50 Of The Most Painfully Expensive Fails And Accidents

I’m not proud to admit it, but I can relate all too well to these photos, pandas. The one time I bought jeans that weren’t from a thrift store and actually cost a decent amount of money, I managed to get 3 stains on them the first time I wore them. I’ve shattered 2 iPhones, one by dropping it onto a tiled bathroom floor and the other by dropping it down an entire flight of tiled stairs. When I was 16, after having my driver’s license for one month, I got into a fender bender with my very first car. I’ve shattered glasses and plates, left my car windows down during a thunderstorm and destroyed the screen of a laptop only one month after a new one was put on (because the old one also stopped working).

Call it bad luck, clumsiness or karma for something I did in a past life, but I could see some of my possessions ending up on a list like this in the future one day. Many of these photos are even more tragic than anything I’ve experienced, though. I feel for these people, but I also can’t help but laugh. We’re all capable of doing stupid things or making mistakes that we immediately wish we could take back. Whether it’s melting your kid’s PlayStation controllers or driving your truck into a lake, everybody has those days. The important thing is that we learn from our lessons, and perhaps ensure those valuables next time around. 

If you’ve got some photos in your camera roll that would be right at home on this list, don’t feel bad. Many of us do. For example, did you know that every hour, 5,761 phone screens are cracked? That’s over 50 million phone screens a year. These are primarily caused by drops, according to CNBC, and apparently, companies are working hard to solve the issue of creating a great smartphone that won’t shatter when it slips out of your hand.

“Proving that a device is durable is essential to convince people to pay more for a phone,” Francisco Jeronimo, senior research director for European mobile devices at IDC, told CNBC. “Consumers are a lot more concerned about what happens to their phone and it being able to handle certain accidents. When people spend $1,000 on a cellphone, they don’t expect it to crack the first time they drop it on the floor.” But everyone wants a thin, sleek design for their device too, which makes creating a durable phone quite the challenging task. 

Even if phones become more durable than they have been in the past, we can’t stop humans from being clumsy. And apparently, Americans in particular seem to have butter fingers when it comes to holding onto their cell phones. Swns Digital reports that 52% of Americans are “always” worried about their phones. And for good reason, because the average American drops their phone at least four times every week, with most breaks happening within 10 weeks of purchasing the phone. 

“Gravity seems to be a constant challenge when it comes to our smartphones,” JP Brousseau, CEO of PhoneLoops.com, told Swns Digital. “Getting a protective phone case is the first step, but even that can’t always prevent damage to your phone if you drop it. A strap offers the simplest way to keep your grip, even one-handed – and that’s what Phone Loops provide.”    

When it comes to some of the most common places where phones meet their untimely deaths, Swns Digital notes that they’ve been dropped in sewers, on the bathroom floors in bars, in hospital bathrooms, in port-o-potties, in pots of rice, in bowls of soup, in dog’s water bowls, in dumpsters, in beer cups and in trash cans. Personally, my biggest fear is my phone slipping out of my hand and sliding down a drain or through the cracks over a drain, never to be seen again. One in three Americans admitted to even dropping their phone right into the toilet. Beware of that dangerous back pocket! But apparently, nothing can convince us to be more cautious with our phones, because 76% of Americans say they would be completely lost if they were suddenly without a phone. Yet we continue to drop, shatter and destroy them all the time…

Phones aren’t the only electronic devices that are prone to having their life spans cut short, though. According to Secure Data Recovery, 38% of Americans have had to replace a laptop at some point in their lifetime due to one breaking. The most common laptop mishaps include dropping them, spilling a drink on them, cracking the screen, and needing to replace the battery. And these repairs aren’t cheap. On average, Americans spend about $534 on laptop repairs during their lifetimes. Certain states are also more reckless than others when it comes to their laptops, thought. In Nevada, New Hampshire, Maryland, Alabama and Mississippi, over 50% of laptop users admit to having broken one.    

If you’re now scared of your laptop meeting an untimely death, it might be useful to be aware of some of the most common mistakes that lead to a broken laptop. According to Make Use Of, laptop users need to be mindful of keeping their devices cool and avoiding situations where they’re exposed to excess heat. Laptops have fans to expel internal heat, but if the fan gets blocked, it can be extremely dangerous. “Some react to this and will shut down automatically. But others will suffer through the heat as they slowly bake to death,” Make Use Of explains. “Furniture, carpets, and blankets are all surfaces that can wreak havoc on a laptop. Wherever you place your laptop, make sure the vent has a clear path to do its job. Even a pile of books that's too close to your laptop can cause problems if the air exhaust is blocked.”