Drivers Ed Idiot

[DW SD]

I have a friend who lives on a very steep hill in Los Altos, CA. It is pretty rural for Silicon Valley. Jeff was 20 and living with his parents.

He was on his way to grab a bite to eat. At the bottom of his hill (about 1/4 mile and very steep) he realized he forgot his wallet. It was in the room attached to the garage on the lower level. Jeff drives into his driveway, walks into the garage and into the room to grab his wallet. He gets it, comes out and sees his car BACKING DOWN the driveway!!!

The car was picking up speed!! Due to gravity (it was a '68 stang with a BIG V-8 in the nose) the car flipped around and headed nose first down the hill.

Jeff ran after it, but couldn't catch up.

The car took off to the right plowing through driveways, fence posts and mailboxes. At the bottom of the hill it is so steep a retaining wall separates the driveways. (If I coast down the hill I hit about 50mph at the bottom - it is steep!)

Well Jeff's car makes it to the bottom and jumps off of the retaining wall onto the last neighbor's driveway and hits......a Porsche. Flattens the damned thing!!

So the police come, ask him for license......his wallet.... OH yeah, he dropped it up the hill when he took off to run after the car. So Jeff hikes up the hill spots his wallet and bends down to grab it.........A FREAKIN' SKUNK jumps out of the adjacent bush and sprays him!!! NO $HIT it was UNREAL! WHAT a day for Jeff!

Hope you feel better. True story. Took Jeff a while to pay for and install all of the mailboxes, fence posts, etc. His parents made him pay for everything. The Porsche was paid for by insurance.

[Bobboloo]

Dang DW. Talk about insult to injury. There are some days you just shouldn't get out of bed.

[limble]

Originally posted by Kayser28
Coincidentally, my wife is also named Porsche.

I used to work with a woman whose name was Shelby. I used to think that was the coolest name for a woman. I guess now I have a new favorite.
Outside of my wifes name of course.
These boards have ears you know.

[CBRacerX]

Sorry about your misfortune, but think of it as a "feature" from now on.

I once had a clutch cable break in my '75 while in Philly. I used the "start it in gear" feature to drive the car 40 miles home. Quite a few lights! But it can be done and you just shift carefully once you get going. I seem to recall reading about using this "feature" in the John Miur books on fixing VWs.

Good luck with the repairs. Let us know the knickname...

[oldE]

Twenty five years ago, I worked for a dairy, delivering milk, door to door, when the regular drivers were off. The trucks were curbside delivery vehicles with sliding doors on the cabs. Some of them had 'Mico Lock" park brakes, a valve on the brake line to hold pressure after you took your foot off of the pedal.
Rolling to a stop in front of a house one afternoon, I set the brake lock and picked up a carton of milk. This customer used to put tokens in a small jar on a stump in the front yard. As I approached the stump. I realized there was no token, so turned around in time to see my truck rolling backward down the street! I realized I had only put enough pressure on the brakes to halt the truck's forward motion as it rolled to a stop, but NOT enough to keep it from rolling back down the hill!
Dropping the carton, I sprinted out the driveway and across the road, aiming for the open side door. I managed to dive into the truck, slam both hands down on the brake pedal and bring the thing to a crashing halt, still in its lane and on course for the intersection and embankment about 100 yards further back.
All I had to do after that was pick up the tumbled milk cases in the back, retrieve the carton from the lawn and nurse my sore ribs for a week or so.
Another driver told me he had been in the back of his truck in a similar situation. Needless to say, these vehicles no longer rely upon brake line locks.
The main difference between genius and stupidity is: Genius has limits.
Les

[defcon65]

