
William of Whitestone, NY on July 10, 2001
I am the owner of a Nissan Altima Se 2001, the vehicle has 11,157 miles currently on the odometer. On July 4th, 2001 I was driving home Eastbound from Manhattan over the lower lever of the Queensboro Bridge. It had just started raining outside and the mist of the rain was beginning to cover the lower level of the bridge. The speed limit on the bridge is 30 mph.
I was accompanied by my girlfriend Lauren, who was seated in the front right passenger seat of the car. The passenger and myself were both wearing our harness/lap seat beats. Traffic was moving well over the bridge at the time, I was traveling approximately 30 mph. I was approximately 8 to 10 car lengths behind the car in front of me.
At approximately 11:00pm EST the vehicle in front of my vehicle a 1993 Plymouth Voyager suburban had come to a complete stop in traffic on the bridge. Noticing this ahead I began to apply the brakes to slow my vehicle down and bring it to a complete stop. I applied the brakes and to my surprise they instantly locked causing my vehicle to slide on the wet pavement. I had minimal control of my vehicle only when I would release my foot from the brake. When I was braking and sliding I had no control over my vehicle.
I removed my foot from the brake and once again applied my foot to the brake and tried to slow down my vehicle when the brakes once again instantly locked up causing my vehicle to slide on the wet pavement, I tried once again for a third time and got the same results causing my vehicle to slide at approximately 25 to 30 mph into the rear end of the vehicle in front of me. During the attempts to slow my car down I at no time pumped the brakes or had tire traction between the car tires and the road.
My passenger at the time was sleeping and was awakened by the car sliding, she screamed as we were about to hit, I threw my right arm across my passengers chest as a reaction to help prevent her from flying forward. Upon impact both my passenger and myself were thrown forward towards the windshield. My left arm was still holding onto the steering wheel as my right arm was trying to hold my passenger back.
My passenger was thrown forward and struck her head on the windshield/roof of the car causing her to sustain injuries to her head, neck and back. My passenger's legs also went into the dashboard of the car causing severe bruising and pain to her lower extremities. I myself sustained injuries to my left elbow from holding onto the steering wheel as we crashed. At no time during the impact between vehicles did the harness/lap beats or air bags engage to protect my passenger or me the driver. My vehicle sustained a full frontal impact with the vehicle in front of me.
I am afraid to drive the car even if it ir repairable. I am scared that if I take the car out again after it has been repaired and I get into another accident going even faster than this recent accident on the high way that the air bags will not deploy and someone will be killed. I feel the car is a lemon and I want Nissan to replace the car at no cost to me. The car has had more problems since I bought it than anything else.