You have just summarised why SUVs are so popular in just one sentence. 
I know no one’s written on this board for a while, but this just happened and I thought I should share. I had pulled out of a parking lot, waiting for my friend to follow. He decides to let our other friend drive, even though she has no license, his brand new Toyota Celica. He tells her to back out of the space, but before he can finish the sentance, she puts it in drive and floors it, driving over two of those cement brick things they put down to stop you, and nearly giving him a heart attack. I watched the whole thing from the street, and it was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Her explanation for why she did it: “I do it all the time in my brother’s Explorer.”
Good call. Maybe next time she’ll think…oh wait, there’s never gonna be a next time.
- Welcome to the SDMB!
- Great story!
- I hope she doesn’t take her road test in that Explorer.
I dunno, I hope she does…
JOhn.
I bet she won’t tell the judge that…
To sublight: That is the most contemptuous act I have ever heard of. If I had been the pasenger and this son of a boss were at the wheel and had done that, I swear I would get out of the car at the next opportunity–like the next red light, assuming this idiot is not idiot enough to run it. For one thing, I would not want to ride with someone who carries around this kind of attitude; besides, if the crossing guard were to contact the police I would not want to be chagred as an accessory in case this idiot actually hit someone. And I’d sure like to see what the boss’ snotty son would say if a judge asked him to defend his actions. :mad:
One time I was driving home from work on a large divided road, and stopped at a traffic light. In the left turn lane next to me was a rather large semi, who, like me, was several cars back in the line. As his arrow turned green, he proceeded to follow the other cars in front of him, slowly picking up speed and beginning his rather wide turn across the intersection. This would have been fine, except the light turned yellow, and then red while he was still turning. The traffic coming from the other direction, which had been sitting there the entire time the semi had been turning. waited patiently for him to finish his turn… all of them, that is, except for one complete moron in a minivan, who evidently was driving with his eyes shut. I don’t know how he saw that the light was green without seeing the huge 18-wheeler 10 feet from his front bumper, but he managed to drive right into it. The semi even saw him coming and stopped to avoid hitting him, but he still drove right into the semi. I wasn’t sure if I should have laughed, or stopped and given the police a statement. The sad thing is, I’m not really sure who would be at fault for that, since the semi was still turning during the time his light turned red (although he couldn’t have known that). I hope whoever was driving that minivan wakes up and learns how to pay attention.
Two stories. The first was on the news a couple of years ago. It was the end of a long weekend and holidaymakers were headed back into the city. Police had set up a roadworthy checkpoint by the side of a highway and pulled over some guy who’d packed his car with more family and luggage than previously thought humanly possible. They commence the routine check and under the bonnet, nestled in the engine bay… a gas cylinder for the BBQ! Apparently it was red hot and some lunatic copper actually had the nerve to pull it out and roll it into a ditch by the side of the road.
The second was from a bunch of stories told by police to a newspaper illustrating the fact that people still drink and drive. Police had set up a breath testing station that uses large vans we call booze buses. They usually stop something like 1 in 5 passing motorists at random. One of the guys who made it past was actually seen to stop up ahead, do a wobbly, illegal U-turn back to the bus, got out and asked at the back door of the van if they had any donuts left. (Roadside donut vendors also work out of large vans).
Not exactly a driving story, but a breakdown story: I passed 2 young girls on the side of the highway a while back. She had obviously had a tire blowout, b/c she literally just had shreds of rubber where her tire used to be. Now here’s what had me laughing all the way home: she and her friend were kneeling by the tire, holding a CAN OF FIX-A-FLAT. Yes, apparently she thought she could create a tire with this can. It’s tire in a can!
Last year I was waiting in line at a mall to pull out onto the road. A man in front of me started inching out, then apparently decided he wouldn’t make it and started inching back in reverse. Now mind, I hadn’t pulled out any further, so I was not preventing him from resuming his previous spot. He was inching back towards me closer, closer, he is looking in his rearview mirror directly at me. Closer, closer. I am thinking, he obviously sees me, surely he will not hit my car. Closer…now I am concerned and honk at him. Honk, honk. Closer…BAM! He saw me the whole time and still hit my car. Luckily no damage…to my car. hehe.
Another one: I was walking on campus with my friend, who happened to be on crutches at the time. We were crossing a campus road at a crosswalk, and a woman that was parked on the side of the road at the far side of the crosswalk backed into the crosswalk. Now I was able to jump out of the way, but my friend ended up on her trunk, sprawled out all over her back windshield. Obviously this idiot didn’t ever bother looking behind her, b/c even a glance in her rearview mirror would have shown a person laying on her car. Nope, she just put the car in drive and pulled away, and my friend tumbled off the trunk and onto the ground. Luckily she wasn’t hurt, and she did look pretty funny.
But the best one happened a few years ago. A friend of mine was driving a beater van and we were leaving his apartment. My car was parked in the alley behind his place, and he was backing out of his spot. As he was backing out, on an angle, I saw that he was getting close to my car. He was looking to the right, my car was behind him to the left. The following exchange took place:
Me: you’re going to hit my car.
