After Matt Spencer’s true confessions of all of the sins he committed with his ’79 Accord, it’s time for the rest of you to line up at the confessional. Not to get religious here, but the Pope is coming to visit, so maybe this can be a warm-up act for you in case you’re invited to have a papal confession. Since Francis owns a CC, he might well have sympathies for your automotive sins and let you off a bit easier than a judge: “Use your car to do something good for someone else” instead of “License revoked!”
I’ve documented my many automotive hijinks on these pages, but to tell the truth, I’ve never done anything all that bad in or with a car. I never destroyed or seriously damaged any cars through foolish behavior. I never liked getting drunk, so I only drove under the reasonably-modest influence of alcohol a couple of times. I took my parents car (and others) out for drives before I had my license. I did drive under the influence of cannabis and LSD, but they tend to make you drive more cautiously. I abused some new Fords when I was a car jockey in high school, but not really seriously. I’ve done stupid and potentially dangerous stuff like drive my Corvair on frozen lakes. I’ve only ever run into someone (more then a traffic rear-ender) once, but never hurt anyone, although I did put his ’69 Ford Country Sedan out of commission. So what’s my worst automotive sin?
I’d have to say it was all the many times I drove like a jerk, weaving through slower traffic at high speed in my Turbo Coupe or 300E, not all too different than this guy, cutting other drivers off, aggressive passing, scaring or at least annoying them. I can be impatient and feel superior in my car and my driving. It’s ok to drive fast and even a bit reckless, but not when it impacts others negatively, even if there’s no actual damage. Other folks have a right to a calm driving experience, as long as they’re not actually holding up traffic.
Since moving to Oregon, I still drive fast, but on on empty back highways and forest roads. Is that a sin? Francis; what say you?
Your turn to confess; you’ll feel better for it.
(1) Chewed up part of a golf course with my ’59 Biscayne.
(2) 1969. My rich roommate (sort of like Matt, come to think of it) had a Honda 600 sports car with right-hand drive. Late at night, roommate was driving on winding country roads, I was passenger. After several miles of fast curves at 95 MPH, a cop started to chase us. I stuck my head out of the left window, faced backward, and made funny faces at the cop for a couple minutes.
If roommate hadn’t been rich, with a well-known last name, we would have been in SERIOUS trouble. Since the cop recognized the power of his name, we got off with a warning.
When I had my ’65 Chevy pu, I used to take friends up to a fireroad leading up to Mt. Lukens in California. Once we got to the top, I instructed them to buckle up. I would then drive back down as fast as I dared, sliding sideways around the turns and jump the whoops so fast the truck would sometimes bounce twice after landing. One friend refused to fasten the belts ( I had installed lap and shoulder belts) and wound up on the floor with his feet sticking up in the air. Then I would go to the junkyard and buy used control arms and bring the truck into auto shop at school during the week and replace the front lower control arms which would always be smashed flat on the bottom, and repeat next weekend. One time the steering wheel on the no power steering truck with oversize wheels and tires came loose (aftermarket steering wheel) and only hitting a rock which turned the wheels toward the side of the mountain saved us from a 1000 ft drop of the side off the fireroad which had no sideguard rails. That was the last time I did the “Mr Toad’s wild ride” as I called it. Another time a friend’s girlfriend called him scared that someone followed her home in her car and was trying to get in to her house, we hopped in my ’70 C10 along with his sister speeding to his girlfiend’s house. That’s the only time I ever pegged the trucks 100 MPH speedometer. As I slid around the offramp a cop gave chase, I was running red lights and after the third light the cop chasing me spun out slamming on his brakes to avoid hitting a car I missed but he was on course to hit. We got to her house the same time the police showed up, the guy that was trying to get in got away. About 5 minutes later a patrol car pulled up to the scene, the officer got out, walked up to me and asked me if my name was Andretti. I said no, and told him my name. He explained he was the cop I lost in the chase. I explained why I was speeding to get to this house. He walked over and talked to the other cops, walked back to his car, looked at me, shook his head and drove off. Bless me Father for I have sinned.
“I want to get off Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride!”
THE RIDE NEVER ENDS
Interestingly, the Disneyland children’s ride has Toad ending up in Hell, which was not how author Kenneth Grahame had it. The Edwardian original is even more entertaining, e.g.:
“The only difficulty in this case is, how can we make it sufficiently hot for the rogue & hardened ruffian we see cowering in the dock before us [Mr. Toad]. He has been found guilty of stealing a valuable motorcar, of driving to the public danger, & of gross impertinence to the rural police. Mr. Clerk, tell us please, what is the stiffest penalty we can impose for each of these offences?” — from “The Wind & The Willows”
W.S. Gilbert, librettist for the comic Savoy Operas, in a letter to the London Times, believed the speed limit should not be increased beyond 12 mph, which he instructed his chauffeur to maintain. In another letter, he complained of an early speed trap.
I have done some stupid/foolish things in cars; mostly involving driving them too fast on public highways. The ultimate was several years ago when a former neighbor showed up one Sunday afternoon with his Ford GT. He asked if I wanted to go for a ride (silly question), so we went out to a stretch of the interstate that is usually lightly travelled. He made several quick passes up through the gears and asked if I wanted to drive; I was actually hesitant at first but he insisted so I said yes. We stopped in a rest area to change drivers and I remember him telling me to be firm with the shifter going into the gears. I pulled out of the rest area, got it rolling down the ramp and punched the throttle. That car pulled like a train, maybe not as hard as a hemi-powered Roadrunner, but much smoother. It also had a lot more top end than the Roadrunner, I had the GT up around 165 MPH when I decided that some common sense might be in order and just let it coast back down to cruising speed. My buddy George passed away a couple of years ago and I still miss our conversations. RIP.
