Heh. Stretch gave me this idea, so blame him... In my thread yesterday about the passing of Ferdinand Porsche, Stretch mentioned that one of the scariest moments of his life happened in a Porsche 911. I got to thinking, because one of the most frightening moments for me happened in a Porsche 944S driven by a friend of mine who was a certifiable lunatic. It involves US Route 1 right out of Boston, rush hour, and weaving in and out of traffic at speeds well over 90 MPH.
But that's not my scariest moment...
No, the scariest moment for me happened on two wheels - or, more precisely, one. When I was at UNH, I got my motorcycle endorsement and was in the market for a motorcycle. Buddy of mine had a mid 1980s Honda Nighthawk he was looking to sell, and he decides he's going to show me what it can do. I hop on the back for a quick spin around campus (yeah, I know, two dudes on a bike, blah blah blah, all I can say is that I really wanted a motorcycle...). He veers off onto one of the back roads and cranks the throttle.
At triple digit speeds he pulls in the clutch and lets it back out quickly, lifting the front wheel off the ground...
At that point I stopped being the macho guy holding onto the little grab bar and bear-hugged my buddy real hard - there's no truth to the assertion I cracked his ribs, though - and he slowed right down. As he's explaining the finer points of the Nighthawk, I thought about how fast the bike was - if it could hit those kinds of speeds with two of us on the back, it would be even faster with just me on it, right? I decided to pass on it - as great of a bike as it was, that was simple too much temptation to hand a 23 year old me...
So, what's the most scared y'all have ever been on the road?
That is all.
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You don't have to go fast to be scared. The scariest moment I ever had on the road was in stationary traffic on I-90 just outside of Erie, PA during a blizzard, when my wife had a panic attack.
I knew she didn't like my driving, but jeez...
Rolling sideways and backwards into a snow bank on I-15 in Idaho into a snowbank at 65 mph. Good times.
A 720° spin on black ice on the Trans-Canada just outside of Chestermere Lake that put me RIGHT in the path of an oncoming bus.
How it missed me, I'll never know.
Like Dave mine happened at slow speed - 15 years ago - Interstate 15 coming over the top of Elk Mountain east of Rawlins WY. Heavy snow the night before and road was covered with patchy ice. Fairly heavy traffic- most of it semis. We were moving about 30 mph leaving lots of room around us - until way off down the road ahead of us we see a vehicle sitting sideways blocking the entire freeway.
Everyone started slowing down only to discover that the "patchy" ice had turned into one long endless sheet of very slick ice.
The semi's around me were slowing down much faster than I was. I was using every trick I had learned in 20 years of bad weather driving and nothing was working. The ditch on my right was way to steep and way to deep to be a viable option.
The space around us was disappearing as fast as the stalled vehicle in the road was approaching. And anything I tried just led to loss of control of the van.
Everything was happening so slowly that my wife had time to turn around and tighten all the kid's seat belts and pile pillows and blankets around them.
Then it hit me - this van has those new-fangled antilock brakes and traction control and since I was out of options I took a firm grip on the steering wheel, and applied slow steady pressure to the break pedal. The whole van started shaking and quivering the break pedal was hammering up and down under my foot while the steering wheel jittered in my hands as we slowly stopped.
The lead vehicle stopped about 10 feet away from the truck stalled in the road. My front bumper was under the rear bumper of the semi that was in front of me - the bottom of his bumper was about an inch from the middle of my trunk.
We were stacked up four vehicles across two lanes and the shoulders and the semi behind us stopped just 4 inches from our rear bumper.
I absofrackinglutely loves me some of the that new technology...
opps I meant I80 not I15
(proofread dummy!)
16 y.o me, with my bf, best friend and her bf in the back of a late-70's early 80's Monte Carlo, heading home from a date in Dracut. Icy road, 360 spin out, hit a telephone pole in the back end. My boyfriend grabbed me and shoved me into the footwell in the front seat figuring the engine would protect me. No major injuries, but it was my very first accident. "Old Time Rock n' Roll" was playing on the radio.
