2 weeks ago I was driving to my cousin's house around 7:30pm Saturday. We boated all day together and he invited us for super. He lives on a semi country road. Out of the nowhere a dog came out and decided to cross right in front of me. I was able to save the dog but not the car. Ended doing a 180 in a ditch and out the other side. Was able to complete remove a mailbox from the ground. Me and my girlfriend are fine.

The dog owner came out and was crying she was happy her dog is ok. They honestly feel bad about the situation. She admittedly said it was her fault for not tying the dog, which is on the police report. In my head I was thinking that's nice but it doesn't fix my car.

I need a new front bumper, rear bumper, right lens, right quarter panel, right body molding. Left side needs to be re-painted for scratches and the list goes on. It's up to 15,700$ now.

The towing guy, my insurance broker and most other people all say the same thing. I should of hit the dog. This way it would of be a no fault...

The other disturbing thing is the dents on the roof. Nothing hit there, but yet I have one dent on the front left and rear right of the sunroof. This must be from the chassis flexing when it hit the ditch. They say the chassis is fine. They'll give me a scan report after the work is done to prove it...

My question is, anyone knowledgeable in this field can tell me if damage of this type from a unibody frame is ok?

front left


rear right

What kind of dog was it?

Don't know.

an expensive one, apparently worth around 15K

Have you a claim against the dog owner for negligence?

You mean to bring them into court? If so, no.

I'm trying to get my insurance to turn it into a no fault.

Phatboy, the first dent picture doesn't look like it was cause by buckling. It looks like something sat on it. But that's just from your picture, my own eyes would tell me better.
The second picture is just normal for a car with a sunroof. I see it on about 75% of cars with them.

Your insurance company is not going to make this a non chargeable loss, sorry. And the dog owner will not be found responsible in a court of law, cause they aren't. Yes, they let their dog out, and maybe, just maybe that's against the law, but they didn't cause you to lose control of your car.

You are like my wife, her first reaction is to swerve. Yet, if you had just firmly applied the brakes and steered to the side of the road and hit the dog, you'd have about $1000 damage to your front bumper. Oh well, some people's instincts are hard to overcome.

Do you have any corner shots of the vehicle? Meaning ones that capture at least two full sides?

If the right quarter panel was hit from the rear and shoved far enough forward, it could put a buckle in the roof. But there would be trunk floor damage and probably damage to the right rear (4 door sedan) door also. If your vehicle flexed enough to buckle the roof, then the ditch was REALLY steep, you were going REALLY fast, or your car is made badly. And if it did buckle the roof, and the shop set it up properly on a frame machine and measured it, some dimension, somewhere would be off.

Looks like a bad situation all around, except for the dog and his owner. I hope things work out for you.... somehow.

Sorry to here that!

I hate to say this and might upset the big time pet owners here, but I'd never swerve to avoid hitting a dog, cat, or other small animal. It isn't worth risking your life and those of passengers or other cars nearby. Like BillyB said, brake and slight adjustment maybe...depends on if I have time to check mirrors for cars behind me.

I wouldn't even do it to avoid a LARGE animal either.
After 10 years of auto crash damage estimating, I can say that even the cars that I have inspected that have hit cows (yes, I said cows, the things that go "Mooo") are not as badly damaged as the ones that went off road to avoid them. Most cars are designed to be very strong in a front end impact (front air bags too) and are not as sturdy for side impacts and twisting and bottoming out.

Dude, don't drive in Maine with that mentality. A moose will kill you, twice....

instinct is very hard to overcome, if you see the critter up ahead you have time to think and decide, when they run out in front of you, you're first instinct is to avoid it. Two very different situations.

One of the first things I taught all 3 of my kids was that it was OK to slam the brakes for an animal in the road (assuming no heavy traffic), but never to swerve at speed to avoid them.

I love animals (current beagle an occasional exception) but all too often a person dies or is seriously injured when trying to avoid them. Bad trade-off. Now the animal owner is in the clear and you have a major insurance claim, but it could have been way worse.

I don't swerve either, ever hear the sound a turtle makes? My wife asks why I couldn't swerve to miss a turtle (this was done before marriage)?

A friend hit a horse in a Pontiac Grand AM. You have to know where I live to understand why a horse hit a car. I live in Amish country and seeing horse and buggies around is like seeing minivan. The horse died, the car got fixed and the Amish guy is paying $10k in repairs, not to mention needing to get a new horse.

Did the horse not have the orange triangle??

My neighbor hit my other neighbor's horse. He was driving a Renault Alliance at the time. Small amount of damage to the car. I guess French cars are made to take out horses for some reason or another....

Yep, pretty much same for me. I'll brake (carefully), swerve (without leaving my lane), and honk (no limits). Outside those parameters, sorry, critter.

If I SEE something, I honk at it. Startling them seems to work.

The first wife got really mad at me once for not diving into the ditch to avoid a deer (2 lane road, with traffic). I may have saved her life ... kinda wish I had that one to do over.

that's funny stuff.

LOL Phil!

I still remember as a 16 y/o a dog gets on the freeway. I move over a lane, but so does the dog. Sorry. As a green driver on I-75 near Detroit I was uncomfortable with the thought of stopping, going to the shoulder, or cutting back to my original lane. with a couple of decades behind the wheel now I think I had time to make French toast and still move back to my original lane.

I bet this guy had it to do over again...

The above is a photo of a horse stuck through a windshield. The driver was probably ok but a passenger would not have made it.
The photo is not really that graphic.

Maybe for an episode of "Good Eats; Road Food"?

The $16,000 kind apparently.

I've never seen one of those, a picture would have been nice, all gold-plated and all (the dog, not the picture).

Hey, that's not an animal, it's another car, with 4 legs. All 2,500+ pounds of it.

Best avoided, at ALMOST any cost.

I'm stayin' outta Maine on my motorcycles, Alaska too, they've got 'em.

JMHO - but when you walk away from an accident - it's all good. The rest is sheet metal and money.

Glad no one was hurt.

The last dog that ran in front of me wasn't so luck.

We were on our way back from a great day on the lake still towing with the burb. A pug decided to cross the road in front of us. I made a small adjustment hoping to clear it, but I wasn't going to go head on into another car or risk the admiral and first mate.

Hit it with both the front and rear axle of the rig and possibly the trailer. The good thing, it was quick for the dog.

Kind of put a damper on the day, but I would rather the only injury being the dog as opposed to the admiral or the first mate.

If the admiral had been driving, she would have swerved to avoid the dog and would have went off the road.

If this would of happen in the city then I would of only braked and hit the dog. Country road you have more room to maneuver... or think you can maneuver anyway.

My girlfriend said she was sorry as she said she made me over react when she screamed "Watch-out for the dog!" Obviously I told her not to worry about that as I'm the one who was driving.

The back right bumper was damaged. But I think it was because we came back up the 5' ditch in reverse.

Sorry no more pics. I didn't want to keep a souvenir of this awful event. I thanks you for your professional opinion on the car's frame. Gives me something to go from.

Still, I've seen a lot of "ditch drives" (industry term) and they don't have roof buckles. Good luck.

I think it depends on the car. I went through a windshield once, from the outside, and the roof got a slight buckle in the front. Little different scenario than a frame twist, but shows thier vulnerability none the less.