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Admit Your Most Boneheaded Move While Driving
I'll get it started...
When I was a 16 year old bonehead and was in a real rush to get to the ski hill (Squaw Valley) there was a school bus pulling off the road with its yellow flashers just starting. Since I was already doing about 75 I thought I could beat the reds by punching it up a bit. The bus hit the reds immediately as I was hitting 95 and overtaking it. The bus driver opened his window as I was going by and was waving his arms yelling. I was very lucky no kids were anxious to cross the road to get to school that day. Fast forward 30 years in the P-car after having it a week. I always heard these cars are tail happy so lets see what happens... going around a curve in the rain at a sedate 35 and I goose it. Before I know it, I am turning circles down the oncoming lane with luckily no one in sight. I changed my shorts after that and learned some new respect for driving with gusto in the wet. |
Junior World Rally
20 years ago:
17 years old 1982 Nissan Stanza Snow covered winding country road Dreams of driving in the World Rally Championship Reality: Eat it big time into a snow bank Or 17 years old 1982 Nissan Stanza Street racing against a K-car down a residential street cause he had eyes on my date......get t-boned by the K-car Ohhhhh the shame Last but not least Age 17 Realizing the Mushrooms are starting to kick in. TIME TO PULL THE CAR OVER! :cool: ;) Oh how I miss the good old days |
These are easy!
16 years old, 69 VW, pulled out without looking and a pick up truck caught my front end with its big old bumper and tore my front fender off. It was my HS guidance counselor!!! 17 years old – same car. Didn’t torque the rear hub and did not replace the cotter pin. Was alerted to this fact when my wheel came off at 55!!! |
letting my college roommate drive my jeep cj-5. since i had fallen asleep(lets call it passed out from greek days-j.walsh-eagles-poco-marshall tucker), he flips jeep (3) ******* times and lands right side up out on dirt road headed back to evergreen,co. i was knocked out and re awoke in st. anthonys hospital denver, co.
man ..........that one hurt! a VERY FINE EXAMPLE OF WHAT A CAGE WILL ENDURE at 60mph! that one hurts to remember! |
Does getting a '78 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon airborn count?
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Luv too ,,but have so many there is not roooom here LOL
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My first VW Scirocco was with me my first year of college in Billings, Montana. Red Lodge ski resort was about 45 minutes away. The parking lot was full, so I decided to gun it and drive up a snow bank. That solved my parking issue, but come time to leave and the car is stuck on the snow bank good. There was a pickup that had a big rope and hook, so I borrowed it and some other guy in another truck was kind enough to pull me back onto the parking lot....
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Blew through a stop sign at 16 only to be T-boned by a 1974 New Yorker. All I can say is that I am glad it was the passenger side that took the impact, and that I was alone. If it hit the driver's side, it woudn't have been pretty.
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whilst competing in my first tarmac rally in my newly built 2.7RS replica - heavy rain causes the windscreen to fog mid stage so, whilst going downhill at speed, i reach down to pull on the heater lever and grab the handbrake instead...
this of course pitches the car into a slide. i manage to release the lever and regain control. i wait 3 days before explainig what happened to my navigator - who doesn't see the funny side... footnote: 3 years later my navigator decides i'm a bit off the pace and call a "7left, tightens" simply as a "7 left". we barely make it through the corner - he waits 6 months before 'fessing up... |
pushed in the clutch, assuming the cruise control would shut down! Wrong! at least I know the rpm limiter in my Steve Wong chip works!!
Keith Epperly 87 slant nose turbo look carrera cabrolet |
Two-bone reminded me of an 'altered state' experience in college. My roommate, the consumate druggy/head was always getting stronger more powerful bud. When his 67 Vette was broken he bribed me to drive him to class, 20 mins one way, with his latest most potent purchase. WTF, why not? We smoked, toked, and joked all the way to UCI. The stuff really didn't feel all that strong when we got to school. I dropped him off and started the drive back. I cranked up the tuneage and was enjoying myself when time started slowing like I have never experienced. I was going 20 over the limit and felt like I was at a crawl. Rather than step it up to feel like I was actually moving, paranoia crept in and thought, "Man if I get busted for driving high, I will be in deep s***", so I backed it down to dead on the limit. That probably looked even more in suspicious.
