Admit Your Most Boneheaded Move While Driving

[cicsprog]

Coming home from U of I for XMAS break (snow floor and snowing) around Cascade Idaho, my passenger side front tire caught the edge of the deep snow. I over corrected and swerved (sideways) in to on coming lane - a snowplow dead ahead. I managed to get back in the proper lane before engaging the snowplow blade. I must of looked like John Candy and Steve Martin in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" when they passed between the two semis. Pulled over and emptied my pants after I stopped shaking. Stopped in Cascade Idaho for a six pack. 1970 Plymouth Duster (piss yellow with black stripes, black interior - except for brown stain on driver seat).

Jason
88 911 CAB

[Flyer88]

Originally posted by Dantilla
My airborn wagon experience took place in a 1975 Chevy Caprice Estate.

76 Buick Estate Wagon here.

[MAS956]

Late for school one morning, I was driving dad's '71 Pinto (complete with exploding gas tank AND Firestone 500 tires) and apparently following too closely an old coot in a 60's-something T-Bird who decides to make a WIDE right hand turn. I got spooked I was going to ram him so I jerked left while locking up the brakes and did a 180 into oncoming traffic. I braced for impact thinking about that gas tank but luck was on my side that day as the oncoming car saw what was happening and was able to navigate around me.

Same car later that year, I was getting on the fwy in San Jose, rowing through the gears. As I get to 3rd, I shift and the whole shifter down to the linkage came off in my hand. I'd say the car was cursed, but really, I think it was your ruin-of-the-mill Ford Pinto.

[zotman72]

Coming down a steep, black ice covered, two lane road hill in Eastern Washington with my '72 Westy doing about 45 mph. I decide rather than using brakes, I will downshift into 3rd and let the engine slow me down. Four 360s later I am in the ditch on the right side of the road and thinking that my downshift was about the stupidest thing I have ever done... Bless that old bus, she did not roll and she climbed right out of the ditch and we went back home to think about more important things than getting to work on time.

[bigrubberjeep]

Age 21

Coming home from a long night at the dance club

Driving home @ 3:30AM alone (no jokes please)

Started getting sleapy after 30 minutes of driving with no traffic on the freeway

I rolled down windows

Blast the newest RAP album in my cd case, I think it was Doggy Style by Snoop Dog at the time

Still Sleepy

Roll down all windows in my 85 Subaru GL AWD Turbo

Still sleepy

decide to put the car in cruise control going 85MPH

sleepier

decide to recline the seat back a bit since back hurt from driving and dancing all night

I see over-pass ahead about 2 miles

BANG!!!!!!!!!!!!

I fell asleep at the wheel in the fast lane, hit the center divider and I see the bottom of the overpass because my car is facing the sky

it slams to the freeway collapsing all 4 shocks and skids on it's belly all the way to the shoulder

not a single car passes by for like 10 minutes while I sit in shock

Call my best friend who drags me off the freeway with his truck.

I walked away without a scratch and beleive it or not, so did the car even after gettign airborn for about 20 yeards, as a matter of fact, it fired right up.

[madmmac]

This may not be the dumbest, but it was one of the funniest and we still laugh about it today.

In High School after a football game, my best buddy says there is a party and to follow him there and to park right behind him because there is going to be lots of people.

He's in his Jeep and I am driving my parents car because my Jeep is broke.....again.

It's raining and has been raining for quite awhile. He pulls up to the house and parks right on the lawn, I pull right up behind him just like he said to, get out and lock Mom and Dad's car.

About this time he floors his Jeep, lawn, mud and rocks are flying everywhere. I'm getting plastered, the car is getting plastered and the sound is pretty defeaning due to his exhaust and gas pedal being floored. In 4wd, on a very wet lawn, with a built 327 and huge tires, I think it may have been and still is a record for a Lawn Job.

He's peeling out and pulling away, I'm fumbling for my keys and outdoor lights are coming on and the front door is opening.

Out comes one of our pain in the A$$ city policemen with a bat. I barely got back into the car by the time he came out. He's standing right in front of the car holding the bat and not looking very happy.

I am running my brain as fast as I can to try to make up an excuse. I come up with that I was following a guy that appeared to be drunk and was trying to get his license plate number when he pulled onto his lawn, floored it and left me there.....he takes the bait.

