Yesterday on my way to JFK airport from NJ i was stopped at routei95 because of construction.

As i was stopped at construction a driver came out of nowhere with a big van and rammed into me at about 70 miles an hour. My car was pushed so hard i ran into the front 5 cars.

Now after that the driver of the van smells like he was drinking so the cops gave him a few test but passsed.

EITHER WAY my question is my car was totaled from the back like there isnt any back seats.

BUT my airbags didnt come out and i banged my head against the streeling wheel and than into the front glass.. I felt fine at the time of accident but when i got up this mourning my head to toe ached so bad.

Can i have some suggestions what i should do and what would happen to the car and etc.

Sorry for my bad grammar as english isnt my first language.

Any suggestion would be appriciated and currently i am waiting to hire a lawyer for this matters.

Thanks.









EDIT:On police report it states the van was speeding and ramed into me cuasing a 6 car pile up. And also stated he has alcohol on breathe but passed the test.

 

 

Dude that hated and your bound to be sore. Seek medical attention immediately because if you plan and file a law suit they will want to know why you didnt. You should have went straight to the hospital. Make sure you have alot of documentation. Not sure what insurance you have but they should help out alot. Did he receive a ticket? That will help your case. Did the other guy have insurance? If so they should pay all medical.

 

I would call a lawyer.

 

Yes he was summoned for speeding and careless and on police report was stated had alchol in breathe.

Im going to hospital tommorow to get some checkups.

What i most worried bout and mad is about NISSAN airbags not going off.

Doesnt the car look like the airbags sohuld have came out?

Sorry for bad pictures it was taken from phone camera.

I really was wondering if i can get a lawsuit against nissan since i have a big bump on my head and my chin cause the airbags didnt deploy.

 

Definitely photograph/document any bruising, wounds, etc. If you can show you were in pain, they usually will reimburse you pain and suffering valued at about the same amount of damage done to your car. Thats the typical amount done around here at least...if not...mention a lawyer and they will

 

Did you hit anyone in front of you?

 

Yes i hit a acura tl in front of me and which than he hit the car in front of him.

And only reason i didnt go to hospital there was becuase i didnt wanna spend a night at the hospital.

Another thing is how would my car be covered?
What would nissan do about the airbags not deploying?

Would i lose any money out of my own pocket?
I dont think i can work for another few week or so either and i dont have a car right now to go to hospitals.


Sorry for so many questions,im only 22 years old and i need to take care of this myself so wanted to hear some advice before i look for a lawyer.
Also do i pay the lawyer anything before the case is settled?

Thanks

 

First, I would like to thank God that you didnt get seriously hurt. I hope it works out to your favor...

 

Thanks balckspeed. Thats the first thing i said to myself.

THANK GOD IM ALIVE. the whole car was totaled but the driver side was really normal. I really thank god i didnt get hurt.

 

call a lawyer, file a law suit, get paid, buy a new car. like the others said thank god your alright. coulda been worse. GOOD LUCK AND KEEP US POSTED!

 

You should get a lawyer anyway. It's a serious crash, and let the lawyer deal with the airbag issue. The airbags should have deployed, but it also depends on the impact point too.

 

Thanks all. Just talked to a lawyer. And arranged ameeting tommorow.

He wants me to go to the emergency room anytime soon and tell them all complaints or uncomfort.

I jsut wish i can get my car back or any other car without spending my own money.

Also would like some cash to fulfill my non working days for a while.

 

oh snapz... sounds like nissan gonna be responsible for the undeployed airbags... if the impact was so hard that it pushed you forward to hit a few more cars, airbags should deploy.

 

Yea and the fact i banged my chin on steering wheel and head on windshield pisses me off. What if something bad realyl happened.

Last time my friend fliped over his 3000gt and airbags didnt deploy he got paid 2mil. $$

Off course im not wanting anything near that or whatever but i would want at least a Car i had before the accidenet without losing any money. Hope the lawyers and my insurance cant work things out.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Like everyone said, I'm glad you're ok and not hurt. I too, unfortunately had a minor accident just a week ago in my 07 and I'm 22 Years old as well - even though it looks so minor, the cost of damages are estimated 3500 $ including labor (for a 100 % quality job). Sometimes, Life sucks - even when you're not at fault, you have to pay for something you're not even responsible for.

If i were you, I'd go get a full medical-check up done as it is a serious accident. You never know, usually it's the aftermath that kills. Documentation is key here, from police reports to medical receipts - in other words, every legal document is significant in your case. Also, keep in touch with any witnesses you can - if you got their details, even better. I on the other side got unlucky as the ones involved fled the scene. Check up on Nissan in regards to the Air Bags issue as well - and I'm sure you feel ****ty now but hey look to the brighter side, it isn't your fault - you're fine and if all goes well, you'll have a new car (i hope you do, atleast).


