Car accident in Iceland

In November 2019, Erik and I had a severe accident with our old Toyota Landcruiser and in many ways lucky to still be alive. We are not the first to be in an accident in Iceland due to snowy slippery roads. Quite many of our colleagues and friends have had similar experiences with their cars and luckily all survived, but it’s still a scary experience to go through. Both our dogs were with us in the car, and we can most likely thank the strong frame of the Landcruiser for all of us still being in one piece. In addition, we were lucky when the car rolled over that we didn’t end up in the lake we were driving next to and that we didn’t hit any of the big boulders lying next to the road. Instead we ended up on grass next to the lake, but the car was completely damaged and the front doors jammed. Luckily, we had friends driving after us and they could help us out through the back door. Not sure we could have managed it on our own. They later drove us to the emergency and all the way home to Reykjavík. I hereby want to thank these friends, Eydís Lindal Finnbogadóttir and husband so much for their help and support that day!

As the old Landcruiser is no more, the search started for a new Landcruiser. Erik needs such a car when doing fieldwork in the highlands in the interior of Iceland. We received good help in this car search from colleague Steini, and he and Erik finally found a newer Landcruiser from 2015, which they both liked. It has the big tires you need for crossing rivers in the highlands, and since we are now extra cautious about safety, we made sure to buy both winter stud tires and good summer tires for the car. This should hopefully ensure such an accident will not happen to us again!