Today is not going well…
This morning, just as I was coming off the market roundabout at the junction of the A32 and A27 in Fareham, some idiot in a lorry drove into the side of my car. The roundabout there has three lanes, once of which goes off, so at the eastern exit there are two lanes, both of which go onto the A27. I was in the left-hand lane, in my MG. The lorry driver, on the roundabout, was in the right-most lane (for the benefit of those reading this outside the U.K., we drive on the left). As we came off the roundabout, he drove into the left hand lane, apparently ignorant of the fact that my car was alongside his vehicle.
The annoying thing is that I could see it happening, and all I could do about it was try to put my foot down hard to get out of the way. Braking wouldn’t have helped (instead of hitting my car towards the rear, he'd have hit the front of it), and doing nothing wasn’t really an option either given where we were (there are railings to the left of the left-hand lane… and I didn’t particular want to end up squashed between them and his lorry; on reflection, I may actually have had a lucky escape, though we weren’t travelling very fast at the time).
Anyway, my car got off quite lightly under the circumstances; the damage seems to be limited to a (rather awkward looking) dent in the driver’s side rear wheel-arch, plus some scraped paintwork. There didn’t seem to be any visible damage to the lorry; maybe some scraped paint on the front-left corner of the cab, but then that could easily have been there already. Particularly as the lorry in question seemed to have a couple of bits of broken indicator tied on with what looked like washing line.
Plus, I have a feeling from the looks of my inbox, that I have other problems to deal with today as well.
AAARGH!
Glad you're OK, at least physically. Collision between a lorry and an MG--sounds like it was indeed a lucky escape.
I wish we had more roundabouts here in the U.S. Well, to put it more precisely, I wish American drivers were intelligent enough to comprehend the usefulness and logic of roundabouts. I've seen only two in the U.S., one of which is in my home town, and a lot of drivers just can't seem to figure it out.