Stupid crap you've done in cars...

Zesty

Not A Dude
Joined
Sep 24, 2007
Messages
2,861
Location
Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Car(s)
05 Honda Jazz VTi-S
Title says it all really, what's some of the stupidest things you've done while driving, they don't have to have led to accidents but near-accidents will do.

I mentioned in the speedbump thread that I managed to break the engine mount on my mother's car by completely missing the existence of a speedbump because I was stuffing around with the radio. I didn't know about it until the front end went :crunch: :blink:

I thought of this because I almost pranged my friend's car yesterday. He asked me to park it while he dashed into some shops to get whatever, and I again proved how unused I am to RWD cars (it was a Commodore). I wrenched the steering wheel to get into a tight space like I'm used to doing with the Pug, but the car, of course, turned much more sharply than I expected. I nearly smacked straight into the rear bumper of the car next to the space :lol:

Thankfully I'm yet to have an accident so-to-speak, but I'm sure some of you here have come off worse from moments of sheer driving stupidity. Let's hear 'em.
 
Gone through a red light














at 4 in the morning and the intersection was a no name deserted one as well. Lucky because cops usually sit at the intersection before it. Ever since then nothing. That incident was like 7 years ago too.
 
After I had my car for about 3 months, it was my first time driving the car in the snow. I was coming home from school driving around my completely unplowed neighborhood. Two blocks from my house I had to make a left turn, so I think to my self "hey I'll step on the gas and get a little drift going." Needless to say I immediately spun out on this small street with cars parked on both sides. My back end started to spin but I stayed on the gas. I did a quarter spin and ended up no more than one inch (not exaggerating) from a Camry parked on the street.

The only thing that saved me, I believe, was the fact that I stayed on the gas. When I got out to check if I hit the car, I saw my wheels dug through the snow enough to where I got down to the asphalt, I'm thinking I finally got some traction and started to pull in the other direction.

This was a few years ago, ever since then I have been the most careful person driving in the snow, and I yell at people when they are being stupid in the snow. I think I scared myself straight. I attribute it to just being an unexperienced kid. :rolleyes:
 
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Stupidest thing for me was this time that I was pulling out of my garage, in reverse, and trying to steer around my brothers tools in the driveway. I heard a terrible crunch and looked over to see that I completely ripped my side view mirror off on the edge of the garage door. I felt stupid that day.

$300 for a new paint matched replacement. :glare:
 
https://pic.armedcats.net/2007/12/12/P8130099m.JPG
 
It was my first year driving and I've been driving for about 4 months. So I was going to park my car next to my dad's old rusty van, but this time he parked it a little more to the left than usual. But my thinking set up was when to turn, but the passanger side got the van and made a scratch.

Here is the most stupidest move I did, I panicked and kept going. This continued the scratch. No biggy since it was an old car and no damage done to my dad's van (since it's already scratched from many construction hours).
 
Stupid as in "not thinking" or stupid as in "asinine?"
If you mean asinine, then oh yes!

First off watch this:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4TdPxOXuYw[/YOUTUBE]
Pay close attention to what the rear wheels are doing starting at 56 sec. in.
Max's car is traveling forwards but the wheels are spinning backwards.

I was 17 and thought, "I could do that!" So with me and a friend (yes there was liquor involved) cruising in the family "kid's" car I decided to try it. The kid's car was a 1979 Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon (estate for the rest of the world); 351 c.i. V8, heavy duty everything (towing package)... awesome car, 9 mpg.

Anyway, my friend and I cruised up to my high school parking lot around 2 in the morning and proceeded to try the "Mad Max Maneuver". From a stand-still I gunned it, got up to 25-30 MPH and slammed on the brakes until they locked up, then (while still on the brakes) put the transmission in Reverse and punched the gas hard. Bingo!

The car was moving forward and I was spinning my tires in reverse. Hellacious amounts of smoke and noise and then we were traveling backwards and I did it again.

I think we went back and forth about 4-5 times and probably took about 1000 miles off the tires! Never had a problem with the tranny for as long as we owned the car (probably another 5 years). Kudos to Ford or whoever produced that transmission for them!
 
^^^I always wondered if that would really work :grin:

Last winter I spun out in a busy intersection. I wasn't really doing anything too stupid, other than being out in that bad weather, but it was kind of embarrassing. I had turned right out of a parking lot and went to make an immediate left through a traffic light but the back end kept on coming around from the right turn, and I ended up pointing 180 degrees from the direction I wanted to go. And the signal was changing. At least I was the last car coming through the light.
 
If had a few, the first is when I was first driving a did a lot of drifting around every corner, to the point where it felt natural, anyways, I did a huge ass stupid drift at a light (it was raining) and then a cop went past me and knicked the guy in front of me for not having a license plate, at the time I really did not think that it was a big deal, but I stopped drifting for a while.

A few months later, a friend was in the car and egging me on to drift, which I had not done for a while, anyways so theres an intersection with a right hand pull out, it was deserted and raining really hard for the first time in a while, so I floored the car and had the car about 60 degrees over and panicked and moved it to the other side too much and lost control, I did a 360 and a bit and stalled the car, the road was wide, there was no one else there and needless to say I don't drift anymore after doing that.

I have also (may or may not have happened) gone quite fast to a city near me (50km) going maxed out both ways and also accelerated quickly next to a another car which was a neon and my volvo was actually par with (don't know how) it was the most fun I've ever had in a car, and the roads were pretty much empty going both ways.
 