He: continues to inch back.
Me: You’re going to hit my car!
He: continues to inch back.
Me: You’re going to…you ARE, YOU ARE HITTING MY CAR.
He: continues to inch back.
Me, now more perplexed than anything else: YOU ARE STILL HITTING MY CAR. YOU ARE HITTING MY CAR.
Now he finally looks back and sees my car, now up on 2 wheels. He: Ohmygod I hit your car!
Luckily I had a car I didn’t really care about, it still ran and that’s all that mattered to me, it was my college beater. But I still give him a hard time about that one. He claimed he never heard me, he must have been concentrating so hard he tuned everything else out. Not too bright, that one.
Good thing he’s cute.
Threads like this are the reason there should be mandatory driver testing every 5 years to renew your license. Just remember to stick a cop outside the testing office to stop people from driving home without a license 
I’m also amused by the few people bitching in this thread about actions that ARE COMPLETELY LEGAL. There are just a few, but they’re funny.
My two stories, both from Rapid City, SD:
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During Rally Week (the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally), it is insane around there; over 250,000 people trying to fit into a town of 5,000. The overflow is, needless to say, incredible. While I agree with geepee’s posting of how some drivers seem to attack bikers, there are some bikers that need to be slapped with a fresh catfish. This moron in particular was sitting in line behind me, while we were waiting to turn left. There were 2 left-turn lanes, as it was a fairly busy intersection. This idiot decided he couldn’t wait any longer and gunned his motorcycle between the two lanes of traffic and proceeded to turn left directly in front of oncoming traffic. Brakes squealed everywhere as people dodged the idiot. Too bad some semi didn’t take him out…
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Same type of story as hockeynut (which is what reminded me): One winter day, I was slowly making my way home during a snowfall. Not much, about 2-3", but it was enough to make things very slippery (wet snow). I was going about 20 mph, when a jerk in a 4X4 went screaming past me at about 40-50 mph (btw, this in a 35 mph zone). Not less than two blocks later, I came upon him with his front end solidly buried in a light pole. I and a little old lady behind me stopped to make sure he was all right. He was. Then (this is the good part) the moron had the utter GALL to ask me for a ride to a gas station!!! I looked right at him and said, “You know, if you hadn’t been driving like a %#%$$% idiot, you wouldn’t BE in this mess!” And walked away…as the little old lady clapped.
Still feels good after all these years!!! 
I guess people haven’t been posting in awhile. Two stories:
- Traveling north on Commercial St. in Salem, I’m in the right hand lane on the ridiculously long section of 4 lane, suicide-lane-divided chaos that makes up about 100,000 people’s daily commute (usually about 3 blocks, as a mean average). As I’m preparing to turn right into a driveway for RiteAid, there’s a guy in the suicide lane turning left (from the opposite direction as me), presumably into the driveway I’m about to occupy. Well, he inches forward into oncoming traffic, and a little Subaru nearly slams into him, fortunately swerving into my lane, missing me by inches, well before I’m starting my turn. Captain Genius in the turn lane decides the whole episode wasn’t so bad after all, and continues to inch out into thick traffic. This wasn’t the wisest decision he’d made recently, as was evidenced by the Lincoln Navigator that proceeded to slam into him at probably 45 mph, in the EXACT SAME LANE as the Subaru had nearly clobbered him in. I don’t remember exactly what kind of car the guy’d been in, but I think it was one of those Daewoo Lanos Civic-lookin things. Anyway, when a tiny hatchback is hit by a Navigator, it creates a most fantastic array of twisted body parts that, to my amazement, actually managed to spray all over the entire street. The body panels came straight off the car, rather than being crushed in the chassis and frame.
2): I know that was a long story, but this one’s actually a little more ridiculous. I’m driving northbound on I-5 toward Portland (yes, I-5 is actually a LITTLE safer in Oregon than Cali), traffic’s moving at about 85-90 mph on average, myself being the creative individual who’s decided to weave through all that traffic at 110 or so. Now, you must understand I’m not the stupid one here. Through some exchange of fantastic destinies, there appeared a 3rd generation Camaro in front of me. Normally, I would’ve just thought about either passing him or engaging in a little highway fisticuffs of speed, but the problem occurred in that he was actually going the opposite direction. The opposite direction, on a 3 lane one way interstate, indeed. With traffic moving at ridiculous speeds. I only know it was a Camaro because there are thousands upon thousands of them in this area, and one of my friends drives one too. Fortunately it wasn’t him. Anyway, I just wish I knew what happened to that moron, although it’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to assume he met a similar, yet more weighty, fate as the Daewoo guy in the aforementioned anecdote.
