Normally with these here QOTDs I propose a question, rattle off some personal anecdotes and then ask for your opinion. Not today. No friends, today we are going to turn your attention to central France and a turbodiesel Renault Vel Satis. The driver was on the Autoroute with the cruise set to about 80 mph. He passed a truck. Suddenly and allegedly, the car accelerated on it's own to 120 mph. The driver claims he tried to stop the car, but was unable to do so. He called the police and explained his predicament. The coppers cleared the freeway in front of the Vel Satis and tracked it for an hour until it just stopped. After a thorough investigation Renault is calling shenanigans (the driver can always override the cruise control system) and suing the driver for libel. So, like, you?
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I once ran a $500 Toyota pickup into the nose of a $7 million jet. Even stranger, I did not loose my job. (Long Story)
That’s his own fault for driving what is possibly the ugliest sedan out there!
I remember reading about that story in French newspapers. More recently, a Volvo owner said her brakes didn’t work, but they were just fine after the accident in which she killed a few kids walking back from school. Go figure….
Strangest, or funniest? I remember in the winter, the lock of my 89 fiat Uno would be, well, locked. So was the passenger door, so I was forced to enter by the right rear door (the left rear door was stuck too). Good thing I was young enough for all this contorsionism!
Then, after trying to pull/push said door opened, it did open!
But it didn’t close.
I had to drive 2 hours on the highway while holding the door, despite an improvised system of chains and rubber bands.
Oh, and the car was a manual, of course, which made the availability of a third hand a must that never materialized.
N85523:
Dude, I have all day.
Same sort of thing as mon ami in the Vel Satis (which isn’t as strange as an Avantine, but close)…
Driving a Ferrari F355 on a beautiful day, heading into a roundabout. Pressed on the brake and the car accelerated. Pressed harder. Went faster. Supreme WTF moment.
Made it through the roundabout and discovered that a combination of big ass sandals and teeny tiny pedals caused the problem. (Bought driving shoes after that.) But for one or two very long seconds, I thought the laws of cause and effect had been reversed.
So turn off the ignition – just the first notch so the steering doesn’t lock…
Or – turn off the cruise control – you know – the main power switch?
Or – put the car into neutral and let the engine explode?
Let Renault sue him and pull his damn license!
My strange escapades?
Spinning an early 90’s Celica in the rain on I-40 followed by heavy trucks in both the left and right lanes? My sister was driving when the spin started. The car by luck only stopped parked perfectly on the shoulder. I drove the rest of the way. She turned on the cruise, the car hydroplanned and spun out.
Let a friend drive my ’65 Beetle while I slept. He fell asleep (found out later he was a narcolptic) and I woke up sliding sideways through an intersection. Somewhere I saw a big bus. Don’t know where it went but we were unharmed. Ruined one rear fender with a street sign post and 1 tire. Changed the tire and I drove home. A week or two later we were going to work in a gov’t Navy vehicle. He fell asleep driving that too. I helplessly watched from the cargo area behind a divider wall that was nearly soundproof (compared to the noisy diesel engine). He woke up at the last second.
Inadvertantly jumping an intersection in a Renault Clio. No damage. Good long, low jump. Didn’t bottom anything out. Tried it again in my Rabbit ‘vert. Fun without breaking anything.
Brakes going out on my single circuit brakes ’66 Mustang while coming down a mountain in rush hour – TWICE. Both times the traffic parted at just the right moment. Drums were worn beyond their safe limits. Have been a stickler for GOOD brakes ever since – not necessarily ABS but GOOD brakes none the less.
AKM – Fiat Uno:
Our ’86 Accord did the same thing. Over an hour on the interstate holidng the door shut. Finally I gave it another trim and it just worked. Whew!!! COLD that day.
There was the time I floated my Kawasaki Concours across a creek…
Hmmm strangest thing ever while driving…Once I made a right turn and my whole car (Jag X-type) shut down and then went into limp mode. The dealer told me it was all caused by a burnt out headlight bulb, which was, of course, not covered under the warranty.
One rainy evening in Boston in the front seat of my former girlfriends 72 Nova, I discovered the strangest thing that could ever happen to a teenage boy when a blonde female desires to share the same seat with you… Ah, maybe not so strange, however.
A sunny April day in Connecticut driving along
I95. Suddenly it gets cloudy. Then really dark clouds appear. Then light snow. All this within a mile. Then major snow. Every car in front and in back of me is spinning around. I manage to steer to the shoulder without making contact. Nothing moves for five minutes. I get out to investigate. I’m in a 70 car pile up. It’s a mess. The wreckers arrive at the front and start yanking vehicles out of the pile. Takes about two hours till I can drive out. Cops tell us there is a 90 car pile up behind ours. A mile down the road it’s sunny again.
