I was driving an old beat up Buick Skylark with a loose steering wheel (about 1 inch of "slop" turning the wheel left to right), crappy shock absorbers, and studded snow tires, in the summer. Studs because the car's hometown was in Vermont and I couldn't afford to replace the tires after the snow melted.
So... I was headed home on small-ish two lane (not divided) highway about a mile from an incline where the road widened into four lanes. I decided to change the radio station. I hadn't used the car a whole lot yet and I had to look down at the radio briefly to change the station. As I look up, I see the car had drifted to the right about two feet. Had it been a fairly new car, that would not have happened as my looking down was brief, and, normally would have been safe. Except, in a car that crappy, it was not quite safe, I learned at that moment. Because, although I had only drifted a couple feet, I just happened to do so at the very small section of the road where the shoulder was missing! I turned the wheel to the left to get properly back in my lane, but lost traction. Car begins swerving to the left, so I turn to the right, loose steering + studded tires thus it happens again and again left/right/left right - like I'm some kind of drifting champion showing off like a jackass on the highway!
So, as my car is wildly swerving back and forth and back and forth, I don't seem to be slowing down much (had been going about fifty last time I checked speedometer) and I'm just on the four lane section starting to gradually go up the incline while this one other car on the road, headed towards me, is not slowing down as it comes towards me, neither are they getting out of their left lane! I swear I could imagine hearing the wife say to the husband: "just ignore him and he won't bother us" or something inane like that - I have no idea why they don't at least pull over to their right lane, maybe try to get out of my way?
In the brief adrenaline fueled moment I had to consider their incredible stupidity, I decided just because they were being stupid, they might not actually deserve to die - so, I decided to do what I thought was heroic, and simply go off the road to the right rather than turning back to the left yet another time.
I saw some grass, thought maybe it was enough for me to slow down, maybe not - not sure, but anyway I was gonna let those people live and just accept whatever happened to me going off the road at ~ 50 Mph in a shitty old car, with no seat belt on.
Once my right front tire hit the grass I basically lost any control I had left and the car stopped going off the road at the angle I had chosen, and, instead, continued off the road at a slightly less sharp angle. This was unfortunate because as a result, I failed to miss the guard rail which I was planning to miss. My left front wheel was just about perfectly lined up with the guard rail as it came up out of the ground like a ramp. As the left front of the car starts to lift up in the air, the tire is cut off by the rail, and the railing is not quite strong enough to take the impact, so, instead of fulling acting as a ramp, it lifts the left front wheel about 2/3 of the way up to the height of the top of the guard rain, then the wheel strikes the steel I-beam post.
The feeling of the car being launched is probably approximately similar to how it would feel to sit in a catapult bucket as the catapult was being fired.
Not only did I catch some serious air as my car did an "endo" (Mt. bike term) but the car also was twisting in a spiral simultaneously as it flipped through the air end-over-end.
I was actually extremely lucky to have not been wearing my seatbelt, as I surely would have died when my then upside down and backwards car hit a big tree in such a was as to cause the car to smack down on it's roof crushing it down to the point where the top of my head would have been just about even with my shoulders.
However, my back was on the seat, with my legs up over the back of the seat and my head was about where your shins would normally be when driving.
The driver's side window was busted out, and, having seen too many movies where the car blows up after it crashes, I felt a strong urge to quickly get out of the car.
It was fortunate that I got out of the car quickly. Not because the car was about to blow up [it didn't], but, because I got to see the woman, who had been standing in front of her picture window, sipping her morning cup of tea, wearing her bath robe run like a bat out of hell out her front door to come see if I was ok or if I needed help. She tripped and fell flat on her face, in her front lawn about half-way to me. I was worried she might be hurt worse than me, but it was still quite humorous and she seemed fine when she got back up and ran (a little slower) the rest of the way over to me / the car.
She kind of ignored me for a second as she looked into the car. She seemed somewhat panicked and I said to her "I think I'm ok, I'm fine" and she looked at me like what the fuck are you telling me you're fine for, what about the guy who was driving the car?!? Like she could not believe that I was the one who had been driving that car, that car right there that looks like God had just picked it up and crushed it like a ball of foil..." then she looked back at the car, back at me - realizes the car is empty, and well, I *must be the person who was driving, the kind of shakes her head in disbelief. The first responder, probably a volunteer firefighter? (at least I think that's who he was) arrived at that point - seemed like he got there REALLY fast, I was impressed. Well, at that point, I noticed I was not completely fine, my nose had started swelling up. I guess on the initial impact of hitting that steel I-beam, I must have smacked my nose on the steering wheel pretty hard, because the bridge of my nose had swollen to about the size of a golf ball. He handed me one of those instant ice packs, and by the time it got good and cold, the swelling of my nose was almost completely gone and it didn't really hurt.
They asked me if I was sure I was OK, if I wanted to ride in the ambulance back to the hospital. I said yes, may as well get checked out. My reason for saying that was totally not for the purpose of getting checked out, but just because I didn't know how I would get home otherwise, and they had already called the ambulance to the scene, so, it wasn't like I was having them come just to give me a ride (they were already there).
Hospital x-rayed my nose, said my nose was fractured, but otherwise I seemed fine and I was discharged pretty quick. I walked home. About half-way home a police car pulls over next to me and the cop gets out and asks if I would answer some questions. Here I was thinking I was basically a hero for being willing to sacrifice my own life (I didn't actually expect to survive) so I tell him my story, just totally honest - he flat out tells me: "I don't believe you". He goes on to explain why: "because, I got out my tape measure, and measured - you caught seventy five feet of air. You don't stay airborne that far, just going 50 MPH."
He wrote me a ticket, "not staying in marked lanes".