Regale me with stupid car accidents

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I started driving at 29 and had a “learning” car, a Civic, I had for ten years and did lots of stupid things with – hurting only it and not anyone else, thank goodness. I thought I had gotten it out of my system and did very well with my second car, a Corolla I had for seven years and had no accidents with other than your typical corner scrapes turning into parking spaces.

So I recently got my third car, one so nice I couldn’t believe it – an Impreza hatchback that I swore I would take such good care of. OK, so someone punched a hole in the back bumper and didn’t leave a note but that wasn’t my fault.

So tonight, about six months into the new car, I was pulling into the parking space at my friends’ house when I gave it a little gas since the space slanted up. And somehow kept giving it gas and not braking and not really understanding WTF was happening, until I drove on through their (thankfully old, decrepit to-be-demoed anyway) garage door! I was dumbfounded and horrified and crushed all at once.

But:

-the garage door was particleboard so my car has only scuffs and cosmetic damage
-the air bag did not deploy
-I didn’t hit my other friend’s beloved sedan which sat next to my car
-I have insurance to cover repairs and a rental car
-Maybe I got this out of my system?!

Please make me feel better with your stories!

2

I got none for you, but google “Russian Dash Cam” and feel pretty good about yourself. That is some amazing shit.

3

Not mine, but told to me my the person it happened to.

He was a police officer and forgot to put the car into park when he got out of the car and ended up rear ending the car he had pulled over. The car that got pulled over had some dents, but the police car was fine. He ended up not giving the guy a ticket, and the guy agreed to forget the incident.

4

Haven’t been in many accidents. Probably the dumbest “incident” was when I was backing out of a parking space and got distracted by a really hot chick sauntering through the lot. Hit a shopping cart, which practically sheared off my passenger-side mirror. I had no idea it was possible to do that.

5

Ah! That reminds me of a good one. A co-worker left his car running and it too must have not been in Park because it rolled down the hill in the parking lot and hit six other cars on the way, including another guy’s brand-new truck.

Thank you. I feel a little better now. :slight_smile:

6

In 1986, I lived in Texas, and it snowed, several inches worth.

This was an extremely rare thing. It snows in north Texas periodically, but this was south central Texas, not far from San Antonio, where snow is quite rare. I decided to load up the 35mm, pocket some extra film, and go for an extended walk. I still have many beautiful pictures I took.

At one point, coming down a hill, I saw a pickup truck. My first thought was “Eesh, that guy’s takin’ it WAY too fast… that hill is slick with slush, he’s gonna…”

The fellow was driving at what would be a perfectly reasonable rate of speed… for dry streets, in town. When the light went yellow, he tried to stop, and his truck laughed at him and picked up speed. Downhill, after all.

The look on his face went from blank to panic, and I could clearly see him stomping on the brakes. Did I mention Texans don’t know how to drive in ice and snow? The pickup veered gently to the right, sliding smoothly like the Redneck Ice Capades. The light turned red. The poor guy frantically pumped his brakes. It had no effect on anything. He glided smoothly through the intersection, headed right for the Exxon station. Or rather, for the lamp post BETWEEN him and the Exxon station. I was across the street from the Exxon station, and readied my camera, lacking anything else useful to do. Would the post stop him, or would he breeze merrily through it and smack into the pumps?

There was a dry patch right before the lamp post, thank ghod. There was a SCREEEECH as he came to a stop with his front bumper literally inches from the post. Fortunately, the streets were pretty much empty (did I mention Texas don’t know how to drive in snow?)

The driver sat in his truck, lurching back and forth in his seat, breathing out the panic. I stood across the street, breathing out the adrenalin. That had nearly been a disaster, for all that he couldn’t have been going more than twenty or thirty miles an hour.

WHOOP! Flashing red and blue!

I glanced over at the gas station. The car parked next to the pumps was a police car, and the officer had seen the whole thing. The police car pulled around over to the truck…

I refrained from taking any pictures. I figured the guy in the truck was having a bad enough day as it was…

7

My daughter’s high school boyfriend had recently gotten his license, and his uncle gave him a van to drive. As he was leaving our house one evening, I jokingly said “Don’t hit my van!!”

Yep, he backed into the driver side door.

I felt so sorry for the kid, but it was too much damage to blow off - had it just been cosmetic, I’d have worked out something with him. So at 17, his insurance shot up, and I was without my vehicle for almost a week while it was in the body shop.

8

In 2009, I was in a left-turn lane, and for some reason still unknown to me, I just blindly followed the car in front of me when they turned, and I hit the car that was going straight from the other way. My car was incapacitated and I had to leave it there parked, and the people that I hit were kind enough to give my son and I a ride home. I couldn’t believe that I had done that- I almost thought that I HAD to have had a green arrow, I wouldn’t have just tried to go like that unless I had the arrow! But the people I hit said I didn’t, and I didn’t have any proof that I did, so I just accepted it. I try not to have conversations with people while I’m driving now- I get too distracted.