All of a sudden I couldn't feel the accelorator, bake pedal, or clutch. When I stabbed at them, nothing seemed to happen. Worse yet, I couldn't feel the steering wheel in my hands. I saw my hands on it, but couldn 't feel it. Then, OMG, the road turned into a snake and I had to drive on top of the double yellow for fear of sliding down the sides into the ditches. To he** with the cops, I was trying to survive. Then I snapped out of it and remembered the road should be flat. The signal about a quater mile ahead turned red. How am I going to stop the car if I can't feel the brake - well I pushed and pushed and the car started slowing and slowing and slowing and... I must have been going 5 MPH with 1/8th of a mile to go. Just before the signal, I pulled off the road and parked it. I can't drive! Then paranoia again. "what if the cops come by and see me on the side of the road with bright red eyes and unable to talk?" Time to hit the road again. To make a too long story short, I did make it through the light and the next 3 lights and felt like it took 3 hours to get home. When I got home I couldn 't study, I could only stare. So I flipped on the tube until my friend came home from class two hours later. He walked in the door and said, "How did you like the new Bud? I had problems taking notes today, but I think the stuff has more promise in a bong." All I could do was just stare and say, "Yeah". |
this is good stuff! LMFAO! and yes getting a ford anything AIRBORNE WILL QUALIFY! hahahaLOL
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Rick
Don’t feel bad, you're not alone . . . decades ago, in my teens, acid, my father’s ’65 Ford Galaxie 500 & a 3-mile drive home. Sort of like your story . . . it felt like I was inside an insect . . . never again . . . Ian |
Riding a motorcycle home from college classes, it started to rain, so I decided to seek shelter. I took a slow corner at rapid pace and the bike immediately slid out from under me and we both went sliding on the pavement for about 20 feet. It was a humiliating experience, luckily only minor road rash.
Lesson learned at 20yrs old, never did that again!! |
good morning . this is ford aviation, how may we help you? LOL!
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I had one of the very first Boxsters--press car--in the late '90s and was doing a Conde Nast Traveler "Great Drive" in Northern California with it. Crossing a long, two-lane, humpbacked bridge with solid guardrails--I was too stupid to realize it was a bridge and not the road to infinity--and I pulled out to pass a pickup, and I was doing about 70 when a Buick appeared over the top of the bridge about 20 car-lengths ahead. Since I had the top down, I clearly heard the pickup driver lock his brakes to allow me to pull back in. He was _way_ more competent a driver than I was at that moment. Probably still is.
My wife was in the right seat, and to this day I have bad dreams about how close we came to an idiotic head-on, all my fault. |
OK, another, but it happened to a friend - honest! My friend's brother bought a new Boxter right after they were put on the market. My friend's brother kept urging him to drive the car, saying that "You will love it!". My friend finally gave in (what a problem - I would have been all over it) on a sunny day up in the hills. When my bud starts driving it, his brother says, "Don't drive it like a minivan, really put your foot into it". After hear that about 3 times, my friend really puts the pedal down, hits a curve going in way too hot as his brother is yelling "Slow the F down!" he takes the car airborn into a tree and totals it. His brother has never asked him to drive another of his P-cars since.
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there have been so many.. let me see.. as an adult, it would have to be my continuing quest to make it to my office in Albany in under 3 hours. Last year I almost made it, but even though the car was running out of gas(!), I elected to press on at high speed, record almost in hand, knowing a stop would cost 10 minutes(this ain't NASCAR after all). Luckily I had a Thruway Authority phone # and pleaded my case and got some gas delivered to my location on the shoulder of the road in Colonie, just short of my exit! Missed the record again.. dumb, so dumb.
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Way back when I was a sophmore in high school a friend of mine and I were asked to collect bull frogs for the biology class. I used to live in a rural town in the San Joaquin Valley then. We went frog hunting from dusk till about one o clock in the morning. We had collected about 100 - 120 bull frogs. (very alive) We kept them in a large icechest in the back of my 1969 VW Bug. On the way home we decided to go into the local supermarket parking lot and cause some mischief. Well we got spotted by one of the local PD. Being young and thinking we could get away with anything, we took off! Lights out, hauling a$$ down a country road. The cop was about a quarter mile behind when we exit stage right off a side road. Dive into the nearest driveway and hit the deck. The cop cruised by all the houses in the area and finally left. Meanwhile....we realized that the icechest with all the frogs had dumped over. We got all of them back into the icechest and took off for home. I didn't figure out for a couple weeks why the car did not have full throttle after our little adventure. Time (and smell) has a way of telling you whats wrong. I found one of our bigger bull frogs squashed behind the gas pedal. http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/...s/krakrani.gif
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Gmeteer, I'm gonna have Spitzer on your case...
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not entirely my fault but not blameless either.....
