Scariest Driving Incident Thread

[Silver4evr]

I was stopped on the freeway in traffic.
I hear some squealin' brakes.
I look up in my rear view mirror to see a huge trash truck barreling down on me and the Mrs.
The truck was so close I could even see the fear and fright in the truck drivers face as he was puttin' all his effort to jam on the brakes.

This truck wasn't going to stop on time.

I instantly put the car into gear, floored it and pulled to the right (w/o looking-no time, barely missing the car in front of me.

As I usually do, I had been checking my mirrors and looking side to side, so I figured I had a pretty good chance that there wasn't someone blocking my exit.

I looked back about a second later and see the trash truck stopped where I was just parked.



My daughter would have been an orphan.

Moral of the story: Always be prepared, even when you think everything is cool. You never know when you'll have to react quickly. It may save your life and/or the life of someone you love.

2nd moral of the story: Enjoy life. You never know when some idiot may take it from you. No matter how careful you are!

[Torque]

I don't even want to think about what would have happened if you didn't move.

Glad you are OK. Take care.

[007ben]

Damn.

I don't have any really bad storys like that where i was behind the wheel but everytime i got in the car with an ex of mine i was affriad for my life...

she fairly recenlty (within the last year or so) totaled a escort with a semi on I5.. I have no idea how it happend and shes ok...

[leftone]

my first vechile was a 97 GMC sierra.. i was on the interstate pouring rain.. doing about 85 almost pass out exit 3 laned it spun out on a VERY embanked exit ramp doing still 70+ ended up in the ditch.. cars trying to exit the same ramp same time as me.. nothin i could do but just lay on the gas and try to keep it from goin up OVER the ramps edge and 50 ft down into a retention ditch that was full of water.. ended up on the bottom side of the ramp in between 2 side markers.. only damage was grass in the rims... had to change pants afterwards.

[CMGO]

Merging into traffic, three lanes, seperated by median, three diff roads meeting up. Im in the far right, a truck in the far left throws a WHEEL! I see the whole thing, it wobbles on the hub for a second then pops right off and starts rolling and bouncing toward me. There is NO where to go but forward, I am watching this wheel bounce 15 feet in the air, hit the median and come straight to me, I am sure im gonna hit it, the trajectory and my speed are PERFEC%T to meet. Somehow the wheel bounces one more time off of something and goes right over me.

I didnt even look back.

I just thank God that the thing didnt end up on my windsheild/face.

[CMGO]

Silver, I had a similar incident as you, red light, squealing tires, I turn to look and BAM!!!! Ford 1/2 ton smacks me in the rear. Pushed my car (76 ford granada TANK) into the truck in front of me, under it and we two hit a hyundai and push him into traffic.

My back is screwed for the rest of my life as a result and I was a minor so I couldnt get my own lawyer. My mom got a schmuck! SO I got screwed in the end.

[thekid]

Man thats scary, I'm glad you were paying attention. Heres one to life! or maybe a couple

[spiff325is]

I was on the way to bimmerfest in a gorup of about 30 cars. ofcourse we are hauling ass ofcourse. there are 4 lanes, I am in the 2cnd one closest to the right, and this M5 comes up on my right and tried to just but into my lane(wtf?) so im cool with it, whatever people have been doing it allday, so I swerve over left where its clear to the 3rd lane, and then to the 4th, but this E30 M3 is comin up at about 100 or so in teh fast lane, and I am gonna make a second lane change but I didnt see him, I start to go over and I see him flash his highs real fast, SO I DRIVE INTO THE BREAK AWAY LANE FOR ABOUT 1/4 MILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF?!!??!! so gay, I thought I was gonna pop all of my damn tires, no one was letting me in cuz they were all doing 100+, that was scary, Im lucky that my car is as small as it is, if it wasnt, and if my reflexes werent fast enough to avoid that....damn. I know some of it is sorta my fault, but I didnt realize that the M3 wasnt gonna slow down, I was already flooring it so I wouldnt make the braking too bad, but I didnt realize how fast he was going till he got like 40 feet away from me. blah.

[Numark318i]

yea man its prollybally happed to you, someone pulls in front of you while i the ast lae...ad of course you are hauling ass and you got to slow down. Yea people beig pushy is never fun

[skawful]

one time i was changing lanes and this guy was stopped in the right lane because of a cop... slammed on the brakes and came within 1 foot of hitting him.... god i love bmw.... now tell me what would of happened if i was in a super awesome american car? bam...

[Sandor18]

This happened maybe 2 months ago.


There was construction being done on the main drag here in town. Well its normally 2 lane road going one direction, then the median, then a 2 lane going the opposite. Anyway, one side was now only a 1 lane due to the construction.