Good Luck ! Keep Us Posted

Hope you feel better, brother.

 

If your head hit the windshield, I'd be asking if the seat belts didn't retract. They should have locked to keep you from hitting either the windshield or wheel.

Did you have it on?

 

they are still doing construction on i95?
call a lawyer

 

Yes called a lawyer and i think i did have my seat belts on cuase i do have a mark across my chest.

I really dont remember anything else other than trying to keep my self from flying out the windshield.

Well tommorow after i meet the lawyer i hope everything comes a bit more clear.

 

dude that sucks to hear the lost but health is always important! get yourself checked out but glad you're not seriously injured cars can be replaced..people can't hope all goes well with the lawsuit (if you sue nissan)

 

 

Wow so many nice people on this forum.. =)


I really honestly hope that guy driving the van drunk gets screwed over. Off course he pased the test and was sober when cops arrived at scene like an hour later.

BUT seriously i hate drunk drivers that can mess people's life up.

Imagine i was on my way back from airport with my friends in the back seat and this ahppened.

I dont htink ill be talking bout insurance and other happenings now. Ill probbaly be talking more bout someones funeral due to a idiotic drunk driver.

 

damn man thats crazy. lawyer up and sue the **** out of him and nissan. take alot of photos of your injuries and damages to the car. make sure you get the steering wheel etc. to show the airbags didnt deploy. Make sure you say you had a seatbelt on. Youll be fine. Im sure youll walk away from this with a brand new car and some extra change.

 

Go to the doctor or hospital asap, dont let days pass. They will use that against you if you want to sue . Contact both insurance company's asap. If you want anything out of this you have to have proof of your injury,suffering ,damages etc... The longer you wait the longer they can say you planned it and are just sueing because of whatever. Worry about yourself first then insurance then car. It will get all worked out but make sure everything is done proper.

 

heed their advice cause their 100 % right - DO NOT WASTE TIME and BE LIKE NAH I'M GOOD. go to the docs ASAP then do the rest. keep a copy of everything, take as many pictures as you can inside out. every single thing, every thing is based on evidence and timing in this world. hope everything work's out for you bro. takecare ! good luck once again.

 

how could you not know if your seatbelt was on??? Also that would be a good reason why the airbags did not go off is because if you did not have your seat belt on. Or otherwise you would not be typing this here now. my 2 cents. glad your ok though. all these people saying sue, nissan for what?? Your walking aren't you.

 

Just get a lawyer, he/she will make your life much easier and make sure your rights are protected to the fullest. You will get all the right advice and information. How to get a rental car and a replacement car. How to get medical checkups/treatments. As long as the police report states you're not at fault, that is all the lawyer needs.
My first accidence, I was from out of state and didn't know much. The other party was at fault and cited by the police for reckless driving. Their insurance sent me a letter and demanded a huge payment. I got a lawyer and got paid big $$$.

 

First off, good to hear you are not dead!

BUT, you guys including OP and all who say sue Nissan: YOU SUCK! "oh dude you gotta sue!!!" LAME!! How is Nissan responsible for any damages incurred here to the OP? Did you not read your owners manual? It specifically states that SRS restraints, whicj include pre-tensioning seat belts may NOT PROTECT YOU IN ALL TYPES OFF ACCIDENTS such as roll over, rear endings and certain other types of impact. Go read your owners manual and stop thinking you can start throwing lawsuits every which way to get paid.

SRS= Supplemntal Restraint System, not GLS= Guaranteed Life Saver

All responsibility falls on the driver of the van. And in that case I say sue sue sue him till he is bankrupt. That's fine. But why go after Nissan? Who ever told you that your safety was GUARANTEED in this life? Auto manufacturers are only trying to enhance your safety with SRS, not ensure your guaranteed survival.

Go ahead and sue Nissan, Nissan's lawyers will dispatch your lawsuit in their favor quickly. You'll lose because all they'll need is the owners manual from your car which you obviously did not read.

Sorry for the pissing rant but I hate how people get all sue happy.

I hope you can see past suing Nissan and get everything resolved with the driver of the van and get paid what you are owed by him/his company. My buddy got rear ended as badly as you in his Maxima 10 years ago and he has never been the same. You MUST assume that you will/may have a lifetime of back pain. My buddy never got paid, the guy had no insurance and the lawsuit was judged in my buddy's favor but the guy just declared bankruptcy and has never paid a dime. BTW, his airbags also did not go off, and his back seats were nearly touching his fronts.

