Who is the worst driver you've ever known?

[Lizard]

I have two candidates. One was an old roommate, the other is my sister.

My old roommate was a piece of work. Ray was not a bad guy, but quite possibly the biggest nerd who has ever lived. He once called up a local television news anchor in small town where both and she worked because he thought she was pretty. For whatever reason she agreed to meet him once, and he was therefore forever after convinced he had a real shot at hooking up with women he saw on TV if he just called them up and asked nice. Honestly, I wondered sometimes if he had Asperger's Syndrome.

Anyway, Ray was such a lousy driver it would've been funny. Except it was scary. On multiple occasions he would be driving the two of us somewhere and was on the verge of sailing absentmindedly through red lights until I freaked out. He tended to get into the left-hand passing lane when on the freeway and just stay there. He didn't seem to have heard you are supposed to only use that lane for passing. I asked him once about this, and he said he liked driving in the left lane. :rolleyes:

The best part was when the two of us got pulled over coming home from a party. I was four sheets to the wind, but Ray (a total straight arrow and teetotaler) was driving. The cop could smell booze fumes, but wasn't sure Ray was not the souce, so he asked a bunch of harsh, probing questions, and started making Ray do the standard tests like counting backwards. Ray got so nervous he kept failing the tests! I kept laughing like a maniac during all this, which didn't help.

As for my sister, I am nominating her from the ages of 16 to 27. In that span she had some sort of wreck, crash, fender-bender or crackup with literally every vehicle she drove. It started with the Ford Fairmont that was her first vehicle. She drove that off the road into a ditch. Then, driving an old truck the family had, she wiped out some guy's fence. She borrowed my brother's car while he was off in Europe and managed to drive that into a ditch as well. (She claimed a car coming around a corner was into her lane and drove her off the road. Yeah, right.) then she clipped the door of the garage at her apartment with the roof of her car. The streak ended with the next car after that, when she just rear-ended someone on a highway entrance ramp.

[WordMan]

Have you driven with anyone from Boston? :D

[Freudian Push Up Bra]

My dad has his moments; he tends to forget about where he's going and fail to plan to get into the correct lane for where he's going, which leads to some interesting moments in a six metre long beast of a car...

My grandmother never drove but she was a horror to drive with; she'd gasp with fear at the slightest thing. It was awful.

I vowed never to drive with a friend's dad after he almost passed out at the wheel (upon reflection, he was an alcoholic).

[phouka]

Well, there's my dad, there's me, and there's an old ex.

My dad scares the bejeezus out of me. He drives too aggressively, follows too close, gets too angry, and honks too much. However, I think he's been in maybe one or two minor fender benders my adult life. He is getting significantly older, which really makes me worry, but he also has mellowed out and doesn't have a problem with my mom or any male relatives driving instead of him.

Me, I'm far too easily distractible. My accidents have been, for the most part, my own fault because I wasn't paying attention. They've also all been minor fender benders with body damage but no injuries at all.

My ex? I would not ever get in a car with him again. He regularly drove twenty or thirty miles over the speed limit in a piece of shit beat up pickup truck. He passed people in unsafe conditions, he would get on people's bumpers and ride maybe three or four feet off them until they got out of his way, and he had no problems showing hostility to other drivers. Sure, he had far fewer accidents than I did, but I always maintained he was only ever going to have ONE accident.

[Annie-Xmas]

I grew up in Boston, and come from a family where no member has the gene for a sense of direction. We can all do complex mathematic problems in our heads, but can barely tell right from left.

My younger sister is the worst one of the bunch. The first time she tries to find a place, she will end up taking the most indirect route imaginable. On any future visits, she will take the exact same route because that's how she knows it. I use to live less than a mile from her house. She was always complaining about how she had to drive three miles to pick me up.

[don't ask]

I think my nominee is the person I have spent the least time with in a car.

One day at work a bunch of us decided to go for lunch to a restaurant a few minutes drive from work. A few people had driven to work and offered to ferry the rest of us there and back.

I ended up in the car driven by the youngest guy that worked with us. He was just an amazingly stupid/careless/thoughtless driver and it was apparent in everything he did. I was unhappy on the way to the restaurant and when we left he turned on to the main road, through a stop sign, without stopping, causing an oncoming car to brake.

When he stopped at the traffic light a hundred metres away I opened the door and got out of the car, in the middle of the road, wished all the others "good luck," and spent 20 minutes walking back to work.

