Firstly you need to know before reading this that J & I survived and walked away…
One of the biggest road hazards in New Zealand is tourists especially those who normally drive on the right side of the road. There have been many fatal accidents involving tourists.
J & I were out for a drive today and at noon were about 25km south of Hastings on a country road when on going round a left-hand corner we met a minibus in our lane. There was a bank on our side of the road and I knew immediately we had nowhere to go and we were going to be hit hard.
The airbags and seatbelts saved us. My reflex action must have been to move left as we ended up against the bank. The minibus bounced off the car and stopped in our lane. When we got out we found the minibus driver and passenger already out. They were Swedish tourists and had forgotten which side of the road to drive in New Zealand.
The most amazing thing is that we walked away. The only marks on J and me were the burn marks from the airbags exploding. Full marks for modern car design.
The car was a wreck. The wheel in front of me was ripped up off the axle and amazingly the hub-cap from that wheel ended up on the car roof… surreal…. It must have been amazing to see…
The police were on the scene in about 30 minutes.
The policeman estimated that my front right corner was about 1.5m from the left side of the road at impact so the minibus did not move left at all. If I had not moved so far left, the impact would have been much worse and the damage unthinkable…
J was hurt across his lap and my right shoulder hurt because of the seat belts so the policeman sent us to hospital by ambulance.
We emptied the car before it was taken away.
It will be written off…
We spent the rest of the afternoon in hospital. Their x-ray checks and tests found we had no internal injuries.
The police, ambulance crew and those who stopped on the road could not believe we walked away.
We are fortunate.
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