“…..as long as they aren’t holding up traffic”.
95%+ of drivers on the road don’t understand they are holding up traffic. I recently drove from Florida to Pennsylvania and back and several times got “boxed in” by folks who were (apparently?) passing SLIGHTLY slower traffic. Also had several instances where folks “sat” in the middle of 3 traffic lanes and wouldn’t move left so merging traffic could be allowed on.
But to get to the stupid thing I’ve done with a car:
I once way overloaded the trunk of my 53 Plymouth with brush I was taking to the dump to the point my rear view mirrors were useless and I risked brushing passing cars with branches.
Holding up traffic is very hard to avoid when there is a ’79 New Yorker driving at 55 and another ’80s New Yorker passing at barely 60, and maybe another ’93 New Yorker passing around 65…
It’s just as bad as a military truck passing me.
I totalled a vehicle that had been in the family for 17 years because I ran a red light. Getting it stuck twice was no comparison.
Hmm….
As one who has never wrecked a car (knock on wood), perhaps my sins have been two-fold.
First, I have a habit of overloading pickups – for what they are rated. If it can pull it, we’re golden. Just two days ago I had an 8,000 pound trailer bolted to my half-ton pickup, pulling a mini-excavator; my pickup is rated for 6,400 pounds. I’ve also had as much as 4,500 pounds in the bed of an older Ford half-ton, which prompted some really weird steering from so little weight being over that axle.
Second, in 1998, I purchased my 1986 Plymouth Gran Fury from a gentleman who owned the fueling service at the airport in Lawton, Oklahoma. Taking it for a drive, I wound up on the runway, creating a panic with the FAA representative. The guy I was dealing with had apparently got his butt chewed by the FAA, and he was wanting to spread the cheer but not wanting to lose a sale. I’ve never even told my wife this story.
“I’ve never even told my wife this story.”
I think you have now….;-)
Yup, I was once rightly chewed out for traversing an “active runway” at Santa Paula, CA…a lovely little town with its own private airport. I truly was the bonehead…very glad I didn’t create a problem for a landing aircraft
Not me, but a couple of 1960’s high school acquaintances stole a guy’s Tempest from the K-Mart he worked at. They drove it out into the West Texas desert and played demolition derby until it died. Then they smashed all of the windows with rocks and stole the 8-track player. The best part came a few days later, when they asked a bunch of us if anyone wanted to buy a “Mini-8,” and one member of our group was the brother of the car’s owner. One thing led to another, and both culprits ended up in jail. Poetic Justice.
I have done in excess of 135MPH on a US interstate marked 55MPH
I have driven my mom’s car to do my paper route at the age of ten on Sunday mornings before the sun came up.
I have split lanes on a motorcycle doing triple digits…on a two lane highway with two way traffic where posted legal limit was 60MPH and there was heavy traffic present. In both directions.
I have evaded cops and succeeded.
I have done 4 wheel drifts on gravel in the dark with my headlights turned off when there was no moon out.
I have drag raced in town
I have been a getaway driver for various stupid shenanigans. The funniest and stupidest being the time my idiot buddies asked me to be the driver for their *brilliant* scheme to rob a whorehouse.
I have totaled my mom’s car…and then repaired it with my own hands…only to have her tell me she doesn’t want it anymore and that she is selling it to me. Price not negotiable. Sale is already final. Payment already late.
I have done timed high speed runs from sandusky to des moines attempting to win bets.
I have gone on high speed beer runs from omaha to kansas city because kansas city sells beer 2 hours later than does omaha.
I have literally tied drunk and passed out female passengers to my body so they would not fall off my motorcycle.
I have used whiskey mixed with other substances as a means to stay awake just a little while longer on a high speed run.
I have raced from Cheyenne to Fort Collins and back while under the influence.
I have done burnouts and cookies in mall parking lots simply to make mall cops chase me in their little mini trucks.
I have never spoken of the worst stuff I’ve done and never will.
I’ve never caused a car accident *knocks on wood* but one time I drove a 2001 Saturn S-Series off a very steep hill in San Francisco by accident. I was going 40 or so on a street that ends at the top of a hill and didn’t realize that fact until it was a few feet from me. Ended up taking a super steep hill going 40 and nose-dived the poor maroon sedan into the pavement. Everything beyond the front doors was bent at a different angle than the rest of the car. Luckily it was a rental that I had full coverage insurance on…thank god. I felt bad returning it
My friend and I offered to park cars at church one day to get our hands on some of the cool 70s coupes that the older members would drive. Coupes were such a big thing back then, literally. Once we were out of earshot it was repeated 0-60 runs down the side streets. It took forever to find a place to park ya know.
Our favorite car was a 5,300 lb 1976 Lincoln Mark IV. Sounded like a race car and pulled forever. The 8.2L Eldorado we would park was a kitten compared to the Mark.
Never let kids park your car at church.
Rocking the car back and forth in the snow. Sometimes I get excited when I think I’ve got enough rocking momentum that I mistime my forward reverse shifts and I hear a jerking clunk as the axles and wheels reluctantly comply for what direction I hastily chose. I feel completely guilty after having done that and wonder what damage I may have done. My only sense of solace is that since I’m referring to automatic transmissions, that at least there’s a fluid connection between engine and clutch/band packs with the torque converter and that there may be a bit of give in the situation.
Oh ya, also going too far up or forward and I accidentally go into park. Click click click….Eeesh!
Please forgive me!
Jeez. I’m pretty tame.
Put 2″ wide porta-a-wall whitewalls on my Dad’s 66 Mercury Montclair sedan.
