This afternoon I saw the aftermath of an accident that looked an awful lot like distracted driving. Nowhere near any kind of intersection, on a gentle curve in dry conditions, two pickup trucks collided. One was a 1st gen Titan, it was stopped in the opposite lane from the direction I was going, slightly askew but not dramatically. The most noticeable thing was its running board laying on the ground behind it. On closer inspection, the whole left side was scraped up, every panel. No obvious drivetrain damage or even front-end (headlights, bumper intact).
The other truck was a newer (last-gen?) GMC 1500, parked on the right shoulder, clearly having been traveling the opposite direction of the Nissan. It fared “worse” depending on how you look at it. The LF wheel was cocked about 80 degrees to the left of straight, while the RF wheel was turned a bit to the right. Body damage, yeah, but not all the way down the side. Front end damage, but headlights in tact. Mostly front 1/4 panel, fender.
So... who drifted over into whose lane? Clearly these trucks scraped sides with each other. Based on the GMC being on the inside of the curve, I’m betting he drifted over into the Nissan. Probably no injuries based on the damage to the vehicles. But that Titan can’t be worth all that much, with every single body panel on the left side damaged, and the little clever compartments under the bed damaged, too. It looked ok otherwise, not rusty or anything. That dude is probably bummed.
But what’s worse? The GMC had a temporary plate on it. The guy must have just bought it. Having recently spent time in a 2014 GMC pickup that was nicely equipped, there are a LOT of settings, features, menus, infotainment options to fiddle with... and I bet he was poking around in the menus somewhere, looked up and BAM. Oops.
*sorry, no pics. I was driving. Blah blah blah.
Here, have this instead: