Driving Like a Fool

[kidsmoke]

So I can't take much more election coverage. I thought it might be nice to talk about something completely different, and I figured, who amongst us hasn't done something really idiotic while driving?

 

 

Don't tell him I told you, but someone near and dear to me once managed to drive up over a parking lot divider and got the car so hung up on it that it took a tow truck to pull the car free. This was at the DMV. 

 

And yes, I have stories all my own....how to choose?

 

 

Your turn. I'll give a prize to the one I like best. It will be Wilco related! Go.

[lost highway]

I thought this thread was about strangers' crummy driving, but you took a more humble route. I must say the turn signal has been gradually going out of style in Denver.

[kidsmoke]

I think it would also be permissible to discuss other people's idiocy, as long as you've got a really good story.

[Mr. Heartbreak]

Driving down I-75 in Florida many years ago. Broad daylight, perfect weather. No one else on the road for miles. Started playing around with the radio or some such thing, and was being sloppy about keeping in my lane since I had the road to myself. Drifted too close to the median, and suddenly found myself ON the median, hurtling over surprisingly bumpy grass at 80...70...60...Slowed to a stop, then slowly sped back up and got back on. Okay, no harm done but lesson learned!

[Lammycat]

I must say the turn signal has been gradually going out of style in Denver.

Holy cow this drives me nuts. It really bothers me not knowing when or where a vehicle around me is planning on slowing down/turning/stopping. All this as I drive while breast-feeding a baby and schmearing up a bagel.

[Griddles]

I was driving with my mother in rural Indiana maybe 15 years ago. It had rained really hard the night before and there were some large water puddles on the road. We had pulled into a gas station and were leaving. There was a really large, maybe the size of 2 cars, puddle right at the corner where the service station entrance met the road. My mother drove around it as you could not tell how deep the puddle was. The person behind us did not. The puddle was a bout 5 ft deep! I have since avoided any puddle I couldn't tell how deep it was. 

[kidsmoke]

I was driving with my mother in rural Indiana maybe 15 years ago. It had rained really hard the night before and there were some large water puddles on the road. We had pulled into a gas station and were leaving. There was a really large, maybe the size of 2 cars, puddle right at the corner where the service station entrance met the road. My mother drove around it as you could not tell how deep the puddle was. The person behind us did not. The puddle was a bout 5 ft deep! I have since avoided any puddle I couldn't tell how deep it was. 

 

Whoa! Bet that driver felt foolish after getting out safely. I can't believe how many people will take that chance. I'm in Southern CA so we don't get a lot of rain, but every now and then we'll get a really magnificent storm with heavy rain. A local underpass always floods, and every major storm is followed by photos of folks standing on their flooded cars in that underpass, in the next day's newspaper. That must do some expensive damage to those cars!

[dagwave]

Great topic!

 

One comes to mind:

 

While borrowing my mom's Chevy Citation (hey-yo!) and taking some time off from college, I was on my way to work at a restaurant/ golf club. I was very broke at the time, living with my folks, and eagerly awaiting my first paycheck, as the company paid on a bi- weekly basis, and I had been working close to 3 weeks without seeing a dime. As i climbed the pretty steep hill in the early morning hours, i spaced out fiddling with the A/C and smacked gently into the back of a trash truck lumbering up the hill and making a left turn into a neighboring restaurant. The truck didn't feel a thing. The Citation's hood looked like this: M. The song on the radio at the time was "You Can't Always Get What You Want" There went that next paycheck, and,I believe most of the next one or two.

 

Literally almost 30 years later, about a year ago, I was driving up the same 4 lane hill (fairly residential but busy and less than a mile from home) and, well, hills are hills, regaling my teenage daughter with the story and initiating the first left turn directly after the same restaurant , when, "Boom" we got rear-ended approximately 15 yards where the initial accident occurred. Thankfully all drivers and vehicles were fine both times. Hell, the truck I hit didn't even bother to stop the first time. I don't drive up that hill anymore, there's something cosmic happening for me up there. And I believe we were listening to Bieber this time, because It wasn't my turn to pick out a song......

[lost highway]

That's amazing.

[kidsmoke]

Haha, Dagwave! Great story! Reading stuff like your story, and Mr. Heartbreak's median adventures, I feel slightly less stupid about my own poor driving choices like when I had turned into an unexpected cul-de-sac and there was another car approaching. As a new driver I was super self-conscious of other drivers' opinions, so I went to quickly do a y-turn to get out of the other driver's way. Did it very quickly, and smoothly, and felt pretty competent until I slammed into one of those squarish pale green electrical boxes (?) that stand about 3 ft. tall. I never saw it at all, short as it was, and I hit hard enough that it's a wonder I didn't rip it out of the ground. When I turned back forward, that other driver was hunched over laughing uncontrollably.

 

I couldn't wait to get out of there. I had such a huge dent in my fender, and that was one of the really solid ones, on that ugly old Ford Fairlane that was my first car.

[dagwave]

I had a Ford Fairlane too in primer black. I bought it from a guy nicknamed Bluto for $100. that car was a tank.

 

Also :

Agree:

- turn signals are not in vogue, and seems to be working closely with late braking

- Not many do the wave when you do something unselfish on the road. All I want is a freaking wave.

- texting or just staring at phone- don't get me started.

- making sure if i drive like a little fool (or slightly foolish), making a point to signal mea culpa asap to other driver.

 

OK I'm done...

[dagwave]

EDIT: not a ford fairlane- it was a Galaxie 500. One time I left it overnight at a Spectrum dead show  with the keys in the door at the public park across from the venue (shakedown street). It was intact the next day. This topic is making many driving fool stories come rushing back- too funny.

[Griddles]

Just thought of another one. My wife and I were in France this summer for the Euro's. Rented a car and were staying about 1 hour from the venue for the games we were seeing. Our car thankfully had GPS built in so that was great, until there was construction in Marseilles. After the game we were trying to get back to the highway out of town and the GPS and construction signs did not get along. We were both pretty jet lagged, but I am pretty good with directions and figuring out what the road signs meant. My wife by this time was pretty frazzled by lack of sleep so wasn't the most helpful. Anyway, I follow a sign to turn left to get to the interstate, my wife immediately yells, "Stop, your'e going the wrong way!" Which made me hit the brakes pretty hard. It took a second to realize that 1. yes it did appear that we were now on the left side of the road, but that 2. this was the correct way to go through the construction. 

 

Our trip back to the hotel after the second game was much less nerve racking. 

[kidsmoke]

Omigawd you drove overseas! Brave. We did that in England...alternately fun and utterly terrifying!

[Winston Legthigh]

Was driving in Monaco several years ago. A cop was directing traffic. I wanted to go straight - he wanted me to turn left. He got in front of my car and shouted ALLEZ while pointing left. I fumbled with my poor French. ALLEZ!!!!!!!!! he shouted. Left I went! Later that same day I think we took a wrong turn and were driving in a pedestrian-only zone. Oops. Quickly got out of there...

 

Worst thing that ever happened while driving - New Year's Eve day - was driving north towards Minneapolis. Snow Storm started. An out-of-stater was driving very very slowly, and I had to change lanes to avoid them. The last thing I wanted to do was tap the brakes. We passed the slow car and instantly started spinning to the left, into the median, across the median, and now into oncoming traffic. I told my GF (now wife) to hold on. We settled and stopped on the opposite shoulder, facing the wrong way, but without further incident. I checked the car - nothing wrong. I waited until the oncoming cars passed, then turned 180 to drive south. Got off on the next exit, got back on, looked at where I went off the highway, and continued on my lucky as shit way.