BTW, do not have a $1000 deductible because “I’m not going to get into an accident that’s my fault”. :smack:

9

Just this past summer tried to driver through a huge redwood tree that had a big hole in it just for that purpose. My Ridgeline was probably a fraction of an inch too wide, I found the narrowest part of the hold and scraped up the left front fender. Body shop estimate to fix is $1100.

10

I had on old .38 till a few months ago. I encased it in cement while installing a new fence post.

11

How about this? I sheared the side view mirror off my car backing out of the garage. Twice. :smack:

12

My ex-husband, who was my fiancé at the time, refused to use his rear-view mirror when he would back the car up. He would instead open the car door and lean out to look behind him. One time he was closer to my car than he thought and took off my passenger side mirror with his door. Then he tried to blame me for parking too close to him. That should have been one of many clues not to marry that guy…

13

1987, I was driving the first (and only) new car I ever owned, a 1987 Subaru GLX.
I had just gotten a new puppy and was on my way to my friends house to introduce him to Raven, the puppy. Raven ended up under my feet near an upcoming stoplight. It was squash Raven or go forward. I hit a little old lady 1976 Ford LTD.

There was no damage to the LTD, my car was designed to crumple in the front end, and that it did, magnificently.

14

I feel better now, thank you!

Master Wang-Ka, your story reminds me of this hill where I grew up in NY State, where it was snowy and icy regularly. It was a long steep hill with people parked on both sides. It was The Hill you felt like a hero scaling on the way home from school, the one you look back and wow, I made it up The Hill. A hill I still have dreams about. Anyhoo, you get the picture.

One winter day my father headed that way to work and just as either someone frantically waved at him not to go or he realized the hill was a sheet of ice, he had passed the point of no return at the top. It still gives me that stomach-pit-dropping feeling when I think of him in a controlled slide down that long, steep Hill. Remarkably he made it without hitting anything!!

15

This story kinds sorta almost qualifies, but it might make you feel better, and I love telling it:

There was an auto manufacturer (in the 80’s I guess it was) whose cars had a nasty habit of slipping out of park and into reverse, an occurrence which gave some malcontents among us cause for complaint.

One morning I found myself walking on 8th street in DC, watching as a gentleman double parked just such a car and - leaving it running - ran off to dump a movie cassette into the video rental store’s all night return bin.

Now, this being early morning, it’s just me and him on the street along with a few parked cars - and of course his car, which, of it’s own accord, decides to start backing down the center of 8th street.

What I see next is the guy running down the road with his finger in the air, yelling “Hey! Hey!” in the direction of the car, but who is he yelling at? There’s nobody around but me, and I’m nowhere near the car. No, he’s yelling at the car, which, apparently overcome with guilt, swerves left and runs into a building on the other side of the street. It’s hard to blame him for kicking the car after he caught up to it, but it looked like he may have broken his toe, poor guy.

Well, maybe you had to be there. :slight_smile:

16

I once tried to back over a fire hydrant.

17

**Ouch. **In my training car, I parked next to a telephone pole. So far so good. Here’s a tip – don’t forget you did that, turn up your music loud and in the dark proceed to scrape yourself along said telephone pole and its metal sticky-outie-thingies for about 18 inches. Did you know they make nail polish that matches the Cypress Green Civic?

18

At our old house our neighbour across the street was in the habit of parking their small car in a spot that was perfectly in our blindspot when backing out of our driveway. I nearly hit their car a few times till I learned always to check carefully for it.

Then one day my wife backed out and hit the side of the neighbour’s car with the rear corner of our car. The neighbour had their car repaired at our expense and a week or two later my wife was due to drop our car off at the repairers. I had arranged to meet her there to pick her up in our other car and drive her home. I waited and waited getting increasingly frustrated at her being so late. Finally she turned up in tears.

While backing out of our driveway she had hit exactly the same car in exactly the same place.

19

Oh to be young, carefree, stupid and lucky…

I was a senior in high school. Myself and an extended group of friends had a regular habit of smoking a joint or three when we’d get out of school, usually ending up at somebody’s house but sometimes going on a ‘boneride’ in a few neighboring rural towns where police presence was sparse and roads were fit for a nice cruise. I’m driving my parents then fairly new 1995 Chevy Lumina and we’re at the end of our little cruise, wrapping back towards my hometown by an old country road to the north.

Along this road is a rather large cornfield that has a 90 degree turn at one point, forming a corner of the field. The road is dirt. There is an embankment abutting the road, but it is largely disguised by some taller grass.

Some of my friends with off-road vehicles had recently begun taking to the brilliant practice of ripping through some of these cornfields on occasion. I, of course, knew this to be a foolish exercise and would certainly not subject my parents sedan to such a foolhardy endeavor. But alas, I was 17, I was high, and I was momentarily vulnerable to peer-pressure and the prospect of a cheap thrill.