In my Toyota 4-Runner (the older ones with a fiberglass top and built in roll bar) with my wife, skis, boots, snowboards, clothing bags, food etc. Going up skiing in the spring and cruising at a comfortable 60 or so on an empty highway. No snow on the ground at this point and a beautiful blue sky day. As the road was winding along a river I came around one bend and the truck immediately drifted in to a full lock oversteer. We were in black ice from tree shadows across the road. I correct and do a decent job of getting the end swapping in hand and then the ice ended. With the newly reintroduced friction and still sideways, both right hand side tires were pulled off their beads and deflate. We snap over and land on the roof, continue rolling and sliding down the road and end up wheels down backed into an embankment over a ditch. I got my wife out and we walked across the road. Almost immediately an EMT on his way up to the mountain stopped and helped us out. Now it was just waiting for the police/ambulance. Truck was a complete write-off. There was not one straight body panel or intact window left in the truck. Both seats were broken There was NOTHING loose left inside. The skis were suspended across the ditch with the truck on top (and toast), snowboards, boots, clothing were scattered up the road. How we escaped with only whiplash and no serious injuries I have no idea. But what I cannot understand is watching a truck that had been behind us before the whole thing happened, drive by looking at us after we stopped moving. They never even lifted. |
It's New Year's Eve 1972, I'm 16 and have had my license for about 4 months. Four buddies and I decide we want to go spend the night in Pasadena and watch the Rose Parade in the morning. My dad throws me the keys to the "old" car, a 1964 Ford Galaxie, with the reminder to take it easy because the trans was starting to slip.
I think dear old dad already had a couple shots that night and he forgot how bad that trans really was, because this car wasn't driven often. Anyway, the 5 of us got about 2 miles from home and that was it, no movement in any forward gear. But good news... reverse still worked!! That's right, we... errr I, backed that beast up on city streets the whole way home. It's almost midnight and cars are approaching our headlights like they were avoiding the death-ray laser. I think we scared a few people almost to death. Amazingly, we made it home safely and without getting arrested. |
Steve, Elliot Spitzer showed up in our town for a fund raiser last winter at the Knights of Columbus hall, driving a blue Chev. Impala, all alone! (of course he was only a candidate then) Maybe there is hope for us New Yorkers! The usual way these guys arrive is in a fleet of white Suburbans, with a full posse, so I think he is genuinely a different breed. But probably not part of the fast cars and risky behavior breed. Glenn
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I was pulling out of a parking lot, crossing two lanes of bumper to bumper traffic and one turning lane.
Some one waves me by, I floor it, cross the two lanes, I hear a loud bang, tought someone got in an accident. It was me getting Tboned, some one was flying in the turn lane. Luckly I was going fast enough that I just spun. the guy got cited, he hit me in my driver's door. Thank God for my lead foot :). Never will I trust anyone waving me by again. Gino |
Driving to college one morning I decide its too cold to clean the mirrors off real well. the alley way is narrow and I'm driving a ford f=150 with my fathers piggy back camper. Little old lady is driving in middle of alley so I move over to the right as far as possible. All of a sudden the front of the truck picks up into the air and comes bouncing down. I continue to drive until I have to make a left and notice the truck feels lighter and there is no longer a camper on the back of the truck. I hit a big tree branch just high enough to scrape the camper off and not hit the truck. Funny thing was I couldn't stop laughing and the cop wasn't amuzed. Sides of truck bed were facing out and camper was a complete lose. Explaining it to my father was even better!
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In 1972 at the ripe old age of 16 I went sailing into a left handed curve way too fast on wet streets. Lost control of my pride and joy, a 1966 Mustang fastback I bought out of a junkyard a year earlier and spent 12 months scrimping and saving to to repair a blown 4 speed tranny and roaring rear end.
Wrapped the right rear quarter panel around a small tree. Never could afford to fix it right so I beat it out with a sledge hammer and spray canned it. After a year or so sold it for $500...after all old Mustangs were relatively disposable at the time. Oh yeah, did I mentioned the Mustang beater was a real, live Shelby GT 350H (one of the Hertz rent-a-racer cars)? At the time it was a just beat up old 'stang with a gaudy black and gold paint job. Nowadays restored ones are into the low six figures. Oh well...live and learn |
20 years old:
Agreed to drive my passed out friend back to the States from a bar in Canada (lower drinking age) in his 93 Probe GT. He woke up for two minutes before we hit the border and insulted a row of bouncers closing out the bar that we left, just before passing out again. Within 5 minutes I had 5 bouncers chasing me all over downtown Windsor, Canada in their RX-7. We were going against traffic at 75 mph. After hitting a Neon at 10 mph, I thought I lost them when I pulled into what I thought was a dark road. It turned out to be a truck loading dock with grass sides at really steep angles. When they found me and boxed me in there was nothing to do but floor it up the edge, getting the Probe about 2 feet airborn and cracking all of the ground effects. We used up so much fuel in the chase that I ran out of gas in the middle of downtown Detroit once me made it across the border. Good Times, Good Times. |
Driving my Aston Martin in college back from a bar totally drunk I pass a car and miss an oncoming semi by less than 10 feet and he hits his horn and I'm thinking what is his problem? I can't believe I'm still alive. For those of you who don't know, I bought the car for nothing in the service as a piece of junk.