Playing guardrail pinball down I91 north of White River Junction, VT a couple years ago in snow and ice....sideways at 50mph thinking "please don't hit a dry spot, please don't hit a dry spot"
Think it was October of 2001, I-70 on a friday night. Was making a trip to visit friends at the college I'd just graduated from, was driving East towards New Concord Ohio.
Usually semi trucks drive on the right side, and back then we had the split speed limit, 65 for cars, 55 for trucks, but not much past the Columbus outer belt 270 going east, apparently the speed limit was rescinded or something, as I noticed I was being passed by trucks. And not just passed, but really passed.
I had a 1995 Honda Civic then, but up until that point, 85 was the top speed I'd pushed it to. And at 85, I was still being passed by tractor trailers.
There's a stretch of 3 lanes with a concreted divider that has pretty much no place for staties to park for radar work, and I was cruising along, first time in my life, in triple digits. I went to pass a semi truck in the far right lane, did the diligent thing, checked my mirrors, got into the middle lane, and when barely up to the trailer wheels I hear a blaring air horn, look in my rearview again, and a semi has smoke pouring out of its wheels, the trailer is all over the road behind the tractor.
I was going over 100, and that truck about ran me over. And best of all, the driver starts chasing me. Road goes back to two lanes, and all I see in my rearview mirrors is grill and bumper. Of course, this is loooong before cellphones being so common, but I will say, when the civic got pushed past 120 it started to shake, but that got me enough distance to hit my exit ramp without him being able to follow me down it, but I was very worried about stopping at the end of the ramp.
Most folk I tell that story to are rather incredulous, and I've never been in a similar situation besides that day.
Got the heart rate a little elevated recalling that episode of life. I was sure that I was either going to be pushed off the road, or my poor Civic was going to have a catastrophic failure of tire, parts, or something.
Moving my parents from FL to WV about 12 years ago, I was driving my Dad's pickup with a car hauler on the back with the rental car that my brother and I were driving back in. Going from I75 to I95 via I10, we were cruising along just fine when we hit some heavy traffic because of road work. Some moron in a little car does an overly speedy lane change right into the path of the Ryder truck my brother's driving, which has a car hauler on it, and forces him off the road. I end up in a position where I have to stop quickly, but with not enough room to do it. Hitting the brakes I end up going off the road into the median and realize that there's a giant drainage ditch in the median I'm about to hit that'll flip the truck over. I jerk the wheel back to the right, and with the trailer pushing me, I end up jackknifing as I'm heading back onto the road... right into the side of a tractor trailer. We hit the trailer and grind down the side of it, nose of the truck to the side of the trailer. Thump thump thump and then it was passed. Managed to pull over behind the trailer, my brother had managed to avoid losing the Ryder, and we all got out and inspected the damage. Busted the grill and some chrome on the pickup, just cosmetic stuff, and the tractor's trailer was really old and beat up, so the driver basically said "I don't have time to fool with it, nobody's hurt and I couldn't even tell you if you left any marks on this thing", so away we went.
What made it scary was that my mother was riding in the truck with me, which scared my Dad and brother half to death when they were seeing the accident in the mirrors.
Well this may not exactly be my scariest moment "on the road" but I was in a vehicle, rolling on wheels and it was sort of a road I suppose. I was in a plane and it was on the runway and it was my first day as a volunteer Federal Air Marshal. If you want to know more, about how scary, go to this link:
http://ballseyesboomers.blogspot.com/search?q=scariest+day+of+my+life
Amazingly, that day still qualifies as my all time scariest experience, even after finding out I had, and then going through my battle with, cancer. Yeah that was pretty scary too but nowhere nearly as much as that feeling I had when the doors of the plane closed and we started to roll.
All the best,
GB
Friend Dave and I (Dave at the wheel) opening up my '76 VW Rabbit to over 100 mph!
It truly wanted to be airborne!
OR
Speeding down some massively wide freeway in Ca., in the inside lane, boxed in by traffic, praying to get to an exit, lest I wet myself!