[Chefguy]

My dear departed Aunt Marian. She drove an old 1950 Pontiac clear up into the 70s and beyond. It was a tank, and Auntie had very little grasp of the world's realities in the best of times. The turn signals didn't work; or if they did, she scorned their use, preferring to jab her arm out the window halfway through a turn to let people know that, yes indeedy, she had no intention of suddenly changing course. The sun visor had long resigned it's fate to gravity, and would slowly descend from its lofty perch, much like a faded Scarlett O'Hara coming down the staircase, until it came to it's full downward position, blocking Auntie's front vision. Eventually, it would occur to her that she couldn't see and she would smack the offending cardboard with the back of her hand, sending it back to begin its forlorn and inevitable downward journey once again.

Red lights and stop signs were suggestions for Aunt Marian; things to be considered briefly, but not necessarily acted upon. Hunched over the wheel, cigarette clamped between her lips, squinting through the smoky haze, she terrorized most of Portland, the constant blare of car horns not fazing her in the least.

I took my new bride to visit her and my Grandma back in the early 70s and she volunteered to take us somewhere. I tried to head it off, but my wife, being among the uninitiated and as yet untried in combat, agreed. As we approached the car, I hastened to open the front door for my spouse, saying "sit up here, dear, so you can get to know Auntie." I crawled into the cavernous back seat, hoping that there might be enough metal between me and any serious collisions.

We roared backwards out of the sloped driveway on Multnomah, scraping the bumper on the sidewalk as always, and skidded into the street. The Pontiac sat and swayed back and forth like some giant bobblehead doll, while Auntie dragged the shift lever into first and dumped the clutch. We blew through the first stop sign still accelerating, and I heard my wife gasp in alarm. As we approached the first stop light at nearly Mach 2, my wife began a keening noise I had never heard from her before. "Auntie, it's a red light!" Aunt Marian turned and looked at her, smiled sweetly through the smokey fog, patted her knee, and said "Honey, you're SO smart!" BANG! went the sun visor, and we careened into a left turn, tires smoking nearly as much as Auntie, her arm jabbing viciously out the window as we went our merry way.

I miss her a lot.

[lorene]

My mom is one of my top candidates. She is so overly cautious it's going to get her killed one of these days. Stops in the middle of rotaries. Stops when she approaches a cross street, even if they have a stop sign and she doesn't. This is all because she "doesn't trust other drivers." Her suspicions will only be reinforced when someone rear ends her someday.

There is also a woman I used to work with whom I would nominate. We had to drive to a meeting once and she wasn't 100% sure where to go. She would do things like abruptly take a UTurn because she noticed that she had gone by the street. And yes, this is in the Boston area. I was pretty sure we were going to end up in the hospital rather than at the meeting...and then we still needed to drive back. :eek:

[Subway Prophet]

My dear departed Aunt Marian....

This was beautiful. Bravo!

I had a girlfriend who was hypoglycemic, and when her blood sugar went wacky, she became very drunk. Her blood sugar went wacky a lot. Because we never drank (and I'm pretty sure she didn't imbibe when I wasn't around) it took a few incidents before I realized she wasn't just goofy but instead rather dangerous.

On one such day, we took a drive on the paved roads in the mountains behind Cedar City, Utah. She knew the area better than I did, so she drove. The goal was to find the resovoir and see the scenery, but we became lost, then she missed a meal, and before I knew it, we were (literally) bouncing down the side of the mountain via unpaved truck ruts in her mother's ten-year-old station wagon. She was laughing all the way; I was white-knuckling the door handle and keeping my head away from the side window.

[AuntPam]

A friend of my mother's, now deceased, who firmly believed that--as viewed from the driver's seat--the hood ornament should appear to be in the center of the lane. (It should appear to be on the right edge of the lane, folks--and if you don't know this, for God's sakes, set up some traffic cones in a parking lot and verify where the hell your car is in relation to the road before you drive again.) This of course meant that while she seemed to her own confused mind to be in the correct position relative to her lane of traffic, she was usually at least a foot over the line into the oncoming traffic lane. Thirty years of blaring horns, flashing lights, swerves, and upraised middle fingers--as well as the anguished pleas of everyone who ever rode with her--all failed to convince her otherwise.

She also consistently ran red lights, missed stop signs, and drove 15 miles below the speed limit--or occasionally above it....a nice steady 40 mph both in the highway and in the school zones.