I offer to help him fix his lawn since my car had just done a little amount of damage and said a "friend" of mine would probably help.

Long story short, me and my Bud help him fix his lawn and that pain in the A$$ policeman becomes a good friend....and we did admit finally that there was no drunk guy.

[BReyes]

If I had to pick one incident- the first one ever.

16 y/o Bright summer afternoon. I turn left on Roosevelt going into Key West (heading toward the beach), distracted by bikini clad women to my right at the Days Inn pool...screach. Mild fender bender into right rear of lady turning left into VA hospital.

And the last le tmy cousin drive my 3.2, and he takes three of his nephews. They come back he throws me the keys - one of the boys goes wheeuuuu when he shifted it goes screach and goes fast.


Somebody bring me a diet Pepsi.

[TWork]

I wasn't driving, and we were probably doing 2-3 miles an hour, but here goes...

17 years old. Three of us. I'm riding shotgun and one guy in back of my buddy's 80's two door accord. We pull into Burger King heading down the drive through lane. Meanwhile, there's a Jeep Cherokee full of older college guys heading down the hill from a ski trip driving in the parking lot. The guys look like they've been living in their SUV for the last month. I start cracking jokes poking fun (bedhead, etc, etc.). Of course, they can't hear me because the windows up. Unfortunately, as we're getting boxed into the drive through lane waiting to place our order, the guy in the back of the car is getting a little too exuberant and flips the college guys the bird -- unbeknownst to me and my buddy driving.

I start thinking outloud, "what the 'eff? It sure looks like those dudes are walking over to our car... There's no way they heard what I was saying..." Finally, one of the guys makes his way to the driver's door with his four buddies in tow, sticks his head in the window and asks, "Did you just flip me off little boy...?" My buddy driving and I just turn are heads in disbelief, "Did you just flip him off?!?" My friend promptly sets the e-brake, steps out of the car and says, "you can have him, just don't get any blood on the car..." Definitely good times.

[Larry_Ratcliff]

About 21 years ago I was hot rodding around my 71 corvette with a 454 and proceeded to take a corner at speed thinking oh its a corvette its supposed to handle well.... Lets just say it all got ugly from there... (note either of my porsches could take the same corner at the same speed with ease) the big block nose heavy sucker pushed like nobodys buisness and I would up in a field. Almost 3K worth of front end work and it was ready to drive again. Nothing like 450 hp in a car that handles like a delivery truck

[Jeff Alton]

17 years old, driving dad's new Audi 4000 up a really steep hill in a local seaside community with a hot girl in the passenger seat...... Going the speed limit (give or take) as we cross a cross street. The car gets a little "light" and comes down hard on the upslope on the far side of the intersection. There is a sudden loud tapping noise, I pull over, turn off the motor and get out. The hill is covered in oil because I punched a hole in the pan when the suspension compressed and what I heard was the crank webs hitting the dent/hole in the oil pan......

Call dad to say "ummm something is wrong with the car". He drives out there to get us and I try to convince him some ba$tard kids must have put a big rock in the intersection.......

Just last night (some 20years later) he reminds about the "rock" over dinner and a glass of wine!

I guess my son has a free one comming....

Cheers

[wheatdog]

17yrs old. Me and my bud sneak out his Dad's 67 Plymouth Belvedere 383 at about 2AM. Incredible tire smoking machine. Running around Ft. Benning military base doing burnouts and smoking hash. We cut out into the middle of a huge equestrian jumping field to do some drifting in the grass. I spotted one of the horse jumps that was a huge hedge of bushes. "Bust through it!" I hollered at the driver while I lit off another 1/2gm chunk. Unbeknownst to us, the hedge was reinforced with sawed off telephone pole pilings driven into the ground amidst the bushes. The hedge did not give an inch. The Belvedere's front end was destroyed. My bud lost teeth to the steering wheel while I took out the windshield with my head. Not only that but I lost my goddam hashish. Serious bummer. We hauled ass back home on foot and reported the car stolen the next day. The Provost Marshall(military chief of police), who knew us both too well called us in to throw the bull***** flag. We stuck to our guns however and just barely avoided the stomping we should have gotten from our Airborne Ranger fathers. Serious close call.