Imitated the AMC Gremlin commercial by doing Arizona 8s and donuts in the parking lot of the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds when we lived in Davenport IA. In a 71 Gremlin. With my Mother in the car. Who was teaching me how to drive.
Much more fun to do it in the Mercury with her in it as the tilt was far greater. And her horrified reaction even more satisfying. Between protesting and laughing those were moments to remember.
But it’s okay. She got her revenge during the last couple of years of her life while I was in the passenger seat.
No wonder my Dad never wanted to be in the death seat while I was learning. Especially when I almost took out a mail box backing up in the same Gremlin.
I’ve had a bad habit with purchasing a car, tossing on either a dummy plate or one from one of my other vehicles to drive said back to my house. I think I’ve done this close to thirty times in twenty five years of driving.
On a funny note, I used a bumper jack to attempt to change a tire on my ’81 Subaru, only I tried jacking it from the right wheel well, causing the metal to buckle and bend. I did get the tire off though.
and, on my ’78 Monte Carlo, the carb kept closing on turns and I wasn’t sure why so I used twisty ties from bread bags to hold it open. A few weeks later I had my mechanic check it all out, he laughed at the twisty ties and informed me that the four bolts to hold the carb in place were resting just inches from dropping down the carb. It seems the previous owner was in the middle of a project when he sold me the car.
There is a method of using a bumper jack to break the bead on a bad tire…
I did that back in the day many times.
Can’t think of anything from back in the 70’s. Got my license December 1969. By 1973 paid for professional road course training to make me a very capable driver, train me how to spot and avoid stupid people on the road.
In 1995 I was in Florida visiting my Aunt with my family. Our rental was a 1995 Buick LeSabre. I had always wanted to see what it would be like to slam the emergency brake on in a car from around 40 or 50. Bad idea. I think God was with me because technically I should have totaled that Buick and/or gotten hurt or hurt someone else as a result. That silver LeSabre did a complete spin as a result of me doing that stupid move. It was at a 3 lane intersection on both sides, too. How there wasn’t another car near me at the time I did it was a complete miracle. The car ended up going right back the way I was headed. It was a very Jim Rockford move, and it was cool since no one got hurt, but yes it was totally stupid. Definitely the worst thing I’ve ever done in a car. EVER!
in 2000, I hired a car for work at Munich airport and was offered a Fiat Multipla or an Alfa Romero 156…..I picked the Alfa.
It was a 1.8 litre petrol with fewer than 200km on the clock and we were going into Austria on the autobahn.
Autobahns have no speed limits (in many places) and we got to 213 km/h, about 130 mph. which for a car that is only recorded as being capable of 122 mph is not bad. The cloud of thick exhaust smoke that came as slowed down was quite impressive too.
Coming back 2 days later we resolved taht no-one wopudl overtake us……only one BMW 535 managed it……
Forgot to tell Hertz…….until now
Now you’ll receive a Schwinn the next time you rent from them. 🙂
About 14 years ago, travelling interstate in the 450 6.9 (in clear weather and on new and correct tyres) a certain stretch of road was becoming monotonous so I kept gently accelerating wondering when my wife would realise what was happening. I found out a) the sunroof must be closed above 180 km/h because of the noise, b) the car sat as steady at 200 km/h as 100, and c) there was still more to go.
When the scenery, such as it was, beside the two lane road started passing like something from Star Wars I felt compelled to point to the speedo. And that was the second mistake of the day after the go to gaol speeding.
In other bouts of stupidity I’ve driven disc braked cars with inoperative brake boosters. I’m certain there are more but these come to mind first.
Those Mercedes big blocks could pull freight trains.
Once, I stopped at a redlight on a two lane street becoming a one street 30 meters or so after the light.
A W108 S-Class from the 60’s stopped next to me, the driving revving the engine while waiting for the light.
I was driving a 1984 190-E and told myself, well, he’s got more torque, but my car is lighter. So I might lose him on the first 50 to 100 meters, even if he has a 3.5 or 4.5 V8 under his hood.
The light went to green and both he and I floored it. That S-Class left me in the dust at the starting block. I just had the time to see that small “6.3” insignia on the boot…
Drove my Vauxhall Victor with a flat rear tyre as it was raining and dark and I didn’t fancy changing it. I heard this wak wak sound and ignored it. next day there was a huge strip of rubber behind my car and a few dents in the boot.
Ran a bus into a stationary coach while checking out a hot looking soldier.
Saw 120mph on the speedometer of a 3 litre Ford Capri
Pulled the gatepost and part of the wall down from my parents house trying to get a bent rear bumper straight (Not one of my brother’s best ideas)
Drove a rental Versa around San Diego for two days before hearing a scraping sound and seeing smoke rise from underneath – turned out the parking brake was on the whole time. Whoops!!!
I have outrun the cops in motor vehicles, perhaps, three times but. while not quite a motor vehicle my most memorable excess in regard to the law was on a bicycle. I was attending a college in Ottawa taking cartography and photogrametry and realized that my HP45 calculator at school would probably need a charge before a surveying test the next day. It was winter and I had to pour hot water over my Sturmy Archer three speed hub to get the pawls to engage but after that, I was off.I made the eight or ten miles to the college without incident but shortly after turning onto the college roads, a cop put on his lights and pulled me over. He told me that, as it was getting near dark, I was due for a 28 dollar fine for not having a light. I told him that there was now way that I could afford a 28 dollar fine so, I hopped onto my bike and rode around his car. He gave chase. I turned into the north parking lot that was rimmed by high snow banks and headed to the only exit, a stair that led, across a road, to the college entrance. As soon as his car rounded the snowbank rimming the north lot, I changed direction. I pedaled as fast as I could into the south lot. I reached the snowbank rimming the south parking lot and, with no sight of the cop car, I threw my bicycle over the snowbank. I walked across a snowy field to a road and rode home without incident. The next day,without a charge, My HP 45 had plenty of juice for the test.Oh, and, just to make this story more relevant, I would regularly take my first motorcycle , a 1970 650 Bonneville out to a long stretch of road outside of Ottawa, and lay, flat on the tank with my legs laying over the taillight. I would then crank the throttle. I seem to remember getting to somewhat over 120 miles per hour. I am now 61 years old and cannot imagine doing such things again but, to this day, on my way back from Nova Scotia to Toronto, I have hit 160 KMH+ while passing. Old habits seem difficult to abandon.