It was about 16 years ago in a 1991 All-Trac Corolla Wagon in CT. It happened during the winter. I was driving my son to daycare. he was in his car seat and in the back. My wife was in the passanger seat. The two lane country road seemed a little slippery so I was going about 30 in a 35 zone. All of a sudden we were going backwards in the same lane. While I was appreciating the situation a panel truck passed us in the other lane. I gently put on the brakes and stopped just in front of the town police station and across the street from the fire department. I turned the car around, took my son to daycare and then went to work.
tdoyle
Dude, I have all day.
;)
I was almost hit by a boat driving down the highway. It missed by a few feet.
I guess I should cough up an answer…
Years ago i was driving my 1985 Pontiac Station Wagon down a steep hill. Time to downshift.
When i did, the column shift got stuck btween 4th and 3rd. And every light on the dash came on. And the car stalled. And the steering locked up.
and the power brakes were GONE.
All I remember was standing with both feet on the brake pedal while holding onto the wheel and trying to thin of an excuse to tell my father.
kericf:
Oh yeah — once I was driving and I see this white thing up ahead sparking away.
Then, suddenly, I realize it’s a boat! The freeway was going downhill, so the boat — which probably slipped off it’s trailer at 75 mph — was now sparking its way down the grade at around 55 mph.
I remember passing it on the right. Weird.
It had snowed about 8 inches the day before. But in the morning, it was sunny, and the plows had cleared the streets pretty well.
I was merging onto I-94 in Chicago and the on-ramp was clear. Little did I know that a plow had just dumped a bunch of loose snow on the threshold between the on-ramp and the expressway.
Before I knew it, I did a 180 degree skid across three lanes of traffic and hit the snowbank against the retaining wall. And no one hit me!!! Exciting and terrifying. So watch those on ramps even if everything else looks clean.
chuckgoolsbee
Ah, to be 19 again.
Driving along in the Michigan winter on US 31 (two lane road) to work one day in my (very used) 1987 Audi 5000 (this was in about 1992) and suddenly, a car going the opposite way started spinning.
He spun around right in front of me, stayed in his lane, passed me on my left (in the same orientation as my car – he was going backwards down his lane) – glanced over to me with this “WTF” look on his face – I glanced in the rearview mirror, he did a nice 180 degree piroette behind me and then promptly slid into the snow bank.
We were both doing maybe 45 to 55. Closing speed as much as 110. He missed me on both 180 degree rotations by mere feet.
Nobody hurt except his pride (and his fender).
My 2002 Durango tried to start itself on Easter morning a few years back. We were eating the holiday meal in the living room when we heard the engine trying and trying to start out on the driveway. I’ve heard a few other similar stories about this happening to other Chrysler vehicles with anti-theft systems.
1998 Taurus wagon a couple years back. Was driving down the highway when the power seat with no prompting at all starting moving forward until it was crushing my legs against the dash. Managed to brake and get over the shoulder. Extracted myself turned off car. Restarted car, adjusted seat and have driven many miles in it since without a repeat. Odd.
I was driving home after a root canal and noticed I was going a little slower than the 55 I was trying to maintain (in a 45), so I hit the gas. The needle kept dropping, so I hit the gas harder. At about 80 I realized that I was having a dyslexia attack and the needle was above 55, not below it.
They gave me the good stuff for that root canal.
Are we limiting responses to only those that do not involve recreational mood enhancers?
I was 17 and looking for a party. My family was at a cookout for a fried of my dad’s. Some of us decided to find the party which was rumored to be behind a house on a sandbar in the Red River. We got there, and there was no party. So, I turned around…well, I tried to turn around.
My 1970 Chevy 3/4 ton pickup became buried to the axle. The guy who owned the house back up the road a bit happened upon the scene and tried to pull me out with his Jeep. The hitch broke off the Jeep, so he came back with a tractor. His tractor became stuck and it was at this point that we noticed the water was rising.
I was stuck about 3 miles downstream of Denison Dam and the generators were running and would be all night. I had no choice but to leave my truck (and the good samaritan, his tractor). He gave me a ride back to the cookout and, thankfully, talked to my dad first. Once he fully explained the situation and what happened with his Jeep and tractor, my dad just laughed. I was scared to death.
The next morning, I played at a church with a small group of band members at my high school and one of them asked if that was my truck he saw sticking out of the water. He had been air boating the night before and saw the hood and top of the cab in the water.
Meanwhile, my dad went to retrieve my truck and, much to his surprise, it started right up and drove home. I did have to clean some fish out of the bed and a great deal of sand from the cab.
