I was hit by a Kenworth at 75km/hour.

 

Ouch! Are you all right?

 

I was hit by a Kenworth at 75km/hour.

Here in America, a Kenworth is a road-going juggernaut:

Is it the same in your country? Is this the behemoth that hit you? If so, you are lucky!

 

I was hit by a Kenworth at 75km/hour.

Hope your ok ??


But I would love to see what hit you because I drive a Tow Truck for a living
and never seen so little damage for such a high speed....

 

Assuming that was in Australia then yes, we have Kenworth trucks. As well as Mack's, Volvos and others. My dad used to repair them.
In the outback the prime-mover and the semi-tralier can be coupled to additional trailers. Known as road trains, these can be over 150ft in length! Nearly all Aussie prime movers have a roo-bar (aka bull-bar) attached to the front-end to avoid damage when a kangaroo jumps out onto the road.
The prime movers with the longer front ends can run bigger more powerful engines making them more useful when carrying bigger payloads. Unlike standard transport Lorries in Europe which have the flat front-end making them much more suited to smaller & windier roads, tighter spaces and for packing 'em onto ferries.
Simply do a Google Image search on Australian trucks and you'll see just how big these giants of the highway can get - amazing really.

 

Looks like you were in his blind spot and got merged on..

 

Looks like you were in his blind spot and got merged on..

You got it in one!
Everyone OK - thanks for all concerns expressed.
We were going in same direction as truck which might explain low level damage. We did a 180 in front of truck & hit center guard rail side on.
Vehicle was written off by our insurer.
Happy to walk away with some relatively low level injury.

 

Here in America, a Kenworth is a road-going juggernaut:

Is it the same in your country? Is this the behemoth that hit you? If so, you are lucky!

At 75km ? That little car would have been flat as a pancake. Has to be something different like maybe a motorcycle.

Edit: wow it was a truck. Good thing it was a side swipe, if not...... Pancake.

 

Sorry to sound unsympathetic, but as a motorcycle rider I *make sure* nothing hits me. Especially at 75 MPH.

A lot of car drivers are almost oblivious to what's going on around them on the road, and/or are very poor decision makers in their road behaviour.

And let's be honest, it's not hard to see a Kenworth.

 

But what if it doesn't see you while changing lanes? I don't think you can do anything about it with a car but go off the road.

 

Careless driving is deadly, I just lost a friend and coworker of 20+ years in a horrible crash. I'm glad yours was just a scratch.

http://www.koin.com/2013/05/15/gresham-man-killed-in-collision/

 

But what if it doesn't see you while changing lanes? I don't think you can do anything about it with a car but go off the road.

That is why you keep your options open, don't hang in someone's blind spot and wait for the vehicle in front of you to completely pass the truck (or any other vehicle) before you zip by quickly. Don't get "boxed in".

In general, you are much safer if you either stay in the outside lane or stay about 5 mph faster than traffic flow if you move to the inside lane. That is, if both lanes are going the same speed, move to the outside lane.

 

But what if it doesn't see you while changing lanes? I don't think you can do anything about it with a car but go off the road.

Lots of bad drivers in Greece too? I've heard about European driving styles...

If there's a Kenworth in front of me, I keep it 10+ car lengths in front. If it's behind me, I keep it 10+ car lengths behind me.

In those short times when it's necessary to be closer to the Kenworth I make that time as short as possible and I very carefully watch both our positions, ready to hit the brakes or accelerator and modify our relative positions very quickly if needed.

How the hell do other people drive? Do they just sit in a tight clump of vehicles, not seeing anyone around them, surrounded by other idiots, while they are all screaming along at 75 MPH??

That's pure Darwinism at work.

 

In theory, all this is good. In practice, reality has its own wishes, especially if you are a lot of hours on the road.
Example:

Traffic and lights in Athens can be pretty bad. There is a certain 3-lane road with two specific lights in a row, 100m apart from each other. At one time, both are green and all 3 lanes stream by happily. Then, the second light goes red and then the first goes red.
As expected cars pile up and the pile from the second light reaches slowly the first intersection while its light is still green. So if you are in the first light, you see a green, you cross while cars in front of you move and when you are half way across the lane freezes and you are in the middle of the perpendicular lane, behind other cars.
If you had left a little bit of spacing from the car in front of you and the perpendicular lane starts, you can have cars crossing your road both in front and behind you.

The moral of the story is that when you spend enough time on roads that you don't know like the back of your hand, accidents surely will happen eventually, not necessarily because of you.