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Anyone ever had a bad car crash with a load of gear in the back ?


far0n
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No, but a guitarist turned up to a gig with the back of the car bashed in after being driven into on the way to the gig.

We couldn't open the boot but managed to get his gear out by taking the back seat out. All the gear was ok.

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It would seem worth paying attention to how you secure your load.

On a related topic, I drive a Focus estate, and I usually put the heaviest things where the back seat folds down, so that there isn't a big weight hanging rearwards of the back axle. IMO it helps the wagon negotiate bends a little better.

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I used to own an old Astra van and load it all up with my bass gear, which at the time included an 8x10 cab.

I had a bass in a flight case laying on top of the cab lengthwise and braked heavily - which led to a flight case/back of the head interface situation.

Not recommended. :(

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Not personally, but I once followed someone through a village who drove into the back of a parked car whilst fiddling with the stereo. The boot of the parked car was loaded with a drum kit waiting to go to a gig...

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I've been rudely awoken from a post-gig car nap by a pedal board coming off the parcel shelf and wrapping itself around the back of my head - stupid guitarist was racing the other band's van back home and went over a traffic island on a roundabout. My head was ok but his car was shagged, and when we all jumped in the other bands van for a ride home it wouldn't start either.

That was the same night that a chancer ran out the venue fire exit with my Stingray and we chased him through the streets of Warrington. Found it dumped in a bush.

Good gig.

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I used to work in a Roland service centre and one day we had a bloke come in who had had an accident on the motorway. He'd clipped the central barrier and flipped his car over, several times, it finally stopped rolling and landed upright on the hard shoulder. He was absolutely fine. However, he'd managed to spread several grands worth of keyboards and amps across the motorway and a nearby field.
I was given his Trace Elliot combo and his Roland W-30 to repair, but, rather surprisingly, they were fine, a bit scuffed up on the outside, but they worked perfectly. The stuff the boss had taken to repair hadn't faired quite so well, but I can't remember what they were.

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Some dunce drove into the back of my car as we were going down the M11. He must have been travelling 100 + as my boot was fully caved in.

Told the singer at a rehearsal later that week that another car had demolished the boot of my car. First thing he said was;

"Did you have your bass in the boot ? "

"No".

"Thank God for that !"

Pause.

"How are you ? "

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I have driven Mercs ever since I had my first and was driving to a gig when I was hit up the back by a Ford Escort. I could see in the mirror the Escort was a write off and I feared the worst for my gear (it was a saloon and I only had some of my gear in the boot).

Got to the back of the car and there was the tiniest crimp in the paintwork on the rear bumper and that was it.

By the way, older Mercs cost very little but still drive as if they were brand new!!

Car related(ish) I did some gigs with an excellent drummer who drummed for a well known heavy rock band. He was sacked and his gear was returned by having the truck drive down the road outside his house with the road crew pushing his cases out of the back as it went past his house.

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Two non musical events. At uni, a friend had crash, hit in back of head by AA book of road from rear parcel shelf. Not good. Many years later I had crash. Spare starter motor in back of VW estate, by seat bases, so well out of way (not). It went out of back side window, ended up well away from car. To this day I thank whoever, no one else hit by it or me. Surprise, surprise I always lash kit down these days.

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As to impact, I think I know a little, but still not enough.

A friend of mine had undone his belt and slept lying in the backseats when the car crashed doing roughly 50 mph. My friend was in a coma for half a year or so, and has sustained damages for life - unable to work or move freely, and unable to attract females.

Myself, I had some plank in the car once. Had to brake to avoid a front to front collision. The plank stopped inside the other car, luckily avoiding both me and the other driver on its path.

Carefully strapping any gear or using real solid prison bar systems sounds like a great idea to me.

best,
bert

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We crashed in the snow earlier this year just skidded off the road and into a stone wall. The three people in the car were fine, my Eminence EUB in the front seat suffered a minor shift of the bridge, the car was a write off. Crumple zones are wonderful things.

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I remember being told about an accident where some kids were travelling in the back of a van with their bicycles when it had a crash and rolled. The bikes basically turned the back of the van into a huge human blender. Very nasty.

For years, while we had a Mitsubishi L300 with no back seats or rear windows, I travelled in the back on huge bean bags. It was really comfortable and I'd often nod off. Sometimes my mate would come with us and we'd sit with a hookah pipe between us. It was great, but we were very, very lucky we never had an accident.

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Not music related, but I once had a pretty big accident on the M5 on my way back to Bristol in my work van. I had a big snap-on cab in the back , which I'd only got around to bolting down a couple of days before, and boxes of machine parts etc. I always used to moan about the wooden bulkhead preventing me fitting long stuff inside and having to put it on the roof. Safe to say when I looked at the carnage in the back of the van I thought "well, I'll never moan about that again"! I dread to think what would have happened had it not been there. Once the wreckage had been moved to the hard shoulder and I'd spoken to police etc, I sat on the bank looking at what was left of my van and thought I better ring my boss, this is exactly how the conversation went:
Me: "Ken, I've had an accident on the motorway"
Him: "what's happened?"
Me: "I've gone under the back of an artic"
Him: "how bad is the van?"
Me: "I'm fine, thanks for asking!!"
Him: "That's not what I asked, how bad is the van?"
Me: "it's completely totalled,I was lucky to get out of it in one piece"
Him: "sh*t, let me know what time you'll be home and I'll get a hire van dropped off so you can still go to Wrexham in the morning"
Me:"F**k off"
End call! What a nice boss to work for!

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Not quite a crash but...

Returning from rehearsals one night with a band I in (not on bass) we loaded everything into the back of the bass players people carrier and set off down the road.

All of a sudden there was an almighty crash and the sound of beeping horns. Basically, he'd forgotten to close the back doors properly and everything spilled out onto the road including his very heavy Gallien Kruger combo. We were incredibly lucky that no-one was hurt and no vehicles were damaged.

Amazingly the only damage caused to equipment was to my CDJ which was easily fixed.

Another lesson learned.

:unsure:

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[quote name='KingBollock' timestamp='1342533968' post='1736705']
I remember being told about an accident where some kids were travelling in the back of a van with their bicycles when it had a crash and rolled. The bikes basically turned the back of the van into a huge human blender. Very nasty.

For years, while we had a Mitsubishi L300 with no back seats or rear windows, I travelled in the back on huge bean bags. It was really comfortable and I'd often nod off. Sometimes my mate would come with us and we'd sit with a hookah pipe between us. It was great, but we were very, very lucky we never had an accident.
[/quote]

yes if you'd had a prang and the police attended you'd have been in far worse trouble for having that hookah pipe than anything the prang could have done to you.

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[quote name='musophilr' timestamp='1342540307' post='1736836']
yes if you'd had a prang and the police attended you'd have been in far worse trouble for having that hookah pipe than anything the prang could have done to you.
[/quote]
How we never got caught I'll never know. We travelled all around the country like that.

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