Car crash

Matt, just before hitting Pete Tyler on the road. (TV: Father's Day)

A car crash, also known as a car accident or a road traffic accident (abbreviated to RTA), was when a car collided with something else, often another vehicle or a person. Car accidents often resulted in death. They could also affect participants in other ways, such as brain damage (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird) paralysis, (TV: For Tonight We Might Die, Nightvisiting) or recurring heart attacks. (TV: Mummy on the Orient Express)

While the event often wrecked the car or cars involved, sometimes making smoke come out of the engine, the Doctor's TARDIS was entirely unaffected by cars crashing into it. (AUDIO: Blood of the Daleks)

According to "Margaret Blaine", car accidents sometimes happened when visibility was low, such as when it was raining. (TV: Boom Town) Another cause was sometimes alcohol, (TV: Fear Her) or the use of a mobile phone. (AUDIO: The Dead Line)

Rani Chandra said that if things just disappeared all the time, like Clyde Langer's mother Carla did, there would be cars crashed everywhere. (TV: The Empty Planet)

History

20th century

Mary Elson's parents, Reverend Matthew Townsend's brother and sister-in-law, died in a car crash before 1951. (AUDIO: Zagreus)

On 18 August 1951, Eddie and Barbara Smith, companion Sarah Jane Smith's parents, having abandoned their toddler in a pram, were killed when their car collided with a tractor after having attended the Foxgrove Village Fête. Though she didn't find out until much later on life, they did this, in fact, to protect the world from the Trickster. (TV: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith) Sarah Jane was subsequently sent to live with her aunt, Lavinia Smith. (TV: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith, The Day of the Clown)

Sometime in the 1970s, Bernard Forbes was killed in a car accident. While there was a funeral, Krashen later changed history, for money, so that Bernard hadn't died in the accident. When the Third Doctor and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart visited the Forbes home, they found him alive, but slowly losing his mental facilities. After Krashen and his time machine were destroyed, Bernard just vanished. (PROSE: Honest Living)

At some point after leaving UNIT in 1979, Carol Bell was in a car accident that left her with brain damage. (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)

In 1983, classmates Turlough and Ibbotson went for a joyride in Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's antique car and crashed it. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)

In an alternate Earth, Keith Gold was killed in a car accident. (TV: Inferno)

On 7 November 1987 on Jordan Road in London, a beige car with the number plate NEH 793W, driven by Matt, hit and killed Pete Tyler, father of companion Rose. In an altered timeline, Rose Tyler pushed Pete out of the way, and he continued on to the wedding of Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clark. In the end, after Reapers appeared because of the temporal paradox, the only way out of the situation was for Pete to die as he originally did. The car drove down the road in front of the Parish of St Christopher's in a loop; Pete voluntarily ran out in front of the car, and was killed. Rose comforted him as he died. (TV: Father's Day)

At 11:39am on 22 May 1988, Alice was paralysed from the waist down when a Range Rover crashed into her parents' car. Her parents were killed in the accident. (AUDIO: Swan Song)

Carys Fletcher's mother died in a car crash in 1997, leaving her husband a widower. (TV: Day One) Victor Zierath's wife was killed in a car accident, caused by his own carelessness. (PROSE: The Schoolboy's Story)

21st century

Sam Lloyd moved to Saint Anthony's Children Home in Danemouth when his parents died in a car accident in 2001, when the boy was seven years old. (TV : The Mad Woman in the Attic)

On Monday 25 June 2007, Donna Noble purposefully let herself be run over to prevent her past self from turning right, averting the world from which she came. (TV: Turn Left)

Less than an hour after Maggie Hopley's 2008 wedding with Brian Hopley, the couple's car flipped over, and only Maggie survived. A year later, Maggie intended to kill herself, but chose not to after listening to Owen Harper's story about his resurrection and the Pulse. (TV: A Day in the Death)

When April MacLean was 8 years old, her father Huw MacLean purposefully drove off the motorway with April and her mother Jackie in the car. Jackie was paralysed as a result, while her daughter was not hurt. April's father went to prison for causing the crash. (TV: Nightvisiting) Jackie began using a wheelchair, and adapted to her new condition. April took care of her. (TV: For Tonight We Might Die)

In 2009, Jack Harkness crashed the Torchwood SUV. Gwen Cooper and Rhys Williams witnessed the crash, and brought him to the hospital. (AUDIO: The Dead Line) That same year, Alison Lloyd was killed in a car accident, but was only dead for five minutes. When she was revived, a thought-form had attached to her that manifested as her doll Mr Pickles. (PROSE: SkyPoint)

On 8:40AM GMT on a Wednesday in September 2009, numerous RTAs occurred across Earth as a result of the 456 compelling every human child to suddenly stop and proclaim their message: "we are coming." As noted by Torchwood Three, seventeen RTAs all involving children occurred between 8:40 and 8:41 across Britain from Glasgow to St Ives, fifteen occurred in France at 9:40AM French time, along with others in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Bosnia, and Tokyo. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)

Prior to 2012, Chloe Webber's abusive father died in a car crash while drunk. Chloe and her mother Trish Webber thought they were "safe" from him from then onwards. (TV: Fear Her)

Rory Williams implied Amy Pond had been in a road traffic accident while driving his car. (TV: Space)

In 2013, John Foster was killed in a car crash. (COMIC: The Fractures)

In 2014, Mary O'Linne, wife of Tom, was killed in a car accident, three weeks before Tom met Leela. (AUDIO: Second Sight)

Danny Pink was involved in a road traffic accident, being killed by a car. (TV: Dark Water)

In 2016, one of Gregson's colleagues, driving from a meeting, refused to give way to a car driven by a seemingly crazy young girl. The colleague swerved away at the last moment, and died after crashing into a truck. (PROSE: Joyride)

In an alternate timeline, Ibrahim Hadmani was killed in a car accident in the first week of 2018. (PROSE: Auld Acquaintance)

Post-21st entury

On the human colony Red Rocket Rising, Morgan crashed his solar-powered car into the Eighth Doctor's TARDIS while being pressured by "Asha Gryvern" to speed, causing his death. Another passenger within the vehicle at the time of the crash was Eileen Klint; the three were leaving the mob behind, and on the run from them. While the TARDIS was not so much as scratched from the impact, but the car, as described by Lucie Miller, "bounced right the way over the other side of the road". Smoke protruded from the solar cell engine. (AUDIO: Blood of the Daleks)

Professor Emile Moorhouse suffered from regular panic attacks after surviving a car crash the year before his ultimate murder by the Foretold. He was selected by the Foretold because of his weakened state. (TV: Mummy on the Orient Express)

In 2593, Bernice Summerfield heard Alison Tobin wish that her sister Laura would be killed in a car crash. (PROSE: Ship of Fools)

Behind the scenes

• Actor Roger Delgado, who played the original Master, to Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor, died in a car accident on 18 June 1973. In later interviews, Jon Pertwee cited Delgado's death as a contributing factor, along with the departure of Barry Letts as producer, in his decision to leave the series in 1974.
• Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, the 1964 novelisation, changed the meeting of the First Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian in a junkyard in TV: "An Unearthly Child" to a car crash on Barnes Common.