I’ll never forget that.
Julianne,
It being Easter and all, maybe your Durango took that WWJD bumper sticker seriously.
I don’t have any really strange experiences. Once in DC, I left workin a heavy snow storm. I got to a long underpass, and when I’d gotten half way through I found myself stuck behind traffic that wasn’t moving, because the people at the front didn’t know how to drive their cars up the slippery little hill at the end of the underpass. They would get stuck fishtailing halfway up. I walked up there, and told them to gun it while they were on the flat part underneath the overpass, and then take it easy going up the hill. One by one, I explained to every car in front of me–probably 60 of them–how to get out of there. I was out in maybe an hour and a half.
OK, I'll elaborate a little. I worked for a fixed base operator at a General Aviation airport in the city where I was living. The city happened to be the state capital. One of our tasks was to move aircraft based at the field from their hangars onto the flightline and prepare them for departure. One of our clients was the state Department of Transportation which kept two new Cessna business jets in our hangar which the Governor and other state employees often used. On the fateful day, one of these aircraft returned from a maintenance test flight and the pilots parked the jet in front of the hangar rather than the normal position to unload passengers in front of our building. The aircraft was not chocked as it normally would have been. Our aircraft tug was broken that weekend and so we were using our ratty old Toyota pick-up instead. Because of the Yota's relatively tall gearing and underpowered engine, it was not suitable for moving larger aircraft. When moving a medium sized twin the previous day, I had to use 4×4 low range to keep from stalling the engine when starting. I had to move the jet out of the way of the hangar so we could put other planes in. Normally it is a two man job, but I was only moving the aircraft on the open ramp, so a spotter was not necessary. I nosed up to the jet and got out and attached the tow-bar to the nose wheel. It wouldn't reach the hitch on the front of the Toyota, so I got back in to move the truck forward a foot or two. I was in a hurry, though it was a slow day. Rather than getting all the way in the truck, I left my left food hanging out the open door and depressed the clutch with my right foot. I put it in gear and then let off the clutch just enough to ease the truck forward. The trouble was that I was unfamiliar with the truck's clutch and didn't know its threshold. I let off too far too fast and instead of stalling, the low gears of 4×4 Low eagerly went into action and the truck leaped forward directly into the radome of the jet. As if in slow motion, I searched for the brake pedal with my right foot, my left foot still hanging out the door. My right foot is only accustomed to one pedal, and I missed as the jet loomed closer in the windshield. I remember thinking that this isn't happening, and surely I'll get it stopped before impact. I tried again, but I was too late. The hood suddenly formed a large ridge across its width and the jet was mostly obscured from view. A very expensive sound echoed in my ears. The truck stopped and I was flung forward. I shut off the engine and stepped out to survey the damage. The score: Jet 1, Toyota 0. The only visible damage to the $7 million jet was some truck paint left on the radome. The Toyota's hood and grill were destroyed. I quickly called our mechanic to tell him what had happened. He assured me that there was invisible damage and that the radome nose cap (a $22,000 part) would have to be replaced, and possibly the even more expensive radar unit inside. Despite intensive investigation and interviews with me, he never could find any damage to the aircraft and it was released for operations. Had the airplane been chocked, I fear that the results could have been much more expensive. They let me keep my job because the tug should have been fixed and the truck was not suitable for moving heavy aircraft and the mechanic stood up for me because I didn't try to hide it. I was reprimanded, but kept my job. I offered to put a new hood on the truck, but my boss just said we'd bend it out as best we could and keep using it as a reminder to stay alert when working. And that is the story of how I ran a $500 pick-up into the Governor's $7 million jet. To this day I never use my right foot on the clutch.
i had a lady coming at me on the wrong side of the road in a forester. at the last second she swerves out of the way, turns around and follows me! i stop at a gas station she gets out and with thick english accent says “What are you doing driving on the wrong side of the road!?”
she had moved from england a few weeks prior. she apologized. and we went on our way.
Technically not in a car, but some kind of 4 wheel-drive minibus in Kenya. Got stalled a few yards from a herd of elephants, some of which came pretty close to investigate. Half the windows had no glass on them.
The next day, we went on another trip in a land-rover. Two of the tires had punctures one after the other, the driver replaced them with spares. Then the third one went – no more spares, just limped back to the main road and hitched a ride on a passing bus – standing room only – I had to sit on a basket of vegetables.
