Total Ownage

Long queues, waiting around for ages and people annoying you by cutting in… These are a few things that come with the most thrilling rides. But what we experienced was on a different level. In preparation for this nightmarish incident, I bought a 12 month tax disc, £180. Prior to this, the vehicle was inspected and serviced for a charge of £220. Then we set off with a topped up tank, roughly £40, all within 2 weeks before the “slip”.

On entering the M1, we hit heavy traffic. The weather was also quite bad (this was the time the news report of severe weather stopping traffic was showing). Cue the queues. And all the stunt van drivers pulling in front of you when there was just barely enough space for the cars to breath. The fast lane was moving at around 65-75mph and the noobs in front with super floppy feet just kept speeding up and slowing down, speeding up and slowing down. Until the slowing down became a sudden stop. The car in front managed to change lanes and avoid the immediate third lane stop, but I was trapped. There was a car to my left and a barrier to my right. Everything seemed claustrophobic; red lights began to blind me. I was slowing down, I realised that I’d have to slam the brakes, so I did. Once the car got to around 25-30mph, the anti-lock brakes kicked in, the car shuddered and refused to slow down. The 13 year old Nissan suddenly felt it had seen enough roads and decided it was on an ice rink. Next thing I know, the car was sliding and it went straight into the back of a Land Rover. I’ve never heard such a loud BANG sound in my life.

Here we where, stuck in the third lane. The Land Rover simply ticked over onto the hard shoulder without a scratch, and my car had adopted the appearance of a broken nosed, swollen eyed British boxer, who had just been wacked in the head by Mike Tyson and didn’t want to start again. Of course being stuck on this lane in this bad weather was dangerous, but the sudden traffic build up meant the cars came in slowly, so we phoned the rozers to pull us over onto the hard shoulder.

There we were, sitting in a totalled car, bewildered while our road tripping days came to an end. The car lay there, giving a weak splutter every time I gave it a reassuring key turn. Alhamdulillah, we got no injuries, neither did the Land Rover driver.

The ambulance came first and had a quick look to check we were all fine, and then sped of. Next the Motorway Maintenance came and stopped all the traffic and towed our car onto the hard shoulder. The Land Rover dude was all cool, took down my number plate and phone number, and was on his way, as there was nothing apparent wrong with his car. Riaz had called his dad and told him to pick us up. Once on the hard shoulder we realised why the cars had stopped and why the ambulance was in quite a rush, there had been an accident far worse than ours not far ahead. No police came and we never got questioned.

A free towing service took us to a lay-by where we waited for Riaz’s dad to pick us up and the insurance company to take away the car into storage where it could be inspected by them and told whether it would be written off or not. Leaving Bradford at around 2:45pm, we got home at around 8:30pm, all in one piece. We didn’t tell anyone until the day after, when our parents had had their good night’s sleep.

So that’s it. No more Nissan Primera, it’s been written off and we’re going to negotiate a price for it which isn’t going to be much considering the £650 excess. We did get a courtesy car for 4 days, and of course we did whatever you do to a courtesy/hire car (wink wink). Anyway, it’s back to the train missions for now, and our scam table stats are yet to improve. AB tops it with a show an expired ticket and run for his life towards the station exit stunt while the ticket guy shouts at him. 5,000 points for that I think.