[LavenderBlue]

Chefguy that was a beautiful story, beautifully told.

I nominate my mom. She flunked her driver's test five times before passing it. The last time she was visiting us she almost got me and my small daughter killed twice before I begged her not to get behind the wheel again. The scariest part is she's convinced the fault always lies with everyone else.

Maybe that's why I'm 36 and still haven't learned to drive yet. :D That and growing up in New York City where there's no place to park. In my defense I have a learner's permit. I hope to finally pass that stupid test by next month. I just have to stop seeing my mother in the driver's seat about to almost crash the car yet again.

[Chefguy]

This was beautiful. Bravo!



Thank you. I hadn't thought about that day until I saw this thread, and I thank Lizard for reminding me of a wonderful character in my life. As I recall, Aunt Marian only had one serious accident with the car, but it was enough to cause it to gasp its last, its sun visors lowered forever in some junkyard. She ended up buying a used Chevy Nova, I believe, which lasted until her death.

[elfkin477]

Last weekend my brother and I horrified his girlfriend by telling her about our great-grandmother's driving. In her defense this was only a year or so before we found out she was going senile:

I was sixteen at the time, and Vynce ten. She wanted to take us to Bickfords for lunch, but pulled into the business next door. Which happened to be a car dealership. She complained that it was "really crowded" and terrified us by coming way too close to the brand new cars. We tried to tell her that we were in the wrong parking lot, but she wouldn't believe us until a guy who worked there came up to the window and asked her if she was interested in buying a car.

Later on in the week she almost hit a kid. Who was on the sidewalk.

I begged my grandfather (her son) to let me drive the rest of the week, but he wouldn't let me. I'd only had my license a few months. And besides, MA had elderly drivers do road tests and she'd done just fine less than a month ago. :eek: yeah, the testing weeded people right out, huh?


The other person whose driving scared me was my elementary/middle school bus driver's. She'd go zooming down a hill that ended in a big pot hole and kids would be bounced out of their seats, and we seemed to have many near misses. Not to mention she picked up a hitch hiker once(!!). Of course none of our parents ever took our complaints that she drove like a crazy person seriously. We were kids, what did we know?

A year after college I did America Reads for Americorps*VISTA and one of the daycare providers we worked with lived on the street I'd grown up on. One day Mary asked me "Shannon, was Mrs Kelly your bus driver when you were a kid?"

I told her that she was.

Mary nodded. "She's the worst driver I've ever been in a car with - I can't believe they let that woman drive children! A few of us went to Foxwoods last week and she drove. I thought we'd all die before we got home!"

It gave me a warm tingly feeling to hear someone grown up second what we'd said as kids.

[Llama Llogophile]

My grandfather was the type who never got in an accident - he just left a trail of them behind him.

I remember him as always wondering just what the hell was wrong with all the OTHER drivers.

[Llama Llogophile]

My grandfather was the type who never got in an accident - he just left a trail of them behind him.

I remember him as always wondering just what the hell was wrong with all the OTHER drivers.

Forgot to mention - he taught me to drive. :smack:

[Harriet the Spry]

Hmmm. There's me. I don't endanger people much but I'm not an especially effective driver. I'm kinda like Annie-Xmas's sister, in that I have my particular ways of getting places, and rarely get anywhere new on the first try without a few wrong turns.

Then there's a high school friend who broadsided a school bus, then totaled another car somehow before she gave up driving for a while until insurance became affordable again.

Then there's a relative who, in 3 accidents, managed to dent all 4 corners of his Dodge Dart in the course of a year before insurance became to expensive for him. Memorably, one of the accidents involved a van full of nuns.

But perhaps the worst I've actually ridden with was an ex who was always in passing mode. He drove like a video game, like the objective was to score points by passing as many people as possible. Getting to your destination was fine, but if someone went unpassed, or god forbid passed you, it almost didn't count.