The Rover that went catatonic on me when pulling out from a stop sign to turn right on a divided 4-lane in Southampton. I had the clutch in and was shifting gears when it quit. Everything went completely silent, the power steering locked up, and I just slowly drifted out into traffic, blocking the two center lanes. The car eventually started after way two many minutes and then quit again several blocks later on a side street. Fortunately, the car rental place was an easy walk.
Winter 1998 (or so) I was driving north on SR-37 toward Indianapolis in my new (to me) Jeep Wrangler. Another Wrangler was a couple cars ahead of me. After hitting what I presume was a patch of ice, all of the sudden, he spins out into the median, crossing across all 20 or so feet of it, then right back across into our lane. He resumes driving right behind me, like nothing ever happened. A perfect 360.
I was absolutely dumbfounded.
Beautiful sunny, warm Texas weather out, I’m driving my brand new 16 year old ’89 Blazer (car broke down and needed a temp replacement). Took a normal turn going a normal, safe speed, my foot gently on the brake, and the damn truck does TWO 360’s followed by a 360 in the opposite direction. I end up in front of a business just barely avoiding their support column….
a few months later on a rainy night, I take the last turn on my way home going EXTREMELY slow (since the truck was known to randomly spin..), and ended up doing two more 360’s in the middle of a busy intersection. Fortunately, the engine died shortly after, forcing me to get another mode of transportation.
Well, two strangest strange things:
1/ One Saturday night in the late autumn of 1979, I was driving north on Route 128 (now I-95) outside Boston, between the Burlington interchange and Woburn. It was dusk. For no apparent reason (e.g. no police chase) an umkempt dude in a clapped out 1970 Oldsmobile 98 roared past me on my left at more than 80mph (I know because that was my speed) sans tires on the rear rims. That’s right. The dude was making tracks (literally) up the highway, showering a trail of sparks, fishtailing his rubberless rear axle and kept going overtaking traffic as far as the eye could see. Eight miles later, he was seen trotting away from his beached chariot, dead on the shoulder.
2/ A year earlier, I was living on the island of Moen in Truk (now Chuuk), Micronesia during a Peace Corps assignment. The most durable and cherished vehicles on the island were the precursor to the 1980s Suzuki Samurai — a then 2/3rds scale Jeeplet with a 600cc motorcycle engine in the motive bay. Those little nimble crawlers were indestructible at a time when new Toyotas & Datsuns dissolved before your eyes like Alka-Seltzer tablets left in the rain, and Detroit’s iron was too big to fit between the trees. Well, there was a mountain, from which according to myth, Micronesian life descended. The locals didn’t go up there but Americans put a house up there and a few of us had to make a visit. The legend was that the mountain was haunted, local lore was rich with the unexplained.
It was a dark and moonless night….no, really! I was at the wheel of the pugnacious Suzuki. We headed up the steep trail carved along one of the mountain’s spines. We got quite close to our destination but no one was home. When I parked the Suzuki, I parked it laterally on and across the trail, turned off the ignition, set the e-brake and left the transmission in gear. The key was in my pocket.
We walked away from the jeeplet to find no one home and as we were walking back to the car, we heard a snap. Spontaneously, the brake had released, the transmission was snapped out of reverse into neutral, and the car began moving. Instead of going over the side of the hill, the wheel rotated for a perfect right turn onto the trail and the Suzy gathered momentum downhill. In pitch dark, we could hear it better than we could see it.
I and others gave chase, running in sandals or cutting our feet barefoot on rocks. Every time I got a grip on the rolling bugger, it lurched a little quicker. A 110 degree bend loomed ahead where the trail surface was banked off-camber, downhill with the trail going uphill a bit through the kink. The Suzy couldn’t possibly self-steer against a counter-banked turn and move uphill. It would shoot off the trail. Trouble was, if it jumped trail, it would have tumbled onto a group of 4 shanty huts immediately below, with families sleeping in each.
We raced to catch the Suzy, but the turn came too soon. We braced for the worst, but the little Jeeplet miraculously negotiated the full turn, drifted uphill until cresting to renewed slope, then careened straight into a mud wall made soft by a perpetually oozing spring.
It took six of us to pop the Suzuki out of the sucking mud. Nothing was bent. I drove back to the motor pool, slowly picking my way down the rest of the trail. A daylight hike to the scene the next day made the actual course of the unguided Suzuki even more mystifying than the night before.
Phil
High School drivers ed class 1970. Teacher told his student to pull into the left lane on the interstate and pass the car ahead. She pulled into the left lane at 65mph and shifted the transmission into “P” for pass. I was sitting in the middle of the back seat. My rear end still hurts thinking of how the transmission/driveline exploded beneath me.
I had a 1995 Jetta that had spontaneously took off on me three times. Once in reverse, and the last time it did it I was enroute to trade it in for the next car.