My friend used to have a Neon SRT-4 and I was following him over to his place in my Disco. We were on a deserted road with a few nice corners and he decided to show off his vehicle's capabilities. Me, wanting to preserve the dignity of a V8, decided to try and keep up with him. Overall I was impressed at how well I was able to keep up given the Disco's relatively poor acceleration and braking. I really did discover oversteer that day. It wasn't bad enough to be dangerous and if anything it made me take a better racing line through the corner. The best/scariest part of it all came shortly after all the fun was over. I'm coming up to a stop sign and when I hit the brake the whole vehicle starts acting funny. I soon realize what's going on and I start laughing my rear off.

Yep, the brakes were so hot that the ABS was kicking in! :lol:
 
horse around in the snow in a parking lot in an old subaru, slam up against a curb i couldnt see because the snow was higher than the curb, and blow out both tires and dent both wheels on the passenger side of my car
 
Lots of goofy stuff that i've done on deserted roads and such, but i think the dumbest but funniest thing i've done is gone off-road exploring in a ford tempo. Never got stuck dispite the harsh enviroment. I was particularly proud because i was able to stop on a steep dirt hill and get the car to regain traction, i would say it was a 30 degree incline, probably no big deal, but so many people claim they need trucks nowadays that it was fun to prove them wrong. Scariest off-roading i have done was in a cancelled sub-devision project, they dug out the dirt for the roads but then left and still haven't come back. Anyways i started down the road as i remembered it from driving before, all except now it was hugely bumpy, almost bottomed out a bunch of times, eventually the road just ended and i was driving through a field of 5-foot high grass not able to see crap, i didn't want to slow down and loose momentum for fear of getting stuck, but i also couldn't see if i was about to hit any huge rocks that were all over the field. Everything turned out okay, but it was actually kind of scary. Might have been driving a crappy car, but i honestly care for and need my car to live.

I think the second dumbest thing that i won't shy away from talking about is that i once spun-out in the same car on a on ramp. I entered the hard banked turn at a decent speed, but i didn't expect the back to swing around as quickly as it did. Happily nobody was behind me (i knew this before attempting the maneuver) so i straightened out and got on the highway.



I'll admit i've done a lot of goofy stuff, but i have actually learned from it, and as it was all on my own time i can claim as well i wasn't doing it to impress anybody. Hope not too many people think i'm a completely reckless hooligan.
 
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I failed my first driving license test a few years ago, the instructor told me to speed up a bit, already being nervous I put my foot down.. and failed. Needless to say, I went back the next month and passed it.

Other than that, just the odd speeding ticket. I'm very cautious behind the wheel.
 
This one time when I was reversing I hit a house. And it's not like I could say I didn't see it coz it was... as big as a house. It also happened to be my house so I really should have know it was there.

The car was fine but the house got a little dinged up.
 
Driving straight through the opposite direction of a rotary at 1 in the morning and almost plowing into a car. In my defense, it was a pretty badly-lit rotary and I didn't even notice its existence. (Yeah, I tried.)
 
I was fiddling with the radio in Mum's old 850R when I gave a love tap to the car in-front. The car in-front being a red 850R. Oops.
 
Scariest one:

I was having some rally fun on an unknown gravel road. Drove the ~5km road, made a u-turn and same road in the other direction. Thought I remembered every slow corner, but... Was driving 120km/h into an uphill blind corner, which I remembered was a fast one. Got some air from the crest, actually saw the corner... oh F"%&?!!!! It was a sharp left. Landed the car, which was really unbalanced from the jump. Braked hard for moment and had to turn max left. Stayed on the road, but I was heading into a line of trees on left side doing about 80-90km/h. Turned max lock to right, car turned and I continued on the road going sideways onto a stop. I was 99% sure I'm going to crash, but making the right moves and luck saved this time.
 
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Scariest one:

I was having some rally fun on an unknown gravel road. Drove the ~5km road, made a u-turn and same road in the other direction. Thought I remembered every slow corner, but... Was driving 120km/h into an uphill blind corner, which I remembered was a fast one. Got some air from the crest, actually saw the corner... oh F"%&?!!!! It was a sharp left. Landed the car, which was really unbalanced from the jump. Braked hard for moment and had to turn max left. Stayed on the road, but I was heading into a line of trees on left side doing about 80-90km/h. Turned max lock to right, car turned and I continued on the road going sideways onto a stop. I was 99% sure I'm going to crash, but making the right moves and luck saved this time.

You sound like a very spirited driver for somebody from Finland, usually all the Finnish people on here talk about how anybody who drives 5mph should be executed, but you seem different! With that in mind how do you handle all the health and safety advocates without giving in under pressure? Or are you actually just a reckless crazy kid who should have his license revoked?
 
You sound like a very spirited driver for somebody from Finland, usually all the Finnish people on here talk about how anybody who drives 5mph should be executed, but you seem different! With that in mind how do you handle all the health and safety advocates without giving in under pressure? Or are you actually just a reckless crazy kid who should have his license revoked?

Normally I drive 10-20kmh over speedlimit and I have never had any tickets from cops. I have been pulled over :coplight: 6 times for reckless driving, but never tickets from those either. When I find a nice road on the countryside I don't give a shit about speedlimits and have some fun. On motorways I sometimes max out the cars topspeed, but only for a short period of time, 'cos there might be a cop somewhere.
 
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