I don’t know how many times I’ve outran cops in my lifetime. First because I lost count of the number of times I initiated actions with the intention of not getting caught… and secondly because I don’t how many times I did it that the officer didn’t notice me, and the trigger was misguided.
I’ve never outran a cop that turned on his lights behind me. But I always leave the road that I’m going on if I sincerely think that a cop plans to pursue me and he gets out of sight when I have the option. I take the next exit ramp or turn, and then take a series of random turns going about 10 over the limit. Its never failed, not sure how often I was actually being pursued, though.
In high school, a friend and I used to engage in car chases after school. One would try to lose the other, and the other would try to stay with the first guy. Somehow, we never got in an accident, never hurt anyone, and never got caught. His 68 Cougar vs. my mother’s 74 Luxury LeMans. Then, I wrecked the LeMans and it was his Mail Jeep vs. our loaner/rental 77 Honda Civic Hondamatic wagon. Had we been caught for even 50% of what we did, I would be due to get my license back right about now.
The wrecked LeMans is another. It was snowy, and I wanted to drive with the speedo registering 100 mph as I drove past my high school on a residential street. The rear end started fishtailing and I slid sideways into a fire hydrant. That was pretty stupid. Told my mother that I accelerated and lost control. She asked no follow-up questions.
Does driving the speed limit (right lane) count as “holding up traffic?”
I started driving the limit because the alternative was getting too expensive (last ticket in 1985 was for 100 in a 35). Didn’t get stopped, but I have driven over 100 in heavy Atlanta traffic (in a V6 Vega, no less).
In same said Vega, thought it would be fun to drive on a golf course after a rare Georgia snow. Immediately bogged down and left deep ruts getting back out again.
Most recently, pulled into the yard in my old New Beetle and pulled the handbrake to do a bootleg 180. Forgot I had set up horseshoes the night before and put a nice crease in the rocker panel.
Of course not, and certain cars from Malaise era can’t even hold up 55 on a hill.
I sometimes drive at the speed limit or lower (but not much lower) in the far right lane and people still get annoyed at me.
I have briefly hit 130mph in the Maxima I had, but I don’t consider that bad . . .
In high school we took turns doing figure eights in the parking lot of a restaurant for several hours causing my well worn tires to become nearly bald which I suspect contributed to me doing an unplanned 360 on a wet interstate ramp a few days later. I have compulsively replaced tires at the first sign of degraded wet traction since then – they love me at Michelin.
I also lost control of my 95 Ford Taurus company car on an snowy steep downhill in upstate NY due to driving too fast. I was going 45 mph when I should have been doing 25 mph tops. I spun around several times with the nose and tail of the Taurus hitting snow banks on either side of the road. It scared the bejesus out of me but didn’t put a scratch on the car.
I reckon I’ve driven between 800k and 900k miles thus far in life and have never had a collision, so I’ve been fortunate. I love cars, roads, and driving so it’s all good.
Top speed run in my ’86 Mercury Cougar on bald tires when I was in high school. I got it up to 199 kilometers/hour (digital speedo only went up to 85mph, but 199 in “Canada” mode).
I also used to turn the windshield washer sprayers on my ’89 Nissan Sentra to face outward so that it would shoot jets of water out at people. My friends and I thought it was tons of fun at drive-through windows and stop lights. Come to think about it, it’s a miracle no one ever shot at us.
In 1973 I drove my 69 Ford F250 through the front door of the bank because the banker was insisting I missed a payment and wanted the truck back.
I manage to convince the banker that I had made the payment and got the truck back. But still had to serve one year with 335 days suspended and pay a $5800 fine as well as pay for the damages to the bank.
I had some serious anger issues back then. Thank God I’ve mellowed a whole heap since then.
Probably the time I got into an impromptu drag race with a E36 M3 sedan. This was a 4 lane stretch of road that narrowed to two in a half mile or so, two lights away, so we both gunned it at our light total dead heat to about 130, blew a red light and by the time the road narrowed I had to slam the brakes because we were still side by side. On top of the general recklessness of that alone I had my passenger compartment almost fully loaded with disassembled furniture I was bringing back to a friends house. I guess what posessed me was my surprise that my Modded Cougar was equally as fast as Europeans finest from the same era, so kind of I kept on it just to see just which one runs out of steam first. I drove the rest of the way at about 10 under the speed limit in effort to make up for that ridiculous behavior 🙂
Another time, in High School, when I first got my Cougar, not far from the Senior parking lot, I was behind my buddy in his Hyundai, who was revving his engine to be a smart ass, he then turned right from the stop sign we were approaching. So to one up him I did a big smokey burnout right after he turned and went through the sign, knowing he’d he’d see it in his mirror… And to my surprise there was a cop car with a student pulled over on the street he just turned onto. He said to me the next day the officer gave him the dirtiest look imaginable since he clearly was clearly part of that with his fart canned Elantra. I just remember I rushed home, parked in the garage and closed very fast afterwards.