Mike

[YTNUKLR]

Let's see...the best I can come up with is this one time when I was just over 16 years old, never having had any true track experience besides racing some go karts....

I had a volkswagen GTI (Mk IV) w/ a VR6, and I had just done all this work on the suspension: springs, shocks, bushings, strut tie bars, swaybars, everything I could (that's the only part of the car I modified, ran out of money). So, I wanted to see how it worked, went and picked up my buddy and headed up Angeles Crest.

mind you, this GTI is about 60/40 F/R weight distribution, with a massive rear swaybar...I had previous incidents pushing through turns and it irked the nuts off me, so I decided to set the swaybar to its max setting, 600 lb/in.

My car now absolutely DIVES into turns and sticks like glue, I'm blown away, so I start getting really confident, pushing it harder and harder. I knew the roads pretty well but I didn't have every turn down pat, and I was still getting used to the car. Then there was this one little right-hand turn that I didn't remember being so quite so darn TIGHT...ends up I'm basically cornering this thing like a 911, sideways, opposite-lock left, full throttle at about 55mph (IN A FWD CAR)!

As if that weren't enough for an inexperienced driver to deal with, some bozo was crossing the double yellow coming down the hill....TOWARDS ME!! I thought that he/she (wasn't paying attention) was going to smack my left rear quarter, and spin me off a cliff (uh, 1000 feet down?), my life was flashing before me, then somehow I knew he/she passed and I *hadn't* heard a god-awful smack noise, I continued through the turn, straightened the car out and turned around at the next turn out (wish I'd had a change of shorts). I didn't know what my friend's reaction was, precisely, but he must have jumped out of his ****** skin when he realized what we were doing.

Somehow....somehow....nothing happened!!! Uh....time to go to Willow Springs to learn how to drive.

Damn, that was dumb.

[oldE]

Notice how so many of these begin:"Well, I was 19..."

Well, I was 19, headed home from work on what had been a -20 degree day, when it started to rain. My teenage brain had never before encountered freezing rain conditions so I continued on at speed, until I noticed the cars I met were crawling. At that point, some neurons start firing and I realize there was a limited amount of traction.
On the next crest, I saw a neighbor coming down a hill in a P/U with her two boys standing on the seat (pre seatbelt days) and thought, "Oh-oh. Don't want to hit her!" and lifted.
The resultant trailing throttle oversteer proved immune to countersteering attempts before the car swapped ends (and after) and settled out after 270 degrees, leaving the car sliding sideways along the shoulder, until the rear wheel dug in.
The slow-motion roll as the poor old car (a '67 Acadian, Pontiac's Canadian version of a Chevy II) made it's way onto its roof gave me lots of time to appreciate just how much dirt accumulated on the floor and under the seats. I switched off the ignition, rolled down, (up?) the window and crawled out. The front wheels were still turning. Hmm...guess I hadn't hit the brakes.

The neighbor gave me a ride home. Dad & I went out with the tractor and a chain, rolled it over again and dragged it home. So much for my first car.

Les

[adomakin]

15 yrs ago, driving home from the club, high on Ecstasy, four up, music pumping, feeling very invincible, went for the show stopping handbrake turn into my mates road.....thought i was doing about 30.....was probably doing 60....trashed the car. we were ok though. those were the days!!

[rcooled]

About 10 years ago, the friends I was visiting up in N. Calif suggested driving up a fire road to a nearby mountain top to take in the incredible view. It was getting late in the day, so the 4 of us decide that we probably shouldn't take their small pickup 'cause it's getting chilly and nobody wants to ride in the back. "No problem", I say....."We can take our rental car". So we all climb into the T-bird and off we go. After driving 5 miles up a rock-strewn dirt road, we reach the top, check out the view, then start back down. Although trying my best to avoid the rocks, I soon hear the inevitable "thunk" and the motor immediately starts clattering like crazy. I shut it off and climb out to see this rapidly expanding puddle of oil running out from under the car. How are we gonna get back to town......how am I gonna explain this to the rental company? We lucked out and got a ride down from a guy who was up there cutting fire wood and who also happened to have a friend with a tow truck. For 100 bucks, he hauled the car back down to the highway and I told the rental company that I hit a rock in the road. They couldn't prove otherwise and just gave us another car. Lesson learned....no more off-roading in cars with no ground clearance.