It knew it was being replaced, and wanted to take me out with it..
I lived in Iran for a time. In keeping with the prevailing sanitary standards, Tehran had large, open sewers, called jubes, running down the streets (and presumably out into the desert sand, I never did investigate that end). They were protected by a curb of moderate height.
One day, I was riding in a taxi down some minor but still traffic-choked avenue and the driver decided to take a shorcut and swung towards an alley, reachable by a slab across the jube. His right-front wheel hit some resistance, so he gunned it and dropped the front wheel over the curb and into the jube.
Alertly, he then reversed gear and gunned it… no good, we were stuck.
He turned around, smiled and shrugged. I have no idea what he planned to do from that point but I got out of the cab and, to his surprise, jumped into the jube – luckily it was the dry part of the nearly year-long dry season – and started to lift the bumper. The driver was mildly shocked and stood up out of the cab. He gestured for me to get in and I gestured for him to rev it up.
An American was something of a novelty and celebrity back then and a crowd quickly gathered to a) help out and, in some cases, b) practice their English on a Real Live American. Many hands makes for light work. They helped free the cab and with smiles, waves and handshakes, I got back in the cab and the driver was a bit more careful from then on.
David Holzman, I had an experience like that once, too, getting out of my car and waving other cars to back up so a struck 18-wheeler could get some running room to make a hill and curve in snow. Somehow, no one in line behind him could figure it out.
Just out of college in 1985, I was driving to work in a nearby town in my aged Mercury Comet GT. (The one that was based on the Maverick. It was hideous, I know.)
I pulled off the Interstate and onto the exit ramp which turned into an overpass that went over the Interstate. Having passed over the Interstate, I took my foot off the gas and coasted down the other side of the overpass. Then when I was well over the overpass, I stepped on the accelerator and nothing happened. The car died, the engine light came on, and the car rolled to a stop by the side of the highway. Right in front of an automotive recycling center.
Could it be a sign? Were the car gods trying to tell me that I needed a new car?
The Comet had thrown a rod. It did not end up at the recycling center, though. I sold it cheap to some teenagers who dropped a Mustang V-8 into it, repainted it and put new mag wheels on it. I used to see it driving around town every once in a while.
I went on to buy a then new Honda Civic CRX, which was a great car.
Another Tehran cabbie story…
Tehran is laid out along the southern slopes of the Elburz (I think that’s the name… some mountain range, anyway) and the “top” of the city, the nicest and coolest part, Shemiran, is some 4K to 5K ft higher, at 7 to 8K ft above sea level than the base of the city, where the bazaar and the poorer quarters are, at perhaps 3K ft. From top to bottom, it’s mostly a significant slope from Shemiran to Bazaar.
Early in my stay there, I lived off Jordan Ave, at perhaps 4500 feet, maybe a bit higher. I called an agency for a cab to go “down” town, to something at about 3500 feet.
A Shaheen (I think it was called that, a locally produced mid-60’s Rambler American) pulled up in front of my apartment in due course. I hopped in the front, to be sociable. We took off. Pretty literally, too. The driver pointed the nose downhill, accelerated to, as I recall, about 75 mph in a 40 zone…
And switched off the engine. This wasn’t a particularly uncommon practice, I later realized, but it was my first experience of it.
To save fuel, leverage gravity and conserve precious kinetic energy, stopping and even braking were something that just would not do. We spent quite a lot of time in the left lane, in lightish city traffic, like the chase scene from “The Seven Ups.” With a jube to the side, waiting to trap the unwary.
Just a few minutes later, still in “glider” mode, we screeched to a halt in front of my destination (burning off more in rubber than he had saved on gas). After I paid the cabbie off, he [finally] restarted the engine, turned around and began to climb back up towards his agency. I think we had averaged over 60mph.
After that, I got over the need to feel chummy with the driver and sat in the back, marginally safer. A few days later, I bought a motorcycle, which seemed, relatively, much safer.
Well…I was in a Fiero that caught fire…and one of the Quad 4 Oldsmobiles that seemed to stall on a regular basis on the freeway.
But one of the strangest things has to be some of the things I saw from behind the wheel during my days in Cote d’Ivoire. I’ll start by saying that anyone who has left the old USA and been to a third world country knows that any patch of open space on the shoulders of roads and even freeways can quickly turn into an open air market. We were always careful to keep our windows up due to the risk of violence, carjacking, and people reaching in. I had the driver’s side window cracked by maybe several inches to let some “fresh” air in since it just got done raining and it felt good outside…as good as it gets 5 degrees north of the equator.
