The first thing he did was call Mom.
Presumed Georgian, mother to a 16-year-old son, and Redditor /u/MrSquishies8679 posted up shocking dashcam footage from Evans, GA from earlier last week *May 15, 2024) showing the moment her newly licensed son got rear ended at full speed by a distracted driver on her cellphone.
Check out the dashcam footage below.
[OC] 16 year old son rear ended (Language)
byu/mrsquishies8679 inIdiotsInCars
OP also posted the front dashcam footage, too.
OP’s son was stopped at a red light.
“Front cam shows he stopped with a good distance to the car in front of him. Then (he) was pushed into the front of the other car.”
The incident happened in the 4400 Block area of Washington Rd. (GA-104 aka a stroad) in Evans, GA (Exact location on Google Maps linked here.)
As the video shows, traffic around OP’s son is travelling at around 45 MPH on this fast moving and highly trafficked stroad (a portmanteau of street and road.)
OP comes to a stop, but the car following OP’s son doesn’t.
Distracted by a windshield mounted cellphone (seen in the screenshot below) the lady driver doesn’t slow and instead slams into the back of OP’s son at full speed.
“F***! Nooooo,” OP’s son shouts.
He’s only had his license for a month at that point.
“Call Mom. F***. I got in a wreck, I got rear-ended. I’m on Washington Rd. Yeah, I’m OK,” we can hear him say to OP on the other line.
The distracted driver comes to her senses, appears to be OK, and walks out of her now wrecked (and probably totaled car) to see if OP’s son is OK, too.
“This is also the first time I’ve ever heard him curse or raise his voice like that,” /u/MrSquishies8679 commented.
“Bone chilling to hear as a parent. But I told him, great job on how he handled the situation.”
“Get a lawyer and go get checked out! I was rear ended at a stop as well! the person was going around 20 mph I felt fine then all the back pain kicked in the next day. This happened 3 days ago,” /u/Gateway1012 suggested.
“Congrats – now at no fault of his own, his insurance premiums will be unbearably high for the next 9 years,” /u/JoeTony6 soberly commented.
“Hopefully no one was hurt. Thank god for the dash cam. 16-year-old and gets in an accident and insurance company will try to raise his rates, but not with this video,” /u/Beneficial-Shower-42.
If you’re confused why insurance would raise his rates, unfortunately, since OP hit the car in front of him, they’ll likely use that fact to point out that OP shouldn’t have been following the other car (even though he was stopped) too closely.
While this situation sucks all around, OP’s son seemed to handle it well.
While no one plans to get in a car accident, at the very least, you need to make sure you know where your car insurance information is.
Then, after a car accident, ensure everyone’s safety, call emergency services, exchange information, document the scene, and notify your insurance company.
Once you’ve gotten the ball rolling on the insurance, then you can take a breather and evaluate the situation and mull things over (or not) with a calm head.
OP insurance will not go up because he hit the car in front of him. The lady who hit him will pay for both cars through her insurance at least, that’s the way Law used to be. It was the last person in the line who gets charged.