In Sept 08 on the way back from an excellent Ring trip I was involved in an accident on the link motorway to the Brussels Ringroad. I was in the Audi A8 towing the car trailer with the BMW E30 M3 on it.
It was wet, grey and greasy and I was not going very fast (about 45mph) in the inside lane. I caught an odd movement to my left and looked up to see a young lad in a large E class Merc sliding sideways beside me. It was immediately obvious he was a passenger and had lost control :-(
He hit me on the nearside corner smashing the indicator and bounced away. I hit the brakes hard and the trailer fishtailed smacking the armco which is very close to the road at this point.
He came back and hit me in the middle of the bumper and bounced away - I was still braking hard, very hard. I almost managed to keep the whole rig in my lane, but bringing over 3300 kilos to a halt quickly is a challenge!!!!
He then hit the armco and came to a complete halt - there was nothing I could do but plough into him T-boning his car's doors.
We got out to inspect the damage and it was not a pretty site, I cleared the debris from the road and we called the police. In Belgium they have to attend every accident and take statements. I put up the warning triangle and the
traffic flowed around us.I was not a happy "ted" as I could foresee months of aggravation sorting this one out :-(
He spoke very little English and my Flemish and Arabic is none existent.............
The headlights of the Audi had been pushed into the cavities behind and the bumper was
severely broken in places. Here is my masterful repairs with gaffer tape............they still worked but just didn't quite point in the right directions.
The indicators also still worked but were now silver instead of orange.Miraculously the mechanicals had not been damaged - so there were no oil or water leaks and the air con still worked.
His car had a fair bit of damage to the doors, bonnet front off side wheel and front lights as can be seen in the photos below.
He called his "Uncle" a friend of the family who asked me if I had seen the car the car which
Clipped him?I said I had been too busy trying to avoid the Mercedes and to control my car and trailer.
There was no damage to the rear end of the Merc and if you
look at the wheel in this picture it has a different alloy and different profile tyre to the other three - 35 profile as opposed to 55 profile! I believe this was the cause of his skid!!!!The police arrived and took statements and said that the liability rested with him and his insurers. He could not give any details of the "phantom" car.
The trailer had lost one whole light cluster at the back as it had been mashed against the armco
and the number plate was broken.
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