Well, when I approached a stoplight – their stoplights were not above the street…they were several feet above curb level so it was hard to see – and I just saw the red light so I hit the brakes hard. The stuff on the seat slid forward so I reached down to pick stuff up. When a sat up and turned my head left, I suddenly saw some type of python through my window! It was being held by a vendor and was for sale. After restarting my heart and noting the green light, I got out of there!
Later in the day, I saw another vendor walking hand in hand with a chimp and the chimp had a For Sale sign around its’ neck. C’est Afrique!
I got hit by lightning.
All the electronics & the alternator fried.
1996 infiniti I30
in September 2005.
By the time i pushed my dead car off the road, i was just happy to not be electricuted
Paid $900 for new battery, alternator, onboard computer etc.
For me, it was ending up upside-down in a Yaris in the San Gabriel mountains. My friend was driving when a deer, or some sort of animal, lept out, so he swerved into a cliff, which hit him in self defense. Two wheels rode up onto the mountain and flipped the car onto the roof. It took me a moment to release myself because I had to reach “up” to the seatbelt, not “down.” I ran into my coworker’s boyfriend, despite being a hundred miles away from where he lived, and where his girlfriend worked.
My other incident, which wasn’t quite as strange, involved being pulled over for hoonage in a BMW with a friend at the helm and vinyl sticker reading “WICKED INTENTIONS” across the windshield. Oh, the high school days…
(…)standing room only
So, basically, the weirdness was that you had to travel by public transportation…:)
Dry, warm day. Sunny. Small patch of water leftover from the night’s rain. A full 360 later, and the Diamante’s sitting on a 30 degree incline in the mud and grass. I had to drive a quarter mile through a large cornfield (the hill upon which I came to rest, seperating the field from the road, was too steep to get back up) and unlatch a chain gate to pull back out onto the road.
I’ve always wondered what the drivers of passing vehicles thought I was doing paralleling the road through a muddy cornfield in a pearl white midsize quasi-luxury sedan…
I used to drive a blue 1984 GMC 3/4 ton fullsize van. One sunny day I was driving down a long, straight, well-paved rural road, doing something over the 50 MPH posted limit. There wasn’t another car to be seen. Listening to the radio and enjoying the scenery, I didn’t realize how close I was getting to the bend to the right just before the road came into town.
When I hit the brakes it was already too late, I was entering the turn. I felt the back tires lose grip and the back of the van drifted into the oncoming lane. I let off the brakes so the front wheels wouldn’t lose traction too and did a controlled skid sideways around the bend, taking-up both lanes.
A Taurus wagon came around the bend from the opposite direction. Fortunately, he saw the big blue wall coming at him and had the good sense to pull off the road to avoid a collision with the back of the van. If he hadn’t done that, things would’ve been very messy!
The adrenaline rush didn’t hit til after I straightened out at the end of the curve. Once I got over that and thought about the incident, I realized that I’d missed my true calling as a dirt-track stock car driver.
Let’s not even go there.
The Georgia Ghost Trucker.
The year was 1997. It was a dark and moonless night at 2am on GA-278. I was heading towards Powder Springs at 80mph in my sweet ’79 Buick Regal…wait for it…Limited, yes, Limited (contain your envy), when all of a sudden I’m making panicked steering corrections in an effort to keep the car on the road. I then hear a roaring noise followed by a rush of air as a huge black object goes blasting by in a blurred rush of speed. Turns out that it was a tractor-trailer with absolutely no implements of lighting on it. No headlights, tail-lights, or reflectors. What was this guy hauling?
I was riding down to Columbus from Cleveland to visit a friend. We were in a 1998 Subaru Outback in 2005. On the highway we started hearing a grinding noise like a bad wheel bearing. My friend pulls over on the highway shoulder, and we see a van pull over about 50 up the road. As we get out of the car, we saw two large army dudes running at us from the van. They both looked a lot like private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket.
One of them shouts “Dude, you better get your stuff out of the car, it’s on fire!”. We look, and the rear axle is on fire, right under the gas tank. We quickly grab our bags from the car and run away. One of the army guys was carrying a gallon iced tea jug, and he dove under the back of the car and started splashing it. In less than 15 seconds the fire was out. My friend and I said thanks and the two army guys ran back to their van and drove off. The whole thing took less than two minutes from the time we pulled over.
The car was towed, but it never did explode. Politics aside, those two guys had their shit together. They were incredibly efficient and bravely threw themselves at the fire with nothing but some cheap beverage. Then they ran off without giving us the chance to offer money, though they probably wouldn’t have taken it.