[Monty]

My supervisor. She can't drive worth a hoot. She had to drive the department head and me to a dinner meeting just outside of Busan. So here are just a few of the things she pulled:
No concept of intermediate positions for the accelerator. It's either pressed to the floor until the car reaches the speed limit or foot off the gas pedal once the speed limit's reached. Experienced mariners would be puking their guts out after approximately ten seconds of that. Note: She is not the only offender here for this one--it's quite common with the taxi drivers.
No comprehension of the simple rule that traffic entering the main road from the merging lane does not have the right of way. This leads to her slowing to a crawl or stopping completely for the traffic that's yielding. "What about the vehicles behind you?" you ask? Good question. They generally give a very good imitation of a scatter effect.
No comprehension of the simple fact that stopping in the middle lane of the expressway an hour after sunset is not a good idea. Yes, we came upon a Y split on the expressway, a split that had signage more than a few kilometers prior to enlighten the drivers coming upon said split. So, she stops in the middle lane of the highway, and starts dialing her cellphone to get directions. This one--since we didn't get killed--actually had an amusing part to it. As soon as she stopped, I started yelling in Korean for her to get the car moving and the department head, who I thought couldn't speak English to save his life, started screaming in English, "Go! Move! Don't stop here!" Apparently, a life-threatening situation is what it takes to get him to speak comprehensible English.

I can't list any other stunts as I'm afraid of getting nightmares about this.

[Monty]

Wow. Must've double clicked on the old post reply button. Sorry about that. If there's any passing mod/admin type, feel free to delete the dupe and to fix the coding. Thanks!

[Lightray]

One of my co-workers is Persian; he emmigrated back when the Shah was deposed, I believe. I tell you this, not to stereotype, but because it's his standard explanation for what follows. I was warned when I joined the company, and I've never allowed him to drive when we've traveled together. Some of my co-workers haven't been as fore-thinking.

We were down in Houston on 9/11, and he and another co-worker wanted us to drive back to St. Louis instead of waiting for the planes to be allowed to fly again. I swiftly found someone to say that I was vitally needed in Houston for a few more days, so they'd leave without me. Upon return, I checked with the other co-worker, who ranted for a good hour about their trip.

He wouldn't use blinkers changing lanes -- nor check his blind-spot. Wouldn't slow below ~80 mph. Routinely cut off semis, with (apparently) only inches to spare. After he drove into a coned-off lane where highway workers were at work -- because he was too busy talking about something -- and then cut back into traffic without slowing down, instead of stopping, she refused to let him drive any more.

And that's not the worst he's done. Another co-worker was trapped with him driving the dinky rental car on the highways near Pasadena (Houston) -- many trucks and semis. He missed his exit, because he was talking. So, he stopped on the highway, put it in reverse, and began backing up. In traffic.

When his passenger screamed in terror, he reluctantly shifted out of reverse and started driving forward again before they were killed. As he was arguing about why that was a perfectly acceptable maneuver to perform on a highway with a speed limit of ~65 mph, he missed the next exit.

So he did it again.

(they survived without being hit, somehow. he's had a metric ton of tickets and accidents, though.)

[DMark]

1. Almost every German in the world. They seem to think driving more than two feet away from the car in front of them is a waste of space, even if they are driving over 100 miles per hour.

2. My friend Bonnie. Driving home with her after a party, traffic was at a standstill, so she simply turned, DROVE ON THE SIDEWALK for a block, and then went back onto the street. You should have seen the faces on the pedestrians.

3. My grandmother, godresthersoul, had a 1950 Ford Falcon and never drove it over 30 miles per hour...on highways! I remember as a little kid she drove me home once and my father asked how the drive was. I said, "A moped passed us on the highway." I don't think I ever heard my father laugh so loudly.

[enipla]

Just a heads up. My MIL took a senior citizens driving course of some sort and is MUCH better than she was. I mean the difference is really noticable.

This is a woman that stoped on a highway and tried to backed up IN THE LANE (as if backing up on the shoulder would be better, but really) because she missed her turn off.

[Guinastasia]

My grandfather. Recently, my dad and his doctor (my grandfather's doctor) finally forced him to give up the license for good. Although prior to that, he hadn't driven for over two years. He has epilepsy and doesn't always follow his doctor's orders, so after a string of several severe seizures, he had to wait so long without one until he could get back on the road. Only he'd have another one, and then the waiting period would start fresh.

Even when he was younger, he drove like a maniac-cutting people off, speeding, not paying attention. My dad told me a story of the time he was driving HIS grandfather down to their house. As they turned onto my dad's street, this truck comes screaming out of the corner, like a bat out of hell.

Great-Grandfather: Who the hell was that maniac?
Dad: That was your son.

It only got worse as he got older. My grandmother NEVER let him drive her car-she always drove anywhere they went (unless they took the truck). My parents rarely let me go anywhere with him behind the wheel. I don't know how many accidents he's been in, or how many vehicles he's totalled. Probably set a few records.

