Driving Horror Stories

[Sallow]

Seriously that long, or seemed that long. Because even with inclement weather, that's ridiculous.

I am SO glad I am a telecommuter.

No..it was that long.

I left the office at 4..got home at 9.

It was insane outside. To many stories to tell.

My fave though was NY Buses getting stuck on the top level of the 59th bridge because they couldn't make the incline.

Gotta love it.

it took me 4 hrs last night. I was watching a movie and when it was over i looked out to see where were were. we were still on 95 and hadn't evem made it to rt 80 yet. and hr and a half to do what normally takes 10 minues.

Was crazy wasn't it?

 

[martybegan]

I was driving my 1977 Camaro (in 1999) on my way to my grandparents house using a route i didn't use before. I missed a stop sign covered by trees and barreled into the intersection the same time a Toyota Camry was doing the same thing, and had the right of way. Somehow I managed to turn the car left, then quick right and spin around the front of the Camry as it stopped in the middle of the intersection (I wouldn't be able to do that again if i tried to).

I then sat there and let the other driver scream at me for 10 minutes (it was my fault after all) while i broke down into the shakes.

 

[BDBoop]

I was visiting my family in West Virginia. On my way to Beckley, I had 2 different routes I could go. One route took 2 and 1/2 hours the other took 1 and 1/2 hours.

I decided to take the shortest route. I didn't have a problem with it, since my Dad gave me driving lessons on that mountain. Plus I was very accustomed to driving on mountains and kiss your butt winding roads (with and without guard rails.)

One of the worst things about this trip, is that I had 2 of my small nieces, my son and my sister with me. I had their lives in my hand.

Once you are on this mountain, there is no turning back. You are do or die. This particular night I was terrified! Once I got about 20 minutes into the trip and I was suddenly in a cloud, not fog, but a cloud. I could not stop, for fear of another vehicle coming toward me from behind. I had to journey on. Just thinking about it still terrifies me. I slowed to about 2 miles per hour at times on these winding, dark, no guard rail roads, very high up.

My sister was holding the door open looking for the white line as I was heeding her direction every inch of the way.

Needless to say. We made it safe and sound. It took 6 hours to drive across and upon the top and down the other side of that mountain. Also I will never ever drive that mountain again. EVER. It was terrifying

Your sharing reminded me of my mom's birth mom's story.

She was married young, I think they'd been married three years or so. Her husband was changing a flat on a mountain road, logging truck came round, no time to swerve - he was killed before her eyes.

Fast forward fifty years, she's out for a ride with her son. A logging truck veers into their lane, and he goes off the road to avoid it. Car comes to a stop, they are about as shaken as you get going four-wheeling. Turns to her, she looks like she's asleep. He says 'Mom, you okay?' No, not so much. She died from the shock, heart attack, boom gone.

Seventy years old.

 

[BDBoop]

I was driving my 1977 Camaro (in 1999) on my way to my grandparents house using a route i didn't use before. I missed a stop sign covered by trees and barreled into the intersection the same time a Toyota Camry was doing the same thing, and had the right of way. Somehow I managed to turn the car left, then quick right and spin around the front of the Camry as it stopped in the middle of the intersection (I wouldn't be able to do that again if i tried to).

I then sat there and let the other driver scream at me for 10 minutes (it was my fault after all) while i broke down into the shakes.

Oh god. Oh, my god.

Seriously.

Did anybody have an accident as a minor? My little sister did, I think my mother had an accident when she heard (*I believe everybody knows whereof I speak*). T's vehicle got t-boned on the passenger side, thank God, which was then pushed most of the way to the driver's side.

She'd been driving like six weeks. She didn't have the right of way, but it was a corner that wound up getting a stoplight, and she thought she could make it across. Apparently not, when the car in question ran a red light on the prior block and was doing like 70 in a 30.

 

[R.D.]

I was watching a missing persons program yesterday. A woman ran off the road into a deep 10 foot ditch. When her husband reported her missing the police said they could do nothing, she is an adult...blah blah blah. After 8 days of fighting with the police to try to track her a judge finally allowed her cell phone I be traced. She was found, alive not 20 minutes from home dangling from the seat belt.

The woman remembers nothing, but her poor husband drove past her dozens of times never seeing the jeep. I can't imagine how bad he must ave felt

 

[BDBoop]

I was watching a missing persons program yesterday. A woman ran off the road into a deep 10 foot ditch. When her husband reported her missing the police said they could do nothing, she is an adult...blah blah blah. After 8 days of fighting with the police to try to track her a judge finally allowed her cell phone I be traced. She was found, alive not 20 minutes from home dangling from the seat belt.

The woman remembers nothing, but her poor husband drove past her dozens of times never seeing the jeep. I can't imagine how bad he must ave felt

Same little sister, in the Tracker before mom totaled it, rolled the Tracker. Now this girl had the cheeks that grandmas are always wanting to smother with kisses. So she's describing the situation. "I'm hanging upside down with my cheeks in my eyes ..."

 

[R.D.]

 

[Pogo]

I was on a busy commercial street about 40mph when suddenly the ramp to my highway was unexpectedly "right here". The speed I was already going, the piano I was carrying in the back seat, and the wet ramp roadway combined to spin me around 180°, and ended up facing the opposite direction, looking straight across the street at a police car. The cop just shook his head, turned down the street toward the donut shop, and I made a multiple K-turn on the narrow ramp to get back in the right direction.

I was driving a MINI. He prolly thought we were just shooting a local remake of "The Italian Job".

 

[martybegan]

Next fun driving story:

On the LIE when I was in my early 20's, driving my parents car to pick my sister up from dance class on LI. There was an obviously drunk guy in some compact hatchback swerving all over the place, not just in lane, between lanes, slowing up, speeding down, etc. He finally lost traction and slid 90 deg sideways down the highway when his tires regained traction and he went perpendicular across traffic into the wall of an overpass. This was a few 100 yards in front of me, cars all over the place, cloud of smoke and dust, I had cars behind me, cars to the side, couldn't dodge or slow down without wrecking, so, in a "Days of Thunder" moment, I bulled through the smoke cloud and emerged on the other side without hitting anything.

Only damage to the car was a flat tire I had to fix.