I was getting ready for a camping trip back in the summer of ’99. I was driving my father’s ’94 Ranger rwd 5-speed regular cab, with two of my friends. It was about 35C out and we were driving down a twisty road on our way to town to pick up some last minute supplies.
I had spent the first half of the summer balding the rear tires of the ranger so the combination of the twisty roads and the heat made the tires squeal at every turn. I was getting a kick out of this so I would steer to maximize the noise without loosing control or crossing the centre line.
I came around one corner to find an old couple pulled over on the side of the road and giving me dirty looks, but I thought nothing of it.
I needed to stop at another friends house to pick up my tent, so I decided to do this on my way into town, which changed my route.
When I arrived in town, I met up with another friend who was going camping with us and he asked if we were squealing our tires on the road we had taken to town. I said yes, but asked how he knew.
It turns out that he was pulled over for speeding and the cop that had given him the ticked had rushed out of there because of a report of a ford ranger with three young male occupants driving erratically on that particular road.
If I had decided to pick up the tent on the way home, I would likely have had a big ticket.
Not so much strange but stupid? I acquired 2 1971 Lotus cars when I was age 18 in 1989.
The Elan: Knock off center nut wheels would often come loose! Once the left rear had loosened sufficiently on an incline to cause the car to roll backward acting on its differential. Handbrake was of course ineffective (frozen). After repeatedly trying to stop the car with my own body, including a few rolls over the foot (its a light car but painfull still). I ran the car into a curb and someones lawn. I later asked the home owner for a large pipe wrench.
The Europa: When the car would overheat coolant would spray directly onto the manifold creating the most dense smokescreen witnessed on public roads, this time shutting down a 4 lane expressway during rush hour. Other times the clip holding the accelerator cable in place would come loose leaving you throttless at inopportune moments such as left hand turns. Other stranger Europa moments (most I didnt believe were possible) happened with a female interest while “parked”…
1955 coming down off the Furka Pass from northern Italy into Switzerland in a family-full 1955 Hillman “Estate Wagon”, father at wheel. There was a loud bang from somewhere under the car and then no brakes. At all. Blown hydraulic line. Fortunately, Dad was a good mountain driver and knew how to use the gears and handbrake to advantage. Mom didn’t know until we got to the flatlands that anything was wrong. Phrase-book: “Die Bremsen sind kaput!”
System repaired, but a couple days later in Holland, warmer weather warmed an air bubble in the brake line and froze the car solid. The tiny flat-head 4 banger could barely move the car in 1st gear. An English-speaking garage mechanic bled the system and we were back in business.
Later episode from the same trip: now in England, the US-spec car had English plates and RAC badge, and so looked like a Chevy in Iowa. Great fun rounding blind corners with Dad driving hunched down in the left seat, while Mom hung out the right (local driver’s side) window, waving both arms at approaching traffic.
offroadinfrontier : Beautiful sunny, warm Texas weather out, I’m driving my brand new 16 year old ‘89 Blazer (car broke down and needed a temp replacement). Took a normal turn going a normal, safe speed, my foot gently on the brake, and the damn truck does TWO 360’s followed by a 360 in the opposite direction. I end up in front of a business just barely avoiding their support column….
I spun and wrecked on of these Blazer’s. Nailed a 1980s BMW 3-series with the tailgate. The rear shocks were so worn and the tires slick enough that even little imprefections in the road surface would make the tires hop and loose traction.
Author: readingthetape
Comment: High School drivers ed class 1970. Teacher told his student to pull into the left lane on the interstate and pass the car ahead. She pulled into the left lane at 65mph and shifted the transmission into “P” for pass.
My sister did that with a column shift Citation when I told her to signal for a left turn. Made it in reverse. No damage. Go figure. Dad sold that car about 90K miles later with no problems still.
I knew there was another story in my brain.
It was 1993 and I was stationed in Naples, Italy. The best 3 years of my early 20s. At about 4:15 AM or so we got called to a multiple car accident near Vilaggio Coppola. The fog was really dense that morning in that area which was not uncommon.
The accident was between 4 cars. The first one slowed to make a right hand turn and the other three who were following too closely or did not see them slow in the fog and rear-ended it. None of the cars were too seriously wrecked – grilles and headlights damaged mostly. Nobody hurt either.
The intersection was a complicated one but I’ll try to make sense of it for you. Running north/south was Via Domiziana – four lanes full access urban road without any safety barriers at all, businesses and homes along the eastern side and generally always crazy. Four lanes with 6 lanes of traffic, people passing anytime anywhere.
Going south the Domiziana curved left and became the Tangenziale – a cross town divided and limited access highway with exits and on ramps. The merge was simple. Suddenly there were guardrails and a center rail.