Good Luck

 

i too recently got in an accident. At the time of the crash i had no cuts or anything on me but next day i was really really sore. Well atleast i had no injuries. but to be sure get your self checked out by a physician. Especially you head area. heres a picture of mine. I hope everthing is ok for you, goodluck.

 

Im a lawyer. Although I dont practice personal injury, I have worked in that area. You can sue Nissan, but I dont believe you will win. The airbags are programmed to go off if certain parameters were met. They were not met and thats why they didnt go off. You might be hurt, but it doesnt sound like you have serious injuries. This is all based on what you have stated in your posts. The best thing to do is contact a lawyer in your state. If you have more questions, feel free to PM me.

 

An impact from the rear should not normally trigger the front or side airbags. Unless the impact pushed you very hard into the car in front of you, the contact with that car would not have triggered the front airbags either.

Impacts from the rear may not trigger the sensor that tightens the seat belts either. Had the belts tightened, you would not have hit the windshield.

The passive restraint system sensors require a considerable impact from the front before deploying the airbags. The system is set up that way because a lesser front impact will trigger the belt pretensor system and tighten the belt and prevent you from flying forward. The front bags are only for front impacts too violent to be handled by the belt system.

I understand the logic involved, as a deploying front airbag sometimes actually causes injury. Also, if all the airbags deploy in a Maxima, we are talking over $10,000 to replace them.

I read the passive restraint system section of the Owner's Manual when I bought my car three and a half years ago, and felt Nissan tried very hard to balance the risk of deploying vs the risk of not deploying.

Are you positive your lap belt and shoulder harness were properly positioned? Mine tighten very quickly when I make a sudden vigorous movement. If I had to bet, I would be doubtful you would win a case against Nissan. As someone else here said, air bags guarantee nothing. They are simply a current state-of-the-art attempt to balance all factors and deploy only when the sensors feel they are really needed. There have been several instances on the ORG where the airbags may have saved the life of ORG posters. They do deploy on very hard frontal impacts.

Sorry you have been the victim of an inane driver that probably should never have been on the road.

 

Glad you're okay. I totally understand being sore the next day! I was so shaken up from my accident I just cared about the car more than anything lol.

I'm thinking the seat belts didn't tighten since you were already at a stop. With mine I had a nice bruise on my chest from braking so hard and then the impact.

If you notice when you brake hard the strap over your shoulder tightens. If you brake easily or slow it doesn't always react. Always thought it was kind of odd that it doesn't tighten every time you use brakes.

Best of luck getting reimbursed Hope you get better also!

 

Its not about breaking every time. If the belt is pulled a little hard it will lock it self so. but, yeah soft breaking sometimes doesn't lock the belt.

 

Everybody pretty much covered everything already so I'l just say one thing.

GO TO THE ER NOW!!!!

 

Holy $hit, you win between the 3of our wrecked maxes.

 

My brother has had two accidents like this in less then a year and I'm an RN so listen/do everything I say/write.

1. Go to the ER NOW!!!!!!!!!

It has already been two days since this happened. You should have when the very second it happened. There should have been an ambulance that came out and they should have told you what you should do. When you go to court they are going to ask you "If your car looked like that and you hit your head on the windshield or steering wheel why did it take you 3, 4, or 5 days to decide to go to the hospital?" The defense will say that you could have injured yourself doing something else that was not related to the accident or that you made your condition worse by waiting. By you waiting 3 days to go to the ER, you basically refused medical treatment for 3 days. it doesn't matter whther you had a car or not, that's why there is Fire Rescue. Also the fact that you were wearing your seatbelt and you were hit so hard could have caused internal bruising to your organs, example: Spleen, bowel, pancreas,liver, etc, etc.

2. Take pictures of all cuts on face, arms and the bruse across your chest. The bruise across your chest is the most important one!!!!! This shows that you in fact were wearing your seat belt. Without this, when you go to court and say that you hit your head on the windshield it sounds like you were not wearing your seatbelt. You can swear on your unborn child that you were wearing it, but evidence always wins.

3. Your back and neck are going to feel like someone just punched you as hard as they could 1000 times in your back. Your going to be as stiff as a board with shooting pain in your back. You cannot, and i repeat, you can not lift anything heavier then like 5 pounds. You can't go to work. You have to stay home and live like your in prison almost for about a week. If not, when the defenses attorney's start to follow you to take pics of what you are doing, they will get you on everything. Even if you bend over to tie your shoe in public, they will get you. Trust me, THEY WILL FOLLOW YOU. This guy is not getting sued by you, he is getting sued by you and 5 other drivers. if they can find anything to make you seem like a liar they will.