I'm a little late to this thread but couldn't resist a similar, but more scary story:
I worked in a small art foundry about 15 years ago. We had an electric forklift with a bad accelerator/rheostat thing that had a tendancy to slip or stick and lurch/takeoff with little warning. It was really a frightening thing and an accident waiting to happen. Well, it did. One day while moving pallet racks, another worker dismounted the lift with the wheels cocked slightly right and a 10' rack resting on the forks. It lurched forward and took off across the shop floor towards the showroom. No one knew what to do, we just froze and stared in disbelief. Enroute, one end of the rack knocked over a 100 lb full oxy cylinder - you know those protective collars that screw over the valve? Didn't have one. Tank fell over against a concrete step, shearing off the valve. Now we had a rocket flying across the floor in the opposite direction of a runaway forklift. We knew what to do then, and ran like hell. The tank punched clean through a steel door on the office, demolished a desk, file cabinet and water cooler, then punched through the exterior wall of the foundry and skidded around in the street to the amazement of an Amish family, in buggy, on their way to the livestock sale barn. OK, back to the forklift, which by this time had taken out the entire dividing wall between the shop and showroom, demolishing an Anderson french door and knocking over a fridge. It kept going through the seating area and display tables, knocking over most of the inventory before wedging itself against a concrete foundation wall and the side of a very large, tall compressed airtank, which began to wobble. The wheels were still spinning and heavy smoke was pouring out of the accelerator control - great! Nothing like a fire in an oxygen-enriched environment! By this time, we were all ready for a pants-rinsing when the lift just died, stopped working. One of the sculptors grabbed a fire extinguisher and hosed down the smoking lift. Amazingly, no one was injured, nothing caught fire, no one else's property got damaged and the Amish family's assessment of how foolish we English really were didn't change a bit. We ditched the electric lift for a propane-powered, repaired the damage and made damn sure those tank collars were always installed. It was the god-damndest thing I ever saw and frightening as hell. It was over in like, ten seconds.

[Zeke]

I guess the time I was leaning way over from the pass side in my one time Jag XJ6 and knocked the shifter into reverse from neutral as the car was idling doesn't compare to this. Parking brake was off. Anyway, one is rather helpless hanging outside of the wrong side of the car.

[Cornpanzer]

Originally posted by defcon65
We ditched the electric lift for a propane-powered, repaired the damage and made damn sure those tank collars were always installed.

Wow, as a lift-truck salesman and ex-tech, all I can say is WOW. What should have been ditched is anyone who knew that this unit was flawed and did not take it out of service!
I shudder thinking about what could have happened! I laughed that they replaced the electric truck with LP as if a total disregard for safety and repair is more "OK" with an LP truck. LOL

I once rode an industrial floor scrubber through the wall of our shop because it had the same type of "shoot through" in its Curtis controller. Unfortunatly nobody had tagged it or locked it out assuming that "everyone" in the shop knew about the problem. Uhhhh....what about us field techs who only come to the shop occasionally?

The things that I have seen companies do over the years has been pretty awe inspiring. I was working on a 480v electric truck battery charger one day. It was wired into a quick disconnect control lever about two feet away. So, I threw the lever to "OFF" and stuck my hand into the charger and lit up like a CHristmas tree!!!! Turns out that the maintenance manager had bypassed the faulty switch and never replaced it. He had the balls to get sanctemonious with me saying that I should have checked it with my meter (which is true, I never made that mistake again) totally disregarding the fact that he had illegally tampered with a safety device in a public building.

One company had a large elevator in thier three or four story plant. One day, one of the employees tried to put a forklift in the elevator thinking that it weighed about the same as his car...........quick trip to the basement!

[p911dad]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune, but it brings to mind a mishap that befell two of my older agents in my office(now both retired thankfully!). They pulled into the Dunkin Donuts lot near here to get coffee. They got their java and got back into the car, but "John" decided he forgot something and handed "Paul" his cup to hold while he got out of the car. So now Paul is holding 2 steaming cups. Whoops, John forgot the car was already in reverse and he somehow got out of the way as it took off backwards driverless into a State Police cruiser just across the lot(checking on donut security no doubt). Bullseye!! They didn't fess-up right away, but it all came out after they filed the damage report on the car, and John started laughing. Paul couldn't move because he couldn't get rid of the coffee fast enough and ended up wearing it!