I’m a fairly benign driver the rest of the time though, and have only recieved 1 traffic ticket in 10 years of driving, and it was just for speeding 10 over. In my teen years I found myself weaving in and out of lanes to get ahead occasionally, but always found it excruciatingly awkward when you ultimately hit a traffic jam ahead and all those cars you just zig zagged through like a rabid dog are suddenly stopped on all sides of you. Doesn’t seem worth it, and indeed as I’ve found, driving normally, only passing on the left lane as you’re supposed to, I tend to keep right up with the car(s) constantly weaving in and out of lanes, plus or minus maybe 3 cars.
Oh, you reminded me of something similar I did after watching the races at Road Atlanta one weekend. *Everybody* was a bit of a leadfoot leaving the track, and as I pulled onto I-85 to head back to Atlanta, a guy in a Maserati (don’t remember the model) blew around me. Well, I bent pedal (was in my V6 Vega), and returned the favor after a mile or so – he floored it, but I had the edge… Go Team Vega!
Doing burnouts, donuts and sliding was kinda comum to me and my buddies even before we got our drivers license, but in Brazil by that time was alright ’cause the streets were pretty much empty and the numbers of police cars were scarce.
In 2000 me and my wife were living in Atlanta GA, she bought a 1990 Z24 Chevy Cavalier with a 3.1 V6. The engine was not running as smooth as it should and I took it to a repair shop, the guy told me to buy a bottle of fuel system cleaner, pour it in the tank, fill it up with 93 gas, hit the highway and floor it for like 15 minutes.
And I just did that, all the recipe in the tank and then I took the I 20 west and drove as fast as I could, it was a saturday morning in summer time, the road was packed and I was just enjoying zig zagging in between the cars, going from one lane to another, feeling like a GP driver, sometimes at 110… when my wife said: Honey, remember, we are not in Brazil anymore.
Thank God I didn’t get a ticket that day… It didn’t fix the engine but I had some fun though.
My mates & I used to race speedway, so we had our share of bent mudguards.
If we couldn’t lever the dent out, we’d use a bottle jack to push it out.
One time we had a dent that wouldn’t respond to the above. So Bob blows a hole though the ‘guard with a oxy, puts a nut & bolt through & attaches a chain.
Other end of the chain is then attached to Dad’s Nissan Patrol. We tell Bob,
“take it easy or put a washer under the bolt” Neither happens, Bob dumps the clutch,
the chain tightens & the bolt is duly pulled through. Now free, the chain hits the back of the Patrol, leaving a mark with every link, all the way from lower LH corner to top RH corner.Even marked, but didn’t shatter the glass.
Nowhere near as bad as some of the stuff above, but…
Last year, I was taking long shifts at work for a couple of weeks because our fire alarm system was down, and someone needed to stay at the shop to make sure that it didn’t burn down. At one point after a shift in which I had been up for about 50 hours, I was driving home in my dad’s 08 Saturn Astra when I came to a railroad crossing next to an intersection with a red stoplight. The train was at the station by the crossing, and people were crossing the street. Suddenly, the light turns green. Suddenly, my sleep-deprived mind thinks that it would be a good idea for my 1.5 ton hatchbacl to cross in front of the many-hundred-ton train, which has just now started moving. Thankfully, I made the crossing. Just.
The other time was this past summer. I was driving my company’s work truck, a 2003 Dodge Van. It was early morning, and there was pretty much no one on the roads. What does a guy do when there’s no one around and he has a highway to himself? Burnouts, of course! That truck was a dog even unloaded, but it could lay serious rubber. Especially in front of a cop parked in a divider. Who promptly pulled me over. I’m not even sure how I managed not to get a ticket, the entire conversation we had is a blur. I remember him laughing and me sweating bullets, so maybe I talked my way out of it? I have no clue.
Burn outs in front of cops ? Been there too.
I was driving a Mk IV Ford Fiesta with a 1.25 16V Zetec engine. Albeit small and not that powerful (only 75 HP), that engine loved to rev. It’s the only car I hit the engine ruptor with.
So I was in Paris suburbs, coming home from college, with french anarcho punk rock blaring out the open windows and inviting passerbys to hit the current President and Secretary of State with a hammer…
Then, at a crossroad, when the light I was waiting for turned green, I floored the gas pedal and dumped the clutch all of a sudden.
I peeled rubber from 30 to 50 meters, just in time to see two motorcycle cops on the corner of my eye.
They promptly caught me and asked me if I thought this was funny (french policemen don’t have a very good sense of humor).
Sweating heavily, I replied that I was new to this car and that my tires might be a little bald so they didn’t have a good grip.
Lamest excuse ever.
Keep ’em coming , this is very entertaining .
-Nate
I was a passenger in a car driven by a buddy who was drunk. Drunker than I realized…until…
A heavy metal song came on the radio which started out with police sirens in the intro. Upon hearing the sirens on the radio, said buddy pulled over and started getting his license out.
I laughed so hard I had to open the door and puke.
Then it was his turn to laugh at me.
No later than this summer, while on vacation in Alsace (France), I took a backcountry road suggested by Google Maps to reach the highway.
I was with my girlfriend, pleasantly chatting in my 79 Caprice, while doing a lazy 50 MPH.
I did see a warning for a bump on the road ahead but I rapidly dismissed it since nothing was on the road and Departmental Offices of Infrastructure are usually exaggerating the size of road bumps.
So, we kept on strolling when we arrived at the outskirts of some forest where trees were casting a gentle shadow over that nice backcountry road.
Well, because of that damn gentle shadow, I didn’t see that there was no more pavement ahead, the asphalt turning to dirt and the color of that dirt exactly matching the asphalt.
Above all, I didn’t notice that huge bump across the road, maybe 1 foot to 2 feet high, until the very last moment.
I slammed the brakes hard but it was too late.
I hit that bump still doing 40 MPH or so.
