1310/71 wrote:
mmm
Understeered, hit something then rolled?
in other words your almost correct
This is the story word for word from the 17yr old Red p plater driver:
"I was travelling along the road doing the speed limit 60km. I had a cold that day. I then had sneezed very badly, and in my process had reefed the steering wheel Left hand down in my sneeze attack. The mini already had a problem with pulling to the left hand side, so this made things worse. By this stage I was heading towards a big tree on the side of the bank. I tried to swerve again but only lost control. The car spun out and hit the tree hard on the left hand front guard. (By this stage the steering had locked up I couldn't do anything.) It then bounced off the tree, flipping over onto its roof, at this point this is all I can remember, as I was knocked out"
So yes, interesting story aye. That's word for word from what I was told from the boy and his father. Basically after the car hit the tree, it then rolled at least twice maybe 3 we reckon, down the embankment, into a big ditch. No other cars were involved. It could not have happened in a worse a spot. Poor fella.
The times I did do things for him, to fix his car, the car was in average mechanical condition in my point of view. I was always telling him that such and such should be fixed, but so long as it drove that's all he really cared.

The ball joints had play in them, wheel bearings, brake were pretty average, the clutch was as hard as a rock. The one time I did drive it around the block, I rekon it mustive had a double grey clutch. It was stupidly hard, and he always complained about that and stalling it.
Other than that, the engine ran good. No smoke, and in my opinion a good running engine. Certainly wasn't a race engine by any means though.
So that's the story boys and girls...
So no ball joint breakage to cause the accident. Driver inexperience it comes down to. He told me he could loose his license, but is waiting to hear back from the police.
Insurance company paid his father 9k