The old Domiziana kept going straight south past the merge. One lane for the south bound traffic. The north bound traffic had to ride an overpass and rejoin the Domiziana north of the Tangenziale merge.
The Italians called this piece of road the “Stradale di Morte” = the road of death b/c of the number of accidents that ended with death. Mostly it was a lack of concern for normal traffic rules which for the most part are the same here in America.
The cars that had the acccident were travelling south on the little road that peeled off of the Domiziana/Tangenziale merge.
Whew!
We arrived and parked facing oncoming traffic along the left side of the lane. Later another US Navy MP pickup parked right behind us and an Italian polizia car behind that. All facing the wrong way with lights on.
What some of the locals would do is rush down this short access road the wrong way and then across four lanes of highway speed traffic to save half a second of drive time (instead of using the overpass).
This night the American driver was the last car in the pileup. He had no ID but told us which gov’t apartment he lived in. Our 2nd patrol vehicle went to retrieve his ID. The apartment owner had ID to prove he was the real American so the driver from the accident was suddenly a John Doe.
There was a connection between the two but we never quite nailed down what the connection was. Likely a simple friendship b/c the real American guy rented the car that was wrecked. You would think the Navy would have really leaned ont he real American to get the straight scoop but they didn’t.
The Italian polizia are getting impatient with the American imposter. We are standing between the patrol vehicles (mine is a van with rear doors) when an Egyptian comes flying down the access road the wrong way and sideswipes all three patrol vehicles. Not bad but paint rubs and creases in the sheetmetal.
He climbs out of his VW Jetta and begins running around in circles yelling about something in Egyptian and taking off his clothes! Eventually the Polizia guy runs over and cold-cocks the guy. Knocks him right out. They lay him out on the shoulder of the road. He stays there for 5 mins or so while we search his car and record his information for the report. He comes to (nobody is watching him) and he starts the chicken-with-his head-cut-off running around again. Again a punch to the jaw and he’s out. When he finally comes to they order him into his car and tell him to leave in les than polite terms. He is likely an illegal resident.
It’s starting to approach 5:40AM or so now and people are starting to drive to work. Some are using the overpass properly and some are trying to sneak down this access road. Wrecked cars still in place…
Polizia walks with me down to the entrance of the overpass (150 feet south) and the next car is full of likely illegal African immigrants. He cusses them for breaking the law and jerks open the door of the car, smacks the driver around and then bends the doors backwards against the front fenders! Lots of yelling and drama by the Polizia.
You have to understand the dynamics there. Alot of these illegal Africans are trying to make a living anyway they can and sometimes that means they are working for the Camorra (the local mafia) doing little things like simple labor on illegal construction projects or selling fake goods or in some cases acting as drug couriers – among other things. You name it, they do it. Seldom violent in those days.
The Polizia know there is little they can do with these people b/c the legal system is broken in Naples so the Polizia are frustrated and use a heavy hand to encourage these people to leave the Naples area anytime they get the chance.
After a few early morning illegals comes a few Americans. The Polizia officer wants me to just as tough to make my point but in four cars I get three Naval officers, two of which want to pull rank on me. I remain courteous but firm and explain that if he doesn’t leave imemdiately the Polizia is going to ruin their door. In each case they left without much more discussion thankfully.
The cars were towed. The American imposter was loaded into the Polizia patrol car. He prob beaten until he explained who he really was, and likely relocated back to Africa. He was an illegal resident and as things went there likely into a variety of illegal employment activities. See above.
The cops there were heavy handed because they had to be – you can’t imagine how mixed up the place is. Some really great people there but the gov’t is broken.
I have recently been reading about the Naples situation (Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano) and it sounds like it is worse than when I lived there.
All in all I still miss being in Italy. Was a great place to be single and free. Not so sure I would go back to Naples now with my family except to visit…
When I was on tour in Afghanistan, I was driving a LAV3 (Stryker to you Americans) in Kabul in a convoy with some German jeeps. Since the Germans had slightly (and by slightly I mean a lot) better acceleration than my 19 ton apc, they sped up leaving a large gap between us after clearing a crowded market. Now when an Afghani driver sees a gap, he just has to fill it. This resulted in a Corolla (fortunately with no explosives in it) getting spun sideways under the nose of my vehicle and my vehicle commander screaming over the intercom for me to stop. This was unfortunate for the Corolla as the LAV has very powerful air brakes and nose dives when it’s stopped quickly. The car was completely destroyed. Fortunately though, the 2 occupants were unharmed, at least judging by how fast they ran away. The guy driving came by our camp a few days later to demand some compensation… turns out he borrowed his friend’s car :P