I felt the Caprice leave the ground and then we fell back on it.
Hard.
So hard my girlfriend’s head hit the roof. Fortunately, all she got was a nice big bump.
Moreover, I didn’t wreck havoc on the Caprice which seemed and still seems fine today.
Well, I did have my fair share of havoc when my girlfriend explained to me in a very colourful language what she thought of my driving skills…
From a distance, I guess it must have seemed impressive to watch that 2-ton landyacht do a very bad imitation of a Dukes of Hazard car chase.
Cool, a 78 Caprice in France.
The dumbest, stupidest things I ever did with a car happened about ten months after getting my license and lasted about two weeks. My first two cars, which I had for about six months (’76 240D with terrible compression) and two months (’82 240D with slightly better compression) were really too slow to be driven with great stupidity. Their slowness and “torque curve” (so quoted because at their elderly age- both with more than 500k miles- they didn’t really have any torque!) contributed to light-timing, but other than that, even though I only recognized two throttle positions (opened and closed) I never could get them up to a foolhardy speed.
I came into a vague amount of money at that time (meaning I could afford to buy something that didn’t have a wheel in its grave) and bought a 1982 300D with only about 270k miles on it. Its engine was in tip-top shape (the local MB dealer told me so) and so compared to what I estimated to be about 45bhp and 80 ft-lb in the elderly NA four cylinder 4-speed manual, I had 121bhp and 170 lb-ft through a 4-speed auto. In the same body.
For the first two weeks, I reveled in the idea of a car that would really travel faster than I wanted it to go readily. I could chirp the tires if I tried. And the dumbest thing I did was travel at road speeds through parking lots and near the beach roads. There were people there. Twenty five was a speed I could reach by just dipping my foot and waiting a few seconds- as opposed to laboring. Until I came far too close to not seeing a man and his child and almost hit them. I didn’t, nobody was hurt, my car undamaged, and nobody really yelled at me. I’m sure the man would have a few minutes later, but at that moment he was stiff in shock- and so was I.
Do I drive fast? Yes, very. Do I maneuver through traffic? Yes, I do. Do I sometimes hit 90+ on the interstate- no, its more like a daily incident. But I do those things according to a strict mental algorithm that has everything to do with doing it safely. I have a rule that when I am actually trying to get somewhere quickly, I drive even more conservatively, because you are the most careless when you are rushing.
And these tend to turn into a “fastest you were pulled over”. So I’ll tell that story, too. The number was 124 mph. I was on the New Jersey Turnpike, about two in the morning. I couldn’t see a tail light on the road, and I was traveling from my parents to my college apartment. I was driving a ’95 E300 Diesel, my foot had been on the floor for about 8 or 9 minutes, still hadn’t seen a tail light. What I did see was a pair of headlights on one of the cop ramps. I took my foot off the throttle, and once I passed it, hit the brakes gently, and pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.
He came up behind me and turned his lights on as he did so. He asked me why I stopped (I presume to ensure he had in fact pulled over the right car), and I said to him “To make your job easier, officer.” He asked me how fast I had been going, and I said to him I was unsure, but I was certain it was way faster than it should have been. (That was the truth- The speedometer read 130 something and I knew the advertised top speed was 200 kmh- which is what he told me I had been going.) He asked me why I had been going close to twice the posted limit, and I told him the truth- there were no cars on the road, and I wanted to get home.
I don’t know if he saw the state police family members card in my wallet. I leave it behind my license so it is visible when I hand my license to police officers, but it was dark, he didn’t use a flash light, and he may have never seen it- and I never hand it to them anyway- it implies I think I am above the law, which is both obnoxious and inaccurate. I was hoping I wouldn’t get arrested, I was expecting a (deserved) ticket.
I didn’t get one. He told me that he understood my desire to get home, that he drove a W124 himself, that he knew they were safe cars, but that didn’t mean I could ignore the speed limit- and that if he ever caught me going anything close to that speed, I needn’t worry about the ticket, because he would haul me in. He then told me to get home safely, and walked back to his car.
To this day, I don’t know why I was so lucky. Maybe the officer didn’t want to charge me with what was, under those particular circumstances, a victimless crime with very heavy penalties. Maybe he appreciated that allure of driving that car with ones foot glued to the floor. Maybe he appreciated that I pulled over for him before he even got underway to chase me. Most likely it was a combination of all of those things, plus insane luck.
But I don’t, to this day, see anything unsafe about going 124 mph on an empty arrow straight 4 lane dual carriageway. It was stupid- I coulda got more than a revoked license for that- but not unsafe.
1. 18 years old. Smacked a new Mazda backing out of a parking space. Good dent. Left the scene.
2. 19 years old. Drove my Pinto 90 mph through a residential neighborhood. Twice.
3. 21 years old. Drove my brand new Chevy Beretta 100 mph down a straight, deserted highway. Car felt like it was on ice; a gentle breeze or a twig in the road would have sent me off the road and into a tree.
I never did any thing that I would admit to now, let’s just be clear on that point.
Back in high school 4 of us would occasionally pitch in and by a used B210, Gremlin, or a clapped out Ford Ltd, Torino etc.(cheap with sludged engine and no oil pressure) for $150 or so. We then took our chase car (retired Ma-Bell forward control Econoline), crash helmets, case or so of beer, and guns and head out to the desert for some endurance testing. Results, Gremlins will go anywhere a Jeep will but do tend to dig into sand if you slow down too much. A hammering Windsor will run quite a while and sometimes out live the transmission but generally car is too heavy for much entertainment. A B210, tough, tough, tough!! We had a white 4 door that impressed us all with it’s maneuverability and low altitude flight aerodynamics. Sadly it got hung up in barb wire and we had to attempt to kill it by jamming the accelerator wide open. It ran for an incredibly long time that way, and at that it still restarted and ran on three cylinders in spite of the hole in the block. It finally took a lucky shot from a Desert Eagle which clipped the fan belt to kill the thing. (I should have kept that car, impressive).