4. Write down everything that happened. Detail for Detail. You may not go to court for another year. your story has to be the same a year from now as it is today. One discrepency and your lieing/ making stuff up. Write down what dates you missed work and why you missed work ( what was bothering you, what hurt, any discomfort. Discribe the pain: dull, sharp, continuous, recurring pain, throbing, etc.) what your pain is on a scale of 0 to 10. 10 being the worse pain you have ever had, and trust me some days are going to be worse than others.

5. Finally you can worry about what did and did not work in your nissan. But it seems to me that if you bring up/ it is discovered by the defense that your seatbelts did not work they will find that as an exit point to not have to pay you as much money. Example: "If the the plantiff's seatbelts would have worked in his car, he would not have incurred as many injuries." Just my opnion, not 100% sure

6.As for what the lawyer said, I don't think you will win against nissan. But as of right now you may not feel anything or have any "serious" injuries, but your body does not work like that. It make take 3 months before you start to experience any true back problems: herniated disk, neck stiffness/ soreness from whiplash, nerves being pinched somewhere in your spine, etc. etc. you get the point.

Good luck with everything. If you have any questions feel free to email me. orlan85@comcast.net

 

The great thing about the Org. is that you do have knowledgeable people on this site. As everyone stated; get an attorney, take as many pictures as you can and you must seek medical attention... not just on the basis of sueing, you may have some serious injuries that you don't know about. But now that you have done all that, what's next? Well, my next question would be, what state did the accident occur in New Jersey or New York? Every state has different laws and certain protocols that should be followed. I'm more familiar with the laws of New Jersey than New York but they don't differ that much. As DeusExMaxima stated about the certain parameters programmed to deploy the airbags possibly not being met, which could be true. Now if they were hit and the airbags didn't deploy, then that's another matter that Nissan would be responsible for. Now, someone did state that Nissan is not responsible for airbags deploying and you couldn't sue them, actually they would be responsible. Safety is a big reason people choose the vehicle they drive. So if I chose your vehicle because you as a company stated it had such and such sensory and this many airbags to deploy beyond 5 miles an hour if hit within these parameters and it didn't, well you must answer as to why it did not. If that is the case, I would have went with your competitor. Either way, they would be responsible. Your attorney also has a case with the responding officers (again, don't know which state your were in) but you say it took them over an hour to arrive. I believe the alcohol level drops .01 bac. for every hour that passes, now the officers performed tests on the driver and determined that he was not intoxicated. Giving the totality of the circumstances(accident, injuries, cars involved, etc...) possible (?) protocol would have been to arrest the driver for DUI for a breathalizer to determine his Blood Alcohol Level. Then, if it was to be determined by the machine that he was under the legal driving limit, he could still be issued tickets for DUI just under the BAC level. Then it depends if, for instance in New Jersey, you do have the ability to sue on your insurance, but either way your lawyer will inform you and you will get reimburst of any expenses you incur. If you have any further questions, you can PM as well. Good luck and I hope you feel better. God Bless.

 

Thanks guys.. I feel worse today and just got back from doctor and lawyer.

As of the airbag issue. Yes they are reliable and responsible since the front hood was all crushed and the car in front of me Acura TL was only rear ended ALOT LESS than i was and his airbags deplayed and well as EVERY single other car that was in teh accident.

Lawyer and insurance company went to take picutres of the car today and i have taken MRI and Xrays thrugh out my whole body.


And again thanks alot for all and i kinda feel what you all mean by saying


ITS GONNA BE SORE AND GET WORSE..

My body aches so bad... I get tired so easily...And now my whole body is cold..
My right knee has a bad bump which appears to be a bone sticking out.

I reallize my ribs being bruised and futher results will come tommorow.

Thank you all and will keep you guys posted.

God Bless.

 

Thank God you are alive and well!! I'm glad you got great advice from everyone regarding seeking a lawyer and actually going to the doctor! That is a SERIOUS accident and a legal matter needs to be delt with. I had a serious car accident but not with my Maxima and even though it was a simple bump on the highway my car spun out of control. I had deep tissue damage in my back and I hired a lawyer. It happened when I was 20 but hey they paid for my car and I got therapy for free.

Stuff like this can be so stressful but keep hanging in buddy! Get as much help as you can.

Take care!

 

i have the feeling your seatbelt was not on. the wheel could have bruised your chest. your left shoulder would be killing you and bruised. a small bumper to bumper with no damage on a previous car gave me a sore shoulder for a few days.

does the air-bag require the seat belt to be engaged?

good to hear you're okay otherwise. Of course you won't have to pay anything. Unless he was uninsured and you don't have under-insured coverage. But you would eventually get reimbursed after suing him, someday.