I was driving my girlfriend to work this morning, and was on a 4-lane road with an elevated, grass median. As I moved into a left turn only lane, a car came up over the median, and started driving at me in my lane. Then, he cut across the other lanes and kept going on the wrong side of the road.
Fortunately, I was going slowly (as was he), and there wasn’t much traffic (though there were cars following behind me, who honked appropriately at the crazy person). I didn’t stop and see where they went or what happened; I kept driving. The car didn’t seem out of control (aside from driving the wrong way up the freaking road), but I can’t imagine what the person needed that necessitated driving over the median (which got pretty dug-up from the tires) and up the wrong side of the street. I’ve seen people turn up one-ways to get to their driveway, but this is much more extreme, and there was a perfectly good northbound lane that this guy abandoned for some reason.
Anyway, it was much more bizarre than dangerous, at least at the time. Anyone else ever witness something similar?
A couple of years ago I was exiting the freeway and a car turned onto the off-ramp and headed down towards oncoming freeway traffic. I pulled aside to let him (was a young man driving) go but laid on the horn as he went by. Then I continued getting off the freeway and alled 911. Because of the way the ramp was configured I couldn’t see what he did next, but I think he stopped. At least, I never heard any traffic news about it.
My husband and I were going to my in laws for some function or other and were getting on to I-90 Westbound from Route 53. We’re on the ramp to marge on to 90 when we see an elderly gentleman driving UP the exit ramp - straight at us! We have absolutely no idea how he could have managed that.
I was guilty of this kind of thing once. I don’t even remember where it was, but it was a very wide street with a strange set of lane markings in an area I wasn’t familiar with. I made a left turn into what I thought was the right lane of the street only to find that I was actually against a median! Fortunately, there was no oncoming traffic and, as I said, it was a very wide street so I did a U-turn as quickly as I could all the while rehearsing “I’m sorry, officer, I’m not from around here.”
I know in Germany a person going the wrong way on a one way street is galled [apparently] a Ghost Driver. I had it happen about 10 years ago to me, I was westbound on Rt 2 and they were eastbound. Luckily I was in the right lane and they were in the left lane. I pulled over and called in on my Cell - this caused a bit of trouble because 911 wasn’t really well set up to deal with cells at the time.
I used to work overnight at a hotel at the intersection of Interstate 95 and US Highway 80. Next door, there was a 24-hour convenience store. Highway 80 was divided, with two lanes in each direction and a wide grass median. On average, one vehicle per night would turn left/east into the westbound lane trying to return to the interstate. Most memorable was the one who scored a direct hit on the front bumper of an oncoming police car. I have no idea why there are no signs saying “right turn only” or “divided highway” there.
Most recently, I called 911 about a gray car (of course) driving the wrong way on the divided bypass at twilight (of course) with no lights. Fortunately, it was only a few hundred yards from the sheriff’s office. This happened right after a college football game, so either an out-of-towner got confused, drunk, or both.
I saw this happen once in North Platte, NE. If you’re not familiar with it, the main drag in North Platte is a large divided highway (or perhaps more appropriately, two multi-lane one way roads) with about a 1/2 block space between the two directions of traffic. In this divider are a number of restaurants and businesses.
We’re driving the correct way down one side, and look over, and see this car driving our same direction on the other side. It was an older gent at the wheel with his wife in the passenger’s side - I think they just got confused. No idea what they did when the light turned and cars starting coming towards them. It was one of those, “did I just see that? Hey!” and then my view was blocked by whatever.
I had someone do that on purpose in the 60’s on US-23, which was a two land highway. The intention must have been to play extreme chicken or commit suicide by crash. I chose not to participate and hit the ditch. Fortunately there was enough room to save myself from the ditch entirely and continue my trip after the adrenaline rush.
If it does, you’ll see the Google Street View for a 4-lane road that I take to my kid’s preschool every day. There’s a little access road to the right where people can turn right onto the southbound lanes.
One afternoon I was driving in the opposite lane, heading northbound, when I saw an elderly man come out of that access road and make a left turn into the southbound lanes. There were several cars heading straight for him, and all managed to swerve out of the way in time. He turned into a convenience store a quarter-mile down the road. I don’t know if he didn’t realize that he was going the wrong way or if he intentionally did that just to save time (!!) to get to the convenience store or what. It was pretty scary, though.
A similar experience happened to me once, on the Long Island Expressway. I was in the left lane, when suddenly the cars in front of me started moving erratically. Then a car was coming straight at me . . . and a cop car tracking him, over on the berm, with siren and lights. There was just enough room to my right to avoid a collision. But two or three cars back, they weren’t so lucky.
A few years ago, I was getting off the freeway, which at this point is elevated above the road, so I was going downhill. And a van drove UP the offramp past me! It was quite scary and I stopped at the bottom of the offramp (at the stop sign) and tried to see what was happening, but it was above me and impossible to see. There was no rending and screeching that I could hear, and I suppose everything ended OK, but good golly it was terrifying.