Now he's still bitching about it, claiming he's lost his independence, he's like a caged animal, etc. Which is absurd, considering the fact that he has numerous children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, etc who would take him where he needs to go. He had Access, but they refused to take him anywhere because he got so nasty and abusive.

One bonus point to the whole thing, though: I told my dad to remember this when we eventually have to get him to give up the keys.

[Lust4Life]

Me!cackle cackle !

[GingerOfTheNorth]

My uncle Harold. He's legendary in his part of the world for his bad driving. Honestly, when people saw him coming on the country roads, they'd pull off and just let him go on by. He's dead now, but it wasn't from a car wreck. Even his wife was surprised at that.

[ivylass]

My MIL. Bless her heart, she's from England and never drove anywhere because her husband would ferry her back and forth to work and on errands. After he died she had to learn to drive, but she's a nervous driver and easily frazzled.

I was driving with her one day when the van stalled at a tollbooth. She started to freak, until I said, "Mom, wait." I turned off the AC and the radio, had her put the car in park and restart the engine. It started up again immediately and we got to our destination. I think due to her lack of experience she didn't know how to handle little emergencies.

She also likes to ride the ass of the car in front of her, and is a very late braker when coming to a stop. Once in the car with her behind the wheel is enough.

[blondebear]

Not the worst, but the stupidest: a friend once volunteered to drive even though he knew his brakes were not working properly.

Everything was fine until we took a freeway offramp and ended up careening our way through a right turn at the subsequent intersection.

"Oh, man, that's the first time the pedal has gone all the way to the floor, dudes!"

[control-z]

My grandfather used to scare me. He was a great guy, WW2 vet, carpenter, construction foreman, all around handy and smart guy. But when he drove he drove with 2 feet, left on brake, right on gas, and oneor the other had to be almost fully pressed at all times. Sometimes both. Although I can't say I remember him getting in any accidents so maybe results count.

[gonzomax]

My wife. She speeds evrerywhere. Rolls through stop signs. Floors it at changing reds. When my son was growing up ,his friends were afraid of her driving and asked me to take the.
We were driving down a snowy street one day and I asked her to slow down. She said why? the speed limit is 40 and I am going 35. I said I can feel the lack of traction in the tires. She said mind your own business. She then did a 360 spin in the middle of the street.
It finally slowed her down but she was lucky.The 2 kids in the back seat said "do it again."
When she got a radar detector ,she viewed it as a licence to drive even faster.

[ralph124c]

My mother's late aunt; Aunti helen was OK driviong, but parking was another story=parallel parking took her a Looong time-plus lots of dented bumpers!

[Kalhoun]

My best friend, who is also a limo driver. She locks her keys in the running vehicle. She digs through a giant bag that's in the back seat. She eats and drinks and smokes while she's driving. She searches for stuff on the floor of the vehicle. She's had LOTS of accidents, though most of them are inconsequential enough that she never gets a ticket. I love 'er, but keeeee-rist...

[Clothahump]

Drivers in Jakarta, Indonesia.

A driver's license there is a revenue source, nothing more. There is no attempt made to see if you know how to drive, it's just a matter of ponying up the rupiah.

My first day there, the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel aged me nearly 20 years.

[ouryL]

I used to know a guy who HAD to look you in the eyes when he talked to you. :eek:

[ouryL]

I used to know a guy who HAD to look you in the eyes when he talked to you. :eek:

If you think it was scary talking to him as he drove & talked to you as you sat in the passenger's seat - imagine if you were sitting in the back instead! :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Lobelia Overhill]

D'Mother - thankfully she no longer drives. She used to drive fast when she should have been going slow, slow when she should have been going fast, too close to the line down the middle of the road and would over take other vehicles by going about 5mph 'faster' than they were...

*shudders at the memories*

[Barbarian]

My father-in-law thinks he's a race car driver. You know the type -- passing people on the left 100 meters before he has to veer over 3 lanes to exit on the right. Last year he completely totalled his car -- probably fell asleep at the wheel and drifted into a big rig which bounced him off the road-- and that seems to have made him realize he's got to practice restraint.

But aside from him, I nominate the woman I met at the DMV one day, who was asking why she hadn't received the "card with her picture on it." Turns out she'd been driving solo for 6 months with a learner's permit that requires having an experienced driver as a passenger. She'd never taken a road exam and thought you only needed a written test to get a license!

[Cunctator]

Several elderly nuns whom I have known. They were dreadfully bad drivers.