Mine, I shit you not, was in a Ford Tempo. I was doing about 55 (in a 30), and decided to have some fun with a set of elevated train tracks. They were eyeball high on my side (about 3', as I sat in the car). The drop on the other side, however, was more like 6'. Dodge Chargers with Confederate flags don't catch that much air.
Compounding the issue, around the next bend in the road was a cop. Thankfully, I'd gotten it woahed down to about 35 by the time he saw me.
Bump for subscribe.
I had my Yamaha street bike running throttle wide open over 140 on the way from Falmouth to Weymouth when my father had a heart attack about 15 years ago. It was just before dawn, and rt. 3 was empty. A state trooper spotted me and flashed his lights. When I touched the brakes at that speed (instead of just coasting for a bit first), the bike slewed back and forth across both lanes- I still have no idea how I kept it upright. At that speed I knew I was road pizza if I dumped. Once I pulled over, I dropped my helmet, waited about 2 minutes for the cruiser to catch up to me, and ran up to the guy's window to tell him why I was racing... and he drew on me and started screaming.
I got down on my knees instead of face down, and told him what I was doing. The guy let me get up, and told me to stay behind him on the road, and that he'd radio ahead to keep me out of trouble if I'd keep from excessive speeding once he left me. He did between 90-100 most of the way to my exit. When he peeled off, I opened the bike up again.
I stopped riding after that summer.
I-70 in Colorado on the steep grade about 2 miles from the entrance to the Eisenhower Tunnel (11,000 feet elev), rain and sleet turning the road surface into sheet ice. The traffic comes to a stop for 10 minutes or so. The 18 wheeler in front of me ( no chains ) and the one in the other lane ( also no chains) not only can't get going again but they are both slowly sliding back toward me and there is full traffic behind me.
Both manage to regain some traction with about 6 inches to spare.
Left them ALOT more room after that.
Mine happened before I even got my license. I'd actually just gotten my learner's permit when it happened.
It was during my first lesson with a local driving school. I was in a mid-90's Chevy Cavalier, the body of which I'm still convinced was made from tin foil.
Anyway, we were on this back road going up a steep hill. About halfway up, this huge dump truck comes flying over the top of the hill. The driver was way over the limit and was halfway into the oncoming (read: my) lane! The trunk's front bumper looked to be just about level with my face.
I hauled the wheel over to the right to get out of the way, but then my instructor reached over and tried to wrestle the wheel LEFT, which would have put us dead in the truck's path. We both ended up jamming on the brakes and stopping(the car was modified with a brake pedal in the passenger foot-well,) and the dump truck missed us by no more than six inches.
I took a few seconds to ensure that I was not, in fact, dead, then asked my instructor what the hell he'd been trying to do. I'll never forget what the guy said: "If you'd gone off the road, you would've hit a telephone pole, which would've been our fault. But if he'd hit us, it would've been his fault, so his insurance would've had to pay for it."
That was the only time in my life that I've ever actually cursed someone out: if the truck had hit us, I'd have at the very least been seriously injured, probably killed. After that, I refused to continue with my driving lessons unless I was schedule with another instructor.
First time on the road on 2, I dumped at a light in the left turn lane. Got stuck under the bike. The asshole behind me revved and honked at me like I could do something about it.
I peed my pants. And frankly, I'm not ashamed to admit that.
I've also been afraid of getting back on a bike since that incident. I don't know if I ever will.
I fell asleep coming home from work after a week of double shifts earning money for college.
I woke up when I jumped the center divider and was headed for a lake.
I went full right lock on the steering wheel and 100% brake.
This caused me to swap ends, re-cross the center divide and all 4 lanes of traffic and come to rest east bound in the west bound lane with a quarter sized dimple in my dooor as the only damage.
Nobody else on the road at 7:30 in the morning. Ten minutes earlier would have been a shift change.
Gerry
'72 LTD Country Squire wagon with a 460 V8 and a friend who was impatient when it came to waiting for an opening in traffic to pass. Not sure what sort of citation he would have got for going 120 in a 45 zone.
I was 18, and too young and stupid to be as scared as I should have been.
Paul,
I had a Plymouth Breeze up to 110MPH on I-95 South when I got the call that my dad was in the hospital. No cops though.
