existing car, or get the new 2023 model, which had been redesigned. I ultimately decided to get a new 2023 model, because the price to get a used HR-V was almost the same as getting a new one. So with that in mind, I thought, might as well get something brand new, that nobody else has farted in before. So I put a deposit down on a new HR-V the day after Elyse and I got back from our trip. This is definitely going to be a fancier HR-V than I had before, since I got the EX-L, which is the highest trim level, because that was the only one that still had a moon roof. It also comes with an all-leather interior, Android Auto, and a whole bunch of other features that I’m looking forward to. And it’s going to be red, rather than steel gray. However, considering the way that new cars are going right now, it will probably be a bit of a wait to get one, as the dealership estimated three to four months. In the meantime, I had to figure out an interim vehicle solution. Progressive would only cover the rental car until three days after the HR-V was declared a total loss, and that happened while I was in Tennessee. They were nice enough to cover the rental for the full duration of the trip, and then Enterprise was willing to honor the insurance rate for another week beyond that. So I’ll have the Renegade until the 26th. After that, I will be borrowing Mom’s Scion xB until the HR-V shows up. Funny how things work out sometimes, isn’t it? For as much as I made fun of that car back in 2007, I never thought that I would drive it on a regular basis. But until I get my new HR-V, it’s going to be living with me, and then I’m going to return it to my parents’ house when I’m done.
So there you have it. Another car departed far too soon, but everything is under control.
Categories: Driving, Gaithersburg, Honda HR-V (2018), Montgomery Village, Scion xB