Subaru Driver Survives Car Getting Skewered Sideways by a Guardrail

Cars and guardrails don’t mix—that much we knew already. We’ve all seen it where a driver wanders a bit too far outside their travel lane and hits one head-on. When that happens, these safety devices meant to deflect vehicles and keep them from veering off the road become a driver’s worst enemy. If you need proof, just look at the car-on-a-stick situations that have gone viral time and again.

This one involving a Subaru driver in Quincy, California, is different though as they managed to do the thing sideways and survived to tell the tale.

The California Highway Patrol office in Quincy was asking motorists in Lassen County (northwest of Reno) to slow down and stay alert for ice patches last week. This came after multiple incidents involving drivers crossing over the lane divider and crashing into guardrails during winter weather. Such an incident happened when the 19-year-old driver of this Subaru was along for the ride as her Outback got sideways enough that the guardrail pierced the driver’s side door panel. It then jousted across both front seats before the car came to rest with the end of the guardrail against the inside of the passenger side door.

CHP Quincy first reported the crash early Thursday, saying it caused “major damage to the road infrastructure” and urging residents to stay home unless it was absolutely necessary to drive. The driver was “miraculously” taken to nearby Renown with only moderate injuries, the department said in a later update.

As it turns out, she wasn’t the last victim of the late-week ice storms in Northern California. Early Sunday, another driver lost control and hit a guardrail in the same county. As with the first driver, he survived the incident largely unscathed. According to comments on CHP Quincy’s post, the driver of the Ram involved in that incident may have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Stay safe out there, folks.

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