So im creeping on this 1 lane under a bridge when i notice alot of cars stopped very abruptly ahead of me. I start hitting the break and i am swiftly brought to a stop. I look in my rearview and i see this car barreling at me, My eyes get wide like an owls thinking this dude is ramming into me.

Well he's slamming on his breaks and comes to a complete stop a couple feet away, i notice that we both let out a sigh of relieve at roughly the same time. A split second later I look back over my shoulder at him and i see a huge pickup coming at this dude at full speed, he is completely unaware of the danger reeling at him at 35 mph.

In the time frame of about 4-5 seconds, i swiftly turn back around, deftly click in my seatbelt all the while my eyes are locked on my rearview watching the scene unfold before my eyes. The white pickup doesnt try to slow down until it comes within 5 feet of the car behind me. Im gripping the stearing wheel, bracing for impact all the while the guy behind me doesnt think anything is wrong.

Suddenly i see the impact, before i even hear anything. The pickup nails him at kind of an angle, launching the pickup onto the median, it does a 180. The guy behind me was hit with such force that his hat flew off and i couldnt help but laugh for some reason. I waited for the chain reaction of me getting hit, then me hitting the car ahead of me... it never came.

I let out a sigh and saw the guy behind me start hitting his steering wheel, cussing. I couldnt help but laugh. I drove away thanking God.

Ok not so profound or full of danger but its the closest ive come recently. ;P

[mrogers]

I've had a couple good scares, but none of my stories compare with what happened to my uncle:

He had a '95 Jeep Cherokee at the time, V6 model 4x4. He does a ton of driving for business--about 60-80k miles a year, so he's no dummy when it comes to highway driving. He was driving along in Michigan when it suddenly started to rain. It wasn't raining really hard, but enough to build up a slick on the road surface with all of the oil and other crap that's on there. Well, he was doing about 75 and suddenly, he said "it felt like the car was floating." The Jeep started turning sideways...there was nothing he could do. He had no control...he was in a perfect four-wheel hydroplane. Within seconds, he was facing the opposite direction--going backwards at 75 miles per hour. "This is it," he told us he was thinking, "I'm going to die. The tires are going to catch dry pavement and I'm going to flip." But then the Jeep started turning again, and when he was mostly facing forward the tires caught and he slid into the mud in the median. He said he didn't move for about 10 minutes, just sat there, kindof in shock. He really thought he was going to die...imagine what you would think if your car did a 180 while going that fast!

And a note to everyone -- because of stories like Silvr's, that is why you ALWAYS stay alert, even when you are stopped at a light or something. You never know.

[TMac325is]

i havent really had any amazingly scarey moments

all i can think of is what happened 10 mins ago. i was rolling down this boulevard with 1 lane going each way with a turn lane in the middle. im coming up near a shopping center, and traffic going the other way is packed. im going maybe 50, the speed limit is 45, and i see these kids on the side with skateboards, and all of the sudden one is laughing his ass off, sees me coming, but still jumps out into traffic on his skateboard, goes into the center lane, so i just slow down to maybe 35, then he looks at my car which is starting to approach him, and he skates back across my lane and onto the side walk with his friends

by now, all the cars are honking and people are screaming, i slam on the brakes, my tires are locked and they skid a couple feet, and i must have stopped about 5 ft short of the kid.

these children were maybe 10 or 11, but come on, who lets their kids skateboard around traffic, thats just stupid

[Kevin325i]

I got a couple simple ones. Nothing that terrible.

When I first got the car I took a corner at about 20 mph, but the tires had about 10 miles on them. The back end stepped out and I drifted right through a parked car and a guy coming the other way. about 6 inches from each.

The second happened lastnight. I was on a mini bike going down this bike path. If you can imagine something smaller than a spree going 50.... yeah that's what we were doing. The thing is sweet.

So I get going really fast on it around some slight turns nothing to bad. But the thing lets you know when you're gonna have to bail. So I musta been topping it out at 45-50 and coming up on a turn to fast. I know I'm gonna spill, I've had this thing since I was 11 I know what it does.

I spot the biggest spot of grass (the path is in the middle of the woods) and lay it down perfectly. Everyone was pissed cause I lost the safety glasses I was wearing. So later on the cops show up and they're like "are you injured" cause they saw a scrape on my arm.

So I'm like "no I'm not injured" and they told us since technically they didn't catch us riding it they couldn't ticket anyone. We had just been riding it like 5 mins before the cops showed up (3 cars, yes 3) but the kid riding dumped it so we had to put the chain back on.

Plus the cop came down the bike path, so we probably would have run into him.

Oh yeah, to make things worth we had a flashlight taped to the handle bars cause it was getting dark

Kevin

[DeefNDorf]

Hmm...back in 2000..had a 98 firebird...with an 3.8se...slid off a wet road goen 90mph...hit a culvert...totaled car..walked away..that ended my speedy days..I could have died at 18.........