By the way, as far as testing results go, it does not appear that a car will explode no matter how many times you shoot it or if ran off a cliff (sadly life does not imitate art). They just quit running or go crunch in no particular order. Just saying.
If hooning was a sin, then the Holy Father would just shut the confessional window on me. I have over two dozen speeding tickets to my name over close to 4 decades, but never lost my license, and had it confiscated only once ….
Early in my internship in Madison, WI, I was watching the Bucks-Celtics basketball game, and at half-time bolted from home to the only KFC I knew of on the other side of town. On the way back I went down East Washington and attained a speed which I made every light (at least a dozen) over maybe 3-4 miles until the last one in front of the Capital building, had the turn signal on and waited for the left hand arrow, and took off again. When trying to get around some slowpoke on the bypass, is when the night sky turned cop blue. Apparently I had three cruisers after me, and they couldn’t time or estimate my speed because I blew by them so fast, in a 1982 SR5 pickup with a camper top, trying to make it back before at least the end of the 3rd quarter. I got ‘too fast for conditions’, and my license taken and I had to use the ticket as a temporary (I also had to drive to the police station that night following one of the officers, but my truck wasn’t impounded). Fortunately it was night court later, so I didn’t miss any time at the hospital. I don’t remember what the fine was, but I was driving with a GA license and plate. I managed to keep those. I got off easy I think.
Two years later, while slightly inebriated, I drove my truck partly off a raised driveway (the other driveway parallel to this one was 3 feet lower and the outer edge of my driveway was footed by a concrete block wall) in the drizzling rain at night. The right front wheel just dangled over the edge as the frame of my truck was grounded on the edge of the wall. I stared at this sad sight in the rain as my glasses fogged, then thinking of an episode of Combat! where a soldier was pinned under a jeep axle, engineered a solution with a jack and a rock for a base. So with some handy bricks out back and a 2×4 board, I jacked my truck level, built a tower stand under the wheel, and put the board under the tire to bridge it to back to the driveway, and then slowly backed my truck on the driveway until all 4 wheels were on again. Took all of 30 minutes as I recall. None of my roommate saw me, or anyone else.
In high school I hit an orange barrel on I-85 and it got stuck under mom’s car (a 65 Dodge Dart) and slid all over two lanes before coming to a halt. My friend with me was a bit more worldly and said, just jack it up and remove it. Which I did. Never told mom, but a month later the front tires were completely bald because I knocked it out of alignment. I never confessed to anything I wasn’t asked. There was a small dent underneath the bumper, but mom never noticed stuff like that.
I put nails under tires of people who block my driveway at night, thinking I wouldn’t mind or something. I don’t put it in the center, but close to the tire walls so it can’t be patched. I feel no remorse, and this is kind compared to what people in Boston will do to other cars found in ‘their’ parking space during a snow emergency.
It was 1988 and I was a college student in Thousand Oaks, CA. My friend and I secured a day’s work helping a local man in his 70’s clear out years of overgrowth in this back yard.
At the end of our work day, I asked the old man about the curious heap in his driveway. It was a light blue 1974 AMC Matador four door sedan. The hood had been removed and lay shiny side down on the vinyl roof. The engine bay was completely filled with fallen leaves, though I could make out two valve covers in there…but a gap between them—it appears the intake manifold got unbolted. The man told me that about 5 years earlier, he had started to disassemble the engine to replace a burned exhaust valve. Then his wife called him in for dinner. The project had not progressed over the ensuing 5 years. He then said, “Why, you want it”? “The parts are in the trunk”.
“Of course” somehow can streaming from my young mouth. I borrowed a bumper mount tow bar from a friend, and hitched that very heavy Matador to my not-so-eager 1980 Pinto wagon with 2.3L . As my buddy and I were in the front seat of the Pinto while dragging the Matador home, we were a little perplexed by how my Pinto kept sliding around corners with the big Matador behind us. I learned about understeer, then uncontrollable oversteer. It was actually a tad scary. Note to self: Flat towing a dead 4000lb car with an 89 horsepower 2500lb Pinto is not a good idea…”! With the Matador unhooked in my apartment parking lot, I assessed what needed to be done.
Between college classes over the next several weeks, I extracted two large trash bags worth of leaves from the engine compartment. Now I had a clear view. What I found there, combined with what was in the trunk, appeared to be a complete 304 cubic inch inch V8. I also noted however that though all the leaves were gone, there was an inch or so of brown viscous liquid in the engine valley along with the push rods and lifters. The liquid appeared to be oily, but how could there be so much in the engine so as to make the level above the camshaft?
I grabbed 9/16in wrench and my drain pan. Under the car, I released a torrent of oil…..and then WATER!….about 3 gallons of it….and some smallish chunks of unidentifiable grunge. “Hmmmm…” I thought to myself.
I decided to grab the crank pulley to see if it would turn. Easily, actually. One good sign, at least. I decided to unbolt both heads. I found a burned #4 exhaust, just as the old man told me.
I borrowed a valve spring compressor and I purchased a single new valve for $7.00 from local auto parts store. I brought the heads into my apartment, where I used the kitchen counter as a workbench. I hand-lapped all 16 valves, and then took the heads to my bathtub where I soaked them with degreaser and gave them a shower. I then spent $36 for a gasket set, $3 for an oil filter, and about $8 on the no-name 10w40. I didn’t have any more money, so this had to work.