[Kizarvexius]

Back in high school, a friend of mine had what he considered a dream car. An Audi with a broken speedometer. The following, best as I can remember, is an actual exchange between us, while he was driving us to some event.

Me: Uh, William?

William: Yeah?

Me: That's a red light up there.

William: Uh-huh.

Me: It means "stop".

William: Oh!

He slammed on his brakes about 15 feet before we reached the intersection. By the time the car screeched to a halt, we were halfway through it, and narrowly missed getting rammed by a van.

[shizaru]

1. Almost every German in the world. They seem to think driving more than two feet away from the car in front of them is a waste of space, even if they are driving over 100 miles per hour.



I was going to say that. They even do it on motorcycles. I seriously want to know why they do that, 'cuz its not something that happens every so often. Its every single fucking day. Do they teach that speed limit signs are only a suggestion in german driving classes? I'm not talking about autobahns either. Theres a stretch of road here between Oberammergau and Garmisch where the speed limit is 80 KPH, yet germans are whizzing through there a lot faster. I got a ticket for going over 80 KPH there once, and amazingly on that same day so did three other americans here. Coinky-dink? I dunno..... :dubious:

[Count Blucher]

To answer the question, I guess my sister was the worst driver I was ever in a car with. Now, to be fair, Sis has problems and they only really became manageable with the discovery of 'Prozac', but that's 20-20 hindsight.

I remember being 4 and being in the back of the family station wagon while my mother attempted to teach Sis to drive. It was an experience. The one memory of that day that over-burned the others, however, was as she approached a crosswalk by a railroad station.

In mid cross-walk was a kindly 70-something older woman in a fur coat with a small cap with a lace veil elegantly topping her white hair. She was walking with confidence across that cross-walk. The problem was that Sis wasn't doing what Mom or Dad always did when someone was in the crosswalk, which was slow down. I can still remember my Mom shouting "Watch that Old Woman!" to which sister replied, while wildly craning her head 90 degrees to the right and then 180 degrees to the left "What Old Woman…?!"

Me? I got the best view in the house. I had the window seat in back and got to see that poor old woman's face as she rolled along the side of our car, her mink stole spinning wildly…her cap spinning off to who-knows-where.

I remember my Mom asking in a panic "Did we hit her? Did we hit her?" I still remember my reply too:

"Not exactly. But Sis almost got her fur coat with the door handle …" :eek:

**************

There was the time when Sis was in college where if her car wouldn't start, she'd beat the battery with a crowbar to teach it a lesson. One time, she picked my brother and I up from school. My brother noticed the idiot light was on.
"Sis, how long has that been on?"
"Oh, about a week. Don’t worry about it."
She was very angry when we demanded to get out of the car right then and there. My brother took the key, so the engine could cool down. That car died one long and painful death…

**************
When I was older and had my license, I was asked to mover her VW in the driveway. I was more than happy to oblige. But the car didn't seem to want to start. That was when I noticed worried family members waving their arms at me desperately and screaming for me to get out of the car. One look at the flames in the rear view mirror convinced me too, and I got out and ran. It was my brother who took the kitchen fire extinguisher and put it out. All the while, Sis is shaking me like a rag-doll, screaming "What did you do to my car?! What did you do to my car?!" It was my brother who lifted the rear-hood on the beetle and asked her a question.
"Sis, did you disconnect this large hose here?"
"Yes. The heat wouldn't shut off, so I disconnected it."
"Sis, where you aware that this is what Cools The Engine on a VW…?"
That car died horribly too.


***********************
There was also the time where she asked me (and the 5 guys I was with) to help her push her then Ford Grenada back to the house because it had died. So, off we went (notice that by then we had all just stopped asking her why her cars would stop working) to push her car. Now I was pretty strong back then and lifted weights regularly. My friends did too…and this job seemed pretty easy. Still, the 6 of us pushed….and pushed…and pushed….and darned if this car wasn't moving 2-3 cm per second max given all our efforts. "What's she got in there?" asked one friend. "…cause I've pushed vans lighter than this thing." Suddenly, there was a *ka-Chunk* sound, and the car flew forward…and everyone pushing landed face first on the ground with a mouth full of asphalt gravel. To this day, Sis refuses to admit that she had us pushing her car for 20 minutes with her behind the wheel and the emergency brake on…and then suddenly released it in mid-push. But there's only thing that I've ever heard that makes that exact *ka-Chunk* sound on an automobile, and that's the sound of the emergency brake, under great presure, being released.

