Accidental Accident Reports
What a Little Grammar Mistake Can Do
The following quotes taken from the Toronto News on July 26, 1977, are actual statements from insurance forms where car drivers tried to summarize accident details in as few words as possible. Such instances of faulty writing serve to confirm that incompetency can be highly entertaining.
Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.
The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intent.
I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.
In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.
I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.
I had been driving for forty years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.
I was on my way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident.
My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.
As I approached the intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no sign had ever appeared before, making me unable to avoid the accident.
I told the police I was not injured, but upon removing my hair, I found that I had a fractured skull.
I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him.
I saw a slow-moving, sad-faced old gentleman as he bounced off the hood of my car.
The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.
I was thrown from my car as it left the road, and was later found in a ditch by some stray cows.
A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
I thought my window was down, but I found out it was up when I put my head through it.
To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian.
The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.
The pedestrian had no idea which way to run, so I ran over him.
An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.
A truck backed through my windshield into my wife's face.
I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.
I saw her look twice, she appeared to be making slow progress, then we met on impact.
The gentleman behind me struck me on the backside. He then went into the bush with just his rear-end showing.
I had been learning to drive with power-steering. I turned the wheel, what I thought was enough, and found myself in a different direction going the opposite way.
I was backing my car out of the driveway in the usual manner when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before.
I was unable to stop in time and my car crashed into the other vehicle. The driver and passengers then left immediately for a vacation with injuries.
The telephone pole was approaching fast. I was attempting to swerve out of its path, when it struck my front end.
The accident occurred while I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering into the other vehicle.
When I saw I could not avoid the collision. I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car.
And finally, one driver willing to admit he was less than totally innocent: No one was to blame for the accident, but it never would have happened if the other driver had been alert.
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