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Big Midwest blizzard, 1982. Coming down hill into corner in '72 Honda Civic, tapped brakes, slid right into freshly plowed snow mountain - buried past doors, over roof, had to escape through hatchback! Pulled car out with neighbor's 1000 cc snowmobile and nylon tow strap.
Fun fact: Other neighbor's silver Cosworth Vega had all the driver's side sheet metal shaved off by snowplow driver who didn't realize there was something under those five-foot drifts. |
Running off turn 3 @ Sebring seems to be tops on my list.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1168034067.jpg
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Back to bonehead driving moves. I've had a few, but the most recent and really memorable was at Willow Springs driving the '71S going into 3 on the cool down lap. I was at about 75% when this guy comes barreling in behind me still at racing speed. He had an instructor, too!! I looked in my mirror just long enough to get unnerved and did not hit the gas when I was supposed to, just turning in at, as I say, 75%. Well, you know the tail snapped around and I went into the ditch, hit the embankment and bounced back. It messed up the car pretty good. 3 bent wheels, bent steering and crossmember. All at 50 MPH. But, it was my fault entirely letting this bozo spook me. That will NEVER happen again. In the future, under the same circumstances, either he will hit me or I will hit him. Now I know it's still my line, cool down lap or not. |
My First Skip Barber race, at LRP. I start in p9..after nerves settle, start working my way through field, faster and faster thru downhill..racecraft working well. On the 2nd to last lap, I guess (no radio) that I am in p3, and p2 is directly in front of me headed into downhill. I gain some speed on him in dnhill, and head into big bend VERY hot, neck and neck with him. At the limits of traction mid-turn, there isa pile of dirt from soemone else's off...I loop it 180 degrees stopping in middle of track. In Barber series, if you go 4 off, there is a 10 or 20 second time penalty. So I curse, turn around (4 off) andfinish 6th.
BAD: It turns out that theguy I was chasing was not p2, I was LAPPING him (no radio) WORSE: Once spun, I could have yanked the wheel, popped the clutch, kept 2 on the track, and finished p3 and podium! BETTER: I had the 2nd fastest lap time of the race :cool: |
That is hysterically unfortunate. What a great story!
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(In Orange County westbound on Garfield between Brookhurst and Bushard. Stay in the right hand lane over the drainage channel. It is a very smooth landing at 95. Make sure you take your foot out of it while in the air so it doesn't over rev.) |
Around 1976, I was leaving my high school in my father's beloved '68 Cougar. On the school driveway, right in front of the school, as school was letting out & everyone was loading onto the buses, I decided to "gas it" a bit.
There were lots of wet leaves on the drive, & the next thing I knew I was sliding across the wet grass, brakes locked, heading for the woods. I hit a tree head-on. LOTS of witnesses...not my finest moment. FYI, when braking on wet grass (pre-ABS) it felt like the car was actually accelerating -- it was definitely NOT slowing down! Thankfully nobody was hurt (my brother was with me) & Dad was very understanding. Oh, when my senior yearbook came out I discovered that I had won the coveted "Car Meets Tree" award. Doug |
Driving a truck that was lifted to high in a rush. I started to go down the wrong street so I came to a quick stop, checked my rearview, since I saw no cars (it was late and night and there were barely any cars on the road) I gassed it in reverse so I could get back on the right street....I had forgotten that my rearview mirror had fallen off while off roading the week before, but I remembered as I came to a screeching halt on a saturn sl2. I felt like the biggest jerk while trying to explain to this lady that was in the car why I just ruined her car By the time I stopped my tires were where the saturn's hood met its windshield.
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When I think about my early years driving I feel lucky to be a alive... and lucky to not have taken out anyone else.
Just out of high school I was following a friend's '83 Prelude in my 260Z. We were heading to another friends house. As we entered the subdivision my friend took off. I followed. We were going >70 mph through the winding roads up and down hills. At the crest of one hill that was on a curve, my Z got a bit airborne and landed in the center of the road. I backed off at that point. |
Re: Admit Your Most Boneheaded Move While Driving
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In 1979, driving my brand new Fiat Brava 131 in Newport Beach, CA, I saw three bikini clad babes on the side of the road and before I could stop admiring them, I rear ended a brand new 1979 911SC. It was the first time I saw a grown man (the Porsche owner) cry and attempt murder at the same time. Thank heavans he had a friend with him who kept him from killing me.
The repairs on the Porsche shocked my father, especially the $1200 for the specialty exhaust system that the guy had on it that had to be replaced. After owning Porsches for almost 20 years now, I can understand both the crying and the attempted murder. |
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