Road Rage Gone Wrong

It's Never A Good Thing

If you've ever had road rage, it is a clear indication that you are one of the two: a human or a driver. If you're lucky, you are both. I can say that I've had my fair share of road rage incidents, but I will use one particular one as an example as to why you should avoid acting on it.

What Happened?

It was an intersection with a four way stop. There was a car across from me and he was turning right. I was turning left. It was my turn to turn, but the car across from me decided to turn anyway. I sped into the turn, as it was my turn and it aggravated me that the other car was attempting to go.

 

 Given that the car is rear wheel drive and this happened in January, my speedy turn resulted in the loss of control. Something like this, on a much smaller scale. It's really great, the way it works: tires need friction to grip the road. So when you lose that friction through acceleration, your car loses its grip (who would have guessed?). The loss of grip resulted in a swerving motion known as fishtailing. The fish motion then sent my car straight to the curb. The front passenger side wheel took the impact at around 20 miles per hour. 

The Result:

 The result was far from pleasant. The impact was so harsh that the wheel's axle (the visual is a toy, but you get the point. It's the a part of the car that connects to the wheel) bent. The bending of the axle shoved the rim straight into the passenger side car body, resulting in a damaged fender and rocker panel.

This is an actual picture of the car after the impact

Given that the car's wheel was literally shoved into the car's body, the car was undrivable after the incident. 

It Gets Better And Better

 I knew a good amount about cars prior to the incident, but the experience taught me how expensive repair work can be. Let's analyze this and list prices, since we all love burning money. 

-The lower control arm was $120.

-The installation of the lower control arm was $80 (with an employee discount).

-The alignment needed after the work was $50 (again, WITH an employee discount).

-The fender is $300, given that it is a good quality fender.

-The rocker panel is listed at $195.

-The actual paint job isn't cheap either. One of the estimates I received was listed at $500-600.

Solution:

To this day, I am still working on the full recovery of the car. The axle is back in place and it drives perfectly, but the fender and the rocker panel have not been painted. It's crazy to think that this could have all been avoided in a matter of seconds.

Lesson:

One thing to take away from all of this is, be logical. When you are driving, there are lives at risk. You are more likely to do something stupid (like I did) if you are not using common sense. If something happens on the road, shrug it off and forget about it. Chances are, you'll never see that person again anyway. Don't let a few seconds of frustration put you in need of $1,000+ worth of damage.

After all, this looks better than

this.