On Sunday I was driving on the freeway when the car in front of me decided to suddenly swerve, so sudden that I could not swerve myself. Well, when that car swerved to avoid hitting a commercial mop in the middle of the highway they still hit the mop handle enough for it to be thrown into the air spinning at a high rate of speed toward my car. With a split second my car was hit by this projectile, I saw something shinny and wood pieces flying over my car after the impact. After about 2 miles I exited the highway to inspect the damage, not too bad (I thought). About 20" of wooden mop handle lodged its way between the hood and the bumper causing the hood to un-align itself with the bumber, a dent the size of a softball on the front of the hood (along with scratches), a missing emblem, and scratches to the grille. The good thing is that there was no damage to the radiator and the mop handle did not crash through the windshield. You can see pics at:

http://groups.msn.com/Bretts2K2MaximaSE/shoebox.msnw

The pics dont look to bad at this angle, but the estimate is at about $750 to align hood and bumber, paint, and new grille.

And last night the springs to my garage door broke!

 

Sorry to hear about your bad luck. Thinking about the possible alternative scenarios, you were very lucky.

 

The damage doesn't look too bad. It certainly could have been worse. I hate it when that tightly wound door spring breaks.

 

****...where were you driving? i live in SA too...dont want nothing like that to happen to me! lol

 

IH 35 North towards Austin.