A few days ago I saw a particularly outrageous act committed by a driver. I was at a body shop making arrangements for a relative’s car to be repaired following a fender-bender. The shop employee and I were discussing the work planned, on the lot on the street, Western Avenue, very close to the intersection with Artesia Boulevard, in north Torrance/Gardena, and about one block north of my home.
Anyway, I saw a huge yellow truck–like a dump truck–going southbound on Western; it went through the intersection with Artesia Boulevard, and I heard a crash suggesting the truck had dropped sheets of glass in the street. As it turned out, the truck had struck the street sign suspended from a traffic-light pole’s crossbar, and knocked the sign into the street (Someone came by and dragged the sign out of traffic.). And the truck, which also looked like it was heavily splattered with oil, just continued south on Western with no effort even to look at the damage. I called the Torrance Police, but without a license number there isn’t much they can do.
I would think twice before driving a truck on a city street if it’s high enough to knock a suspended street sign down. Good God, suppose it hit an electrical wire? :eek:
i’m new here…i just couldn’t resist sharing my story
Number One:
four years ago, i was sixteen and on a first date with a guy from another town, who had just turned sixteen a few DAYS ago. we were both young drivers from towns of less than 20,000 people, so it seems that it would not be wise to have our date downtown in a city on a saturday night. yeah, it seems that way. at the time it was just exciting.
envision this: there is a highway perpendicular to I-40 with two exits, one right after another: one to I-40, one to a side street parallel to the interstate. this is the street that our restaurant was on. so after a very nice dinner, we had to get back onto the highway. now, i had been driving a whole five months longer than the guy, and i was pretty sure that we weren’t getting on the onramp. but it was a first date, and i kept my mouth shut.
the guy - and i’m still not sure exactly how all that is to follow was accomplished - was driving UP the one-lane exit from the highway for our street. we are now driving the wrong way on the wrong side of the highway. to remedy this, he takes the nearest exit he sees. this - i am not kidding - was the one-lane ramp for the interstate to exit onto the highway. so we are now about to be driving on the wrong side of the interstate.
wait, it gets better.
my brilliant date panicked and decided not to calmly exit onto the interstate (which thank heavens was not busy at that moment) and turn around in the emergency lane - after all, this was quickly becoming an emergency. he instead decided to turn his chevy silverado around while we are still on the one-lane ramp with 4-ft concrete walls on either side. this is no easy task, and at one point he actually slammed the whole back of his truck flat against the concrete walls. eventually, after about two minutes of inching forward, inching backward, and praying that no one from I-40 felt the need to exit, we were turned around and got back on the highway.
we went on a few more dates, but i drove every time we went into the city.
Number Two, from a friend:
she has a little manual transmission ford escort that breaks down an awful lot. one nite, she was in her apartment’s parking lot under the hood, fixing it the way she has always fixed it, when a nice gentleman from the track team offered to help. he was tinkering around with different things and he tells her to start it. for unknown some reason, her parking brake wasn’t on, and when she started it, it rolled. as a matter of fact, it rolled right over mr. nice-guy-on-the-track-team’s FOOT. he was, needless to say, not happy for the week that he had to sit out.
she still won’t forgive herself.
When I was a kid, the family was traveling southbound on Highway 28 not too far from Peterborough, Ontario. The scenario is as follows:
Dad is driving. Mom’s in the front passenger seat. I’m in the back. We enter a wide shallow valley, with plenty of visibility. Far away, at least a mile (this was pre-metric) one car is coming towards us. Another car pulls out to pass it.
Well, it seems that it wasn’t that far away. The passing car can’t get back into its lane quickly enough to avoid us, so it continues all the way across the two-lane pavement and is then travelling towards us on our shoulder. My father threads the gap between the two venicles, which flash past on either side of our car.
We survived with no harm done, but Dad must have pulled a pound of foam rubber out of his seat…
A couple weeks ago I was driving to work on Duluth’s 2nd street - a three-lane one-way through the middle of the city’s downtown area. Traffic was moderately heavy but moving at a decent clip… 30mph or so. Some jackhole two cars ahead of me, in the far right lane, snapped a 90-degree left turn right across two lanes of traffic.
Well… across 1 1/2 lanes of traffic. He slammed dead-center into someone driving in the left lane, pushing them into the line of cars parked parallel along the street.
And just last week we got our first real snow of the year… roads were glazed with frozen sleet, and apparently the city had forgotten where it had parked the sanding & plowing equipment last year. By noon we had 40 accidents or so across town. If you don’t know Duluth, imagine the steep hills of San Francisco mixed with Minnesota weather. At work we spent our breaks on the 4th floor of the parking garage watching cars spin out of control going downhill & end up on the curb or in oncoming traffic. You’d think having only 3 months without snow these people would remember how to drive in bad conditions…
I’ve got two
1)I almost got hit by a moron talking on TWO cell phones (1 in each ear)while driving.
2)Worst thing I ever saw was a woman driving a early 70’s Cadillac down the road,no seat belt,smoking while feeding the baby in her lap a bottle.Where is a cop when you see something like that ?