Now car quality has made remarkable strides since the days of the Ford Grenada and in truth I have no idea what she drives today. Still, I like to imagine that there's a picture of her in every auto design workshop from Detroit to Tokyo to Berlin as a lesson (and warning) to all future design teams….

[ScareyFaerie]

I don't personally know this driver but it was widely reported in the press over here (and he was in Dudley which is only a few miles from home)...he is an Iraqi immigrant who was stopped by the police because he was driving erratically.

The reason for this? He is blind. In fact, more than blind, he has no eyes at all. He was in the car with his friend (also Iraqi) who had already been disqualified from driving, the friend was shouting directions to him and he was attempting to follow them. On questioning him (another tricky matter as he speaks no English at all), the police established that he is also partially deaf, has only two fingers on one of his hands, and has leg tremors that often render him unable to walk.

After taking him to court, he was banned from driving for a few years and then told he would have to take an extended driving test. How bonkers is that?

[Nava]

chefguy, that was priceless. I should not read such things in the office - usually, I can keep looking busily bored through the Dope, but right now I'm very happy that the rest of the people in my isle are IT guys (and therefore have no problem with crazy, silently laughing coworkers)

Let's see:
Mama, my landlady in Miami for two years. The blindness got somewhat healed when she had surgery for her left cataract; remember: this still left her virtually-blind on the right eye, a diabetic with a lousy diet, and one of those little old ladies who like doing 15 on the left lane. In order to be able to drive, I had to learn to do so in such a way that she could not feel any acceleration. One day I was driving and she turned to me and said "it IS funny! All these cars are not blowing their horns at us and you're driving nice and slow..." (65 in a 55mph area, same as all those guys who weren't blowing their horns at the little old lady doing 15 in the left lane)


One of my exes, also from Miami. I just don't have words to describe it, really, but if his dick and his driving had been more linked, he would have peed gasoline. His poor Firebird should never have fallen into such mistreatment.
One day we were at a concert with a friend and he hurt his wrist. I claimed the keys for the way back home; he didn't want to give them up but finally did. As I ramped up onto I-95, he said "what are you doing?" Going South, what the hell am I supposed to be doing?" "To the car, I mean to the car! It's not making noise!" "Yes it is, it makes vroom vroom *step on gas, motor vrooms happily*, see? V-room!" "I mean when you switch gears! It doesn't go GÑEEEEC!" "This here car has three pedals, dear. I actually step on the left one as I switch gears, no gñeeec, only Vroom."
(Our friend was laughing her ass off)

The poor car's brakes gave up one day and he managed to drive on (through several red lights and stops) without killing himself or anybody until the gas ran out and the car stopped, so I guess he did have good reflexes, but still...



Maybe I just should nominate everybody in Florida :p



Some of my Spanish coworkers in Costa Rica were gorilla drivers. They kept an ongoing contest to see who could drive more agressively, I swear. On several occasions they passed someone less than 100 meters from the place where we had to turn left to leave the main road, and then braked like crazy (forcing several vehicles to stop, including the one we'd just passed) and stood the car in the middle of the road as they waited for an opening in upcoming traffic.

[Catfood Purrito]

Probably my father in law. Road rage plus poor eyesight due to diabetes equals badness. I don't think he's ever been in an accident due to the road rage, but riding with him is pretty spooky.

One time, he was driving on the interstate, and this car passed him and cut off the woman driving in front of him. He then proceeded to get into the left lane, drive up alongside the guy, and ran his ass off the road. Seriously.

The cops showed up at his workplace shortly thereafter. He talked himself out of it somehow.

He's been in at least one accident per year for the past few years, mostly due to his poor eyesight. He totaled his beautifully restored vintage VW Beetle three or four years ago. :(

Two years ago, he was turning left onto the road where he lives and got T-boned...I don't blame him entirely for that one, though. It was dusk, almost dark, and the dumb bitch didn't have her headlights on. He totaled his brand new truck that he's bought just two days prior. Everybody was fine, the lady walked away from it, and FIL had a lot of bruising and was really sore for a few days. The police report says it was 100% FIL's fault, but the insurance companies decided it was 60/40, 60% being his fault. The statute of limitations on civil suits runs out like tomorrow, and sure enough, he got served with papers on Saturday. The shitpile is suing him for half a million dollars. Where the hell did they come up with that? She walked away, and her truck was a falling apart bucket of rust.