I believe this is the second post reporting an Empeg in an auto accident.

I was stopped at a red light on a clear day (today) in my VW Jetta when WHAM! I was rear ended by a 1 ton pickup truck.

I live in Massachusetts where ANY rear end accident is automatically 100% the guy from behind's fault.

The empeg popped out of the sled and ended up on the floor, it was playing at the time. After everyone was checked out and was OK I popped the empeg back in and it lit right back up.

Good job guys @ Empeg! Those shock mounts get an A+++ rating from me!

Now I have to find a new car for my empeg.

What's the backorder on those sleds? ;) Just in case I can't get it out in one piece.

John

In reply to:

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I was stopped at a red light on a clear day (today) in my VW Jetta when WHAM! I was rear ended by a 1 ton pickup truck.

The empeg popped out of the sled and ended up on the floor, it was playing at the time. After everyone was checked out and was OK I popped the empeg back in and it lit right back up.

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So in Tony's world, the accident would have caused the empeg to be pushed into the dash a bit :-P

Glad to hear you and the empeg survived ok though.

Interesting though, that the person who rear-ends someone else is always at fault. Here in Colorado, thats not the case. (And for a good reason too). Last January I was riding with a friend back from Denver in a nasty snow storm. It was a warmer day, so all the initial snow hit the ground and melted quickly. This over time turned into slush, then frozen ice. The ice would be in the form of the tire tracks left on the slush, thus creating tracks in the road. Anyhow, the guy in front of us started to slam on his breaks to avoid a crash in front of him that was happening. My friend did the same, but it quickly turned into a skid. All attempts to exit the lane into the other one or the median failed, and we rammed the guy going about 20mph. (Traffic was going at 30mph). This gave us the force we needed to excape the tracks into the median, while pushing the guy we hit into the right lane and about a block further. We were probably at least twice the normal distance from the guy and still couldn't avoid it. And no fault was assigned in the incident.

Do you have any (pre-crash) pics of the empeg installed in your Jetta? (or does anyone else?)

I am considering a Jetta for my next car and wanted to see what it looked like installed...

...and maybe some after-crash pix, too ... sorry for that kind of humor... but something similar happened to me some years ago... but it was not at a red stoplight but on the highway at a speed of 62mph/100 kmh... i was hit with the opponent's speed of 100 mph/160 kmh - my car was a bit shorter afterwards...

And I had some other crashes, too - I've got photos from each damaged car...

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143

Ehr,

the law says the same here in Belgium and in Holland (I think) you are required to maintain enough distance from the car in front of you so you can stop in time whatever the reason be. And I too think it is a correct approach ... You should see how dangerously close some people here in Holland drive (it's bad in Belgium too in some places though imho Holland is a little worse even.) ... Then again, I can see why too, people here shift lanes often without even checking their rear view mirror for oncomming traffic ...

But we digress.

Cheers,
Hans



Mk2 - Blue - 080000431

I do have pictures but unfortunately I don't have time to get them posted.
There is a picture of a Golf install in the installation section.

The Empeg fits perfectly. The sled is a tight squeeze and as pointed out in the FAQ section the ignition sense and the battery power wires are reversed.

I have a whole write up in the installation section, you can search my posts to find it.

As for the 100% at fault thing from being hit in the rear. I feel that in 97.5% of the cases it's a good thing. I had a friend rear end someone at a merge when the person in front started to pull away, but then slammed their breaks on. My friend looking back on to the main road to see when he was clear. Ran into her as he expected she was gone.

I did attach a picture of the damage.

a week before I got my empeg, my 94 nissan altima was rear-ended in exactly the same fassion. (cept this guy had huge, hevy vending equipment in his truck) luckly I replaced my nissan with a nice new jetta.. good question, how well did the vehicle fair in the crash? here's pic's of my car after it got nuked.. http://nerp.net/~ben/pix/car

12gig red mk2 -- 080000125

I also have pictures of my jetta+empeg.. somewhere.. i'll have to take some more. I don't own a digital camera, or any camera right now.. *sigh* go through the install notes section.. the jetta is a fairly clean install, no major modifications necessary. besides.. it's an awsome car :)

12gig red mk2 -- 080000125

My Jetta did exactly as it was supposed to. The frame took the brunt of the force.

Unfortunately it is probably totaled.
Sadly it drives just fine, but the way the insurance does the calculations they will probably declare it a total loss.

yea.. same here.. the altima drove it's self home.. had to do some minor plastic bending on the caddy that the truck pushed me into.. then again.. the truck just broke it's headlights, and grill plastic.. oh well..

12gig red mk2 -- 080000125

I think the law here defines safe following distances. Basicially though in this weather, not much was to be done. We probably slid for a good 10 seconds before impact, so the good thing is that we were all braced and ready for it.

I could just see the mess of trying to assign blame on all the accidents on I-70 around the begining of the winter. "Lets see, you rear ended this guy here, then got rear ended by this guy, who then got rear ended by this guy..."

I do see the reason for the laws, but in some cases, no fault laws are good.

Yeah - but if the insurance says it's fully damadged then you'll get the full time-value of your car paid. If it wasn't a full damage than you would have to repair the car and the insurance pays only for the repair - and I'm not too sure it that's the same thing.. drive arround with a crashed and then repaired car or get a totally new car...

TeeMcBee
Got my Mk2! # 080000143