So I had a full car and my pals got to convincing me to take a quick jaunt through that corner section of the field. Seemed safe enough. It was the fall, the remains of the field were withered and I had decent visibility over the top of the stalks, and besides, it was just a wee section of real estate, what could possibly go wrong!?!

I slowed to a modest speed that seemed appropriate for barreling into well-intending produce (perhaps 15 mph) and readied myself to exit the road and enter the unknown. Now as I said, there was an embankment of dirt on the side of the road, maybe a foot to a foot and a half high, obscured by tall grass a few feet in height. I had the radio blaring and we all had that juvenile giddiness and excitement that only manifests when you’re about to do something stupid and have a poor grasp of consequences. Oh, and we were all stoned off our asses.

So just as I’m guiding the S.S. Idiotship towards a fine swath of unwitting corn, my frontseat passenger exclaims loudly, “ROCK!!!”. But in the throes of excitement we are immersed in and perhaps “Welcome to the Jungle” cranking out of the factory speakers (the song at that moment is one detail I’m foggy on, I want to say it was a Pink Floyd number, but it may as well have been that song as it would appropriately describe the mood), all I could respond with was, “hell yeah, rock on man!!”

And suddenly, BANG!! We stop on a dime. What the hell did we hit?? No idea, but the floorboard directly beneath my right leg is pushed up and nearly has my leg pinned to the bottom of the dash. We all get out of the car and take a look…and right behind that tall grass on the embankment is a jagged, not huge, but perfectly placed mini boulder, embedded in the chassis of the car. Shit! Now all of us stoned little jackalopes are trying to drum up solutions in a timely fashion, being how the car still reeks of pot and we really don’t want anyone to stop by and offer any help, because obviously the worst thing that could happen at that point is this getting back to my parents.

Luckily no police or anyone of friendly, helpful consequence drove by, and it took us a good hour to have the revelation that there was a jack in the trunk of the car as we worked through a piss-poor routine of shoddy problem solving exercises. Now, lifting a vehicle a good foot+ off the ground on very unstable footing and a lord-knows-how-heavy chunk of sediment crammed into the frame was not a particularly ideal solution, but ultimately (after raising the car up twice in the wrong spots) it worked. The rock actually lifted off the ground with the car, we had to poke at it with a stick for it to drop. Then my friend and I (I’m lucky anyone would help me on this) had to position ourselves right in a spot where we could have enough leverage to drag that thing out of the way. I can’t estimate exactly how heavy it was but we were able to move it far enough out of the way.

Phew! Now what!?! I can’t just take this terribly molested vehicle back to my parents or a mechanic, we did a quick inspection of the undercarriage and the rock appeared to narrowly miss important something-or-anothers on both sides…so we got back in. Everything seemed in perfect working order and I had just enough to room to get my leg over the misshapen hump in the floor to man the pedals and drive back to my buddies house where I scientifically worked my way through a series of bashing tools such as a hammer and a 5 lb. dumbbell before settling on a technique of battering with the end of an aluminum baseball bat. I managed to even the floor out to a point that you couldn’t even tell that anything happened. Another deeper inspection of the undercarriage revealed no major damage, just a lot of gouged up metal.

Nothing ever became of it. The car lasted another 8 years and a good 160k miles overall. But boy did I get lucky. Could’ve easily gotten arrested. Could’ve easily gotten crushed trying to pull that boulder out of there. Very closely had my leg crushed. I suppose I could’ve died (getting dramatic, but why not? Blood loss, etc.), nevermind what could’ve happened to any passengers. All for trying to have a quick go at some dead corn, high on drugs. Kids, don’t do drugs. But if you must, don’t go driving through any cornfields. But if you must, at least sweep the god damn perimeter for foreign objects.

20

Can I interest you in a stupid bike accident? This one is from … hmm … five weeks ago.

So I’m on my bike, doing my usual Tuesday home-after-work routine, which involves riding to the train station, ten stops on the train, then riding home from there.

I’m going down the ramp, when I notice a couple of people walking up the ramp towards me.

‘Hmm’, I think ‘we might get each other’s way. Maybe I should be a Good Citizen and take the other ramp.’ So I do.

As it turns out, the ‘other ramp’ is actually steps.

OUCH!

I have no excuse but that it was kinda dusk-ish and hard to see - also I totally wasn’t paying proper attention, since I was convinced, CONVINCED! that I knew exactly what I was doing.

The really annoying this is - the steps were widely spaced, and only four of them - had I KNOWN WHAT I WAS DOING and been paying attention, I probably could have just ridden it out. As it was, it was a case of ‘oh crap oh crap oh CRAP that’s a STEP!’, jamming on the brakes and wrenching my left thumb half out of its socket.

I’m currently in the middle of estimated 12 week healing period…