Everything bolted right together. Not a single stripped hole, not a single missing nut or bolt. I filed the points, then grabbed the battery out of my Pinto. I dribbled some gas from a gas can into the Motorcraft 2-barrel, got in the driver seat, and turned the key.
Two cranks, and it fired. It seemed as if it had just run yesterday. Hitting on all 8, even the auto choke kicked down properly, and the tough old girl settled into a lovely smooth idle….on the five year old gas from the tank.
I rushed to grab some water jugs so I could get some water in the motor before I burned my new valve. No leaks. I was feeling pretty good so far.
Radiator full, I decided to take it for a spin. Moving the column shifter into D didn’t seem do anything, but then, gently, the car crept forward. With a little throttle, I was rounding the parking lot corners. I thought perhaps I should check the brakes. They worked, mostly…kinda like the transmission, they needed to wake up gradually. I then left the parking lot, and cruised the adjacent boulevard. Honestly, the car floated down the road as if nothing had happened…just another day in the park.
Now fully warmed up and operational, I returned to my parking lot. I thought I should put a timing light on her to get it into spec. That’s when I noticed something strange. The timing mark on the crank was moving….longitudinally….as I goosed then engine, I observed what must have been a half inch of endplay on that crankshaft. I was surprised the fan belts didn’t jump out of their grooves. “Oh well” I thought to myself. “I Guess I won’t bother titling and getting tags for this…the motor might blow up anytime with end play like this”.
As one would expect from a poor motor-head college kid with about 50 acres of open space nearby, my roommate and I took turns off-roading the Matador. We would roll down all the windows, don our motorcycle helmets, and have fun. Lots of fun. Who knew that a 1974 Matador could do jumps?
I invited a lovely young lady to join me for a lunch hour bonsai run in the AMC. She put on her helmet, buckled in…and off we went. I headed for the little track I had created, but launched with somewhat more velocity than previously. Suddenly we were airborn…and rotating…..within a thick dust cloud. The car touched down…hard…..and I heard hub caps rolling away. I had completely lost situational awareness. I thought the car had stopped moving, but it hadn’t. Reflexively, I grabbed the column shifter, and moved it up to PARK. Then a strange “KerBLING” came from under the car. Now, the car had stopped!
My lovely little 304 V8 was happily idling under the hood. But the car would not move. I killed the transmission with that little stunt. I was honestly stunned. The transmission was the “good” part of the car…unaffected by 5 years of uncovered exposure…how could THAT have failed? Turns out, transmissions aren’t immune from stupidity inflicted on them by careless bonsai driving college kids.
I sold the hulk to a Mexican for $200 who used a tractor to drag it away. Somebody is probably living in it on some nearby farm…..
I’ve never done anything massively illegal or totaled a car through stupidity, but I do have a few gems and near-misses.
-When I was 17, with just about a year of driving experience, I was driving Mom’s ’86 Parisienne when the throttle stuck open. Found myself crossing 55 on a mostly residentilal city street. Panicked a bit, stood on the brakes, which slowed the car but didn’t come close to stopping it. I veered off onto a side street and, still moving about 25 MPH, threw the car into park and turned off the engine as soon as I stopped moving. Only then did it occur to me that I should have just put it in neutral…DOH. Amazingly the transmission was fine, and I never did figure out why the throttle stuck. Only ever happened the once.
-Similar to the above but almost 10 years later…there was a long hill in a neighborhood that I sometimes drove through. One night, driving my Mark VIII, I decided I’d shift from drive into neutral and coast down the hill. Moving about 40 MPH, I depressed the button (mistake!), moved the console shifter, and overshot neutral, shifting directly from Drive to Reverse. The transmission made a TERRIBLE noise, the engine shuddered and stalled, and the car lurched to a halt. I was *convinced* that I’d grenaded the transmission in my otherwise beautiful, 55k mile car. Amazingly, the trans was fine, no trouble for the rest of the time I had the car. I’m still amazed I didn’t blow it up with that stunt.
-Driving to the beach for Memorial Day weekend 2004, in my ’82 Malibu. I was on a country road, at night, trying to look at my directions while keeping one eye on the road. Didn’t do the best job of that second part. Looked up and noticed the road I was on “T” intersected into another road in less than 100 feet. Stood on the brakes, still blew through the intersection, off the road and into some guy’s front yard. Left a couple of stripes in said yard. I quickly backed up and sped off before he could come out of his house and see the mess I’d made… *Very* lucky that there was no traffic crossing from either direction as that could have been a really nasty accident.
-Also learned that driving on tires showing *just a bit* of cord is NOT ok. Figured I could get it home, then go get new tires the next morning. Instead, my tire went flat on Interstate 40. But wait! Not only did it go flat, but it *completely separated* and the tread went rolling off the side of the road into a ditch while the only thing that protected my rim from destruction was the fact that the sidewalls folded inward and under the edges. Not fun.
I have one other transgression to admit. I was riding down Smyth Road in Ottawa on my1970 650 Bonneville at about 70mph in a 40 when a cop gave chase and pulled me over. He told me that my tail light was out. I told him that I checked my lights regularly as the vibration of the bike would sometimes break filaments. He himed and hawed and I was wondering when he was going to mention the blatant speed limit violation. At the supremely optimal time, some guy with a girl on the back rode by on the street intersecting Smyth road where I had been stopped. He was on a Norton Comando and had to be going between 90 and 100 MPH. The cop was immediately transfixed by this miscreant and then yelled out, look at that guy. He ran back to his car and took off after what he must have judged to be a better use of his time that day. I am forever grateful to that other rider. I hope that he had the same luck that I had.
Turfed a ball diamond in my ’74 Pinto. Blew up the transaxle in a brand new ’84 Tempo rental doing reverse rollbacks.