[TRE Cup]

Oh cool- more reminds me of stories. Ok- i'll play- we had a client here on student visa from some mid eastern country. Parents bought him a full on zoot suit slant nosed cab. He comes over so we can do some service- he is just so enthralled with the car- he keeps going over to it every 5 minutes to touch this , look at that. We finish the service and back it off the ramp. He drives it around the block to check it out and parks it at a jaunty angle facing the street, then comes in to pay. As he is ready to leave, he reaches in and starts the car- where upon it backs up into our building denting his quarter panel and our door!!

Visiting a buddy one weekend- we are all waxing our p cars, talking Sh#t, having a good time. Bud #1 reaches in his car to show how it starts up so *****n since he put a turbo fuel accumulator on. Yep- with the door open and the car being in reverse it started right up, backed up and pinched Bud #1 between the house's chimney and the now wrapped backwards door. Broke his wrist and i can assure you he never ever left the keys in any of his cars again and always stepped on the clutch before turning a key

[jwetering]

Originally posted by defcon65
lurched forward ... knocked over a 100 lb full oxy cylinder... shearing off the valve...rocket flying across the floor... ran like hell...punched through the exterior wall of the foundry...forklift...taken out the entire dividing wall ...knocking over most of the inventory ...fire in an oxygen-enriched environment...god-damndest thing I ever saw and frightening as hell.

Man that would have been a good safety video. Must have been something to see alright.

[defcon65]

Yeah, it was a real boot-strap operation run by this (more-or-less) insane artist/metal caster. It started out on his farm where the iron furnace consisted of 55 gal drums stacked, welded and lined with refractory cement. The 'blowers' were actually Kirby vacuums linked together with extension cords/duct tape/spit. We would grind up the sand molds in another rig made of 55 gal drums with teeth welded to the inside - it rolled on a suspension consisting of 2 VW front ends. Another frightening thing was a bare 30" circular saw blade rig that he would hook up to the drive wheel of his ancient International KB-6 to cut firewood for his stove. Guess who got to walk lumber mill tailings through this spinning disc of death? Yep, right here. I'm still amazed I emerged from two years employment with this yahoo more or less intact. Like they say - what doesn't kill you just makes you stronger (smarter?) This guy also had an unusually stupid hobby of casting 4" iron cannons which he would bury in the hillside and try to fire round cannonballs for the amusement of his scary, 60's hippie friends. The craters left from exploded cannons dotted the hill behind his farmhouse. I guess he never heard that warning about the brown acid....

[Joe Argotts]

You know... this is an old post, but after spending the afternoon working on my own 911, it's some chuckles, especially when I realize that I'm going to send my good friends and Pelican (a funny bird) more $$$!

[GBG1000]

When my 1st 911 exploded in flames in the parking lot in front of my office, I bailed out. As the fire began to consume the wiring - it was very eery, the car began to crank over. Thank God it was not in gear or the flaming carcass would have gone right through the glass entrance to the reception area and could have set the office on fire. No kidding!

[Laneco]

Micheal

All of us have done something that embarasses us terribly and costs $$... The trick is to only do it once.

Regarding your incident. My 81 coupe, Butters, is a CIS car. It runs flawlessly and always starts at the first hit of the key. I dropped it off this summer to have the a/c charged. One of the junior mechanics took it for a test drive and brought it back to the shop. It sat a few minutes, and then he reached in thru the window and started the car again. In gear... Butters fired right up and drove into his very very expensive tool chest. Minor damage on Butters, but the tool box was pretty thrashed! Porsche's are way toughte than Snap On Tool boxes!

Even the pro's screw up now and then!

angela

[boostfix]

Perhaps this is why the Porsche ignition is truly on the left side of the wheel......so that when you dive through the side window you can manipulate the ignition and hand brake at the same time!

Thanks for sharing the story...so long ago. Ya gotta hate it when a thread recovers from buried status!