Laura,
:(
If you want to get back on the bike, maybe a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course might help.
...
This one wasn't too bad but for sheer "HOLY SHIT" factor...
I was heading back to school early one Sunday morning, real early, like 5 AM (had a ridiculously early practical at 6:30 AM, don't ask).
There is no one - NO ONE - out on 495 at this point.
I've got my Buick pegged easily north of triple digits, when I come around a corner and see - directly in my lane - the cap to a pickup truck just sitting in the middle of the lane.
I hit the grass on the side of the road sideways. Kicked up a major plume of dirt and grass sliding, then shot back out on the road after the cap.
I had to pull over and get out of the car I was shaking so bad...
Jay - This was *after* I took the MSF course. I'd already dumped once in class and got stuck under it (different circumstances, my own stupidity, blah blah). If I ever go uncaged again, it'll either be on the back of Chris's bike or on a Can-Am Spyder trike thingy. My balance is fail.
Oddly enough, I think the two scariest moments for me behind a wheel were both in station wagons. The first was in an '87 Olds Custom Cruiser. I hit an exit ramp with an advised speed limit of 25 doing 70 (and they mean it when they say that in TN). It was either that or hit a wall or get creamed by a semi. Somehow, I managed to power slide through the entire damn curve and not hit anything.
Years later, I was driving a '96 Volvo 870 when the traffic in front of me on the interstate came to a complete stop. I stood on the brakes, the traction control failed, and I ended up sideways. Managed to end up in the thankfully empty lane next to me and pointing in the right direction.
I was riding my new Ducati, my son Colin, two weeks after he got his learners permit for motorcycle was on his Yamaha "exciter". I came to a green traffic light & slowed almost to a stop waiting for an oncoming car to pass before making the left turn. My son, was behind me, apparently did not see the oncoming car & made the left turn in front of the oncoming car. How that car driver missed Colin I'll never know but, that vision of his Yamaha & the grill of the car is etched in my brain forever.
Roger
Not scared at all and I should have been. 100mph, rain, worn tires. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Year: 1995
I was driving: 1991 Geo Metro (3 C, 1 L, 5 spd manual)
Idiot of the first water was driving: late 1970's tank (Might have been a '76 Monte. I used to have one of those.)
Road conditions: Moderate snow, wet and slippery.
This starts because my first ex-wife had a son who was a guest of the Illinois penal system in Vandalia, IL. After visiting him we were Northbound I-57 passing Champaign, IL enroute to Joliet, IL.
Dudley Dumbbunny enters I-57 at a high rate of speed. While I was in the fast lane (speed 45 in a 65 and slightly faster than the flow of traffic) Mr. Darwin Award Wannabe Winner comes up on a tear. I was passing a car in the slow lane. Idgit boy locks up the brakes and I note that he has that unhealthy wobble going (The Oh Crap, I've Lost Control (tm) wobble.). I back off the gas and slow to where wobble boy is ahead of me in the adjacent lane.
Then, as expected, his car swaps ends and stars heading for the left median. We were nose to nose about 6-8 inches apart as he passed in front of my vehicle (ok, that's being generous more like roller skate wrapped in tin foil) enroute to the snow drift in the median. He backs into the snow bank and I am able to continue on to the next exit where we switch drivers because I am unable to stop shaking.
No, I did not have a change of underwear. Might have had to use that, too.
I had a slowspeed ice one, but it was so slow it wasnt really scary. That was in my '78 Ramcharger, 440 v8, 40" tall off-road tires and full time 4 wheel drive. Headed to the mall with my girlfriend and her little brother and sister. Snowing lightly, a few inches on the ground. Going down this road, which is basically 1/4 mile down into a little valley, and 1/4 mile back up the other side. I'm looking ahead, and I first notice the cars coming down toward me are doing little 5mpg donuts and bouncing off each other as they hit black ice under the snow coming down the hill. Cars in from of me start doing the same, look in rear view, same thing happening behind me. Everything is just piling up all around me, and I have no place to go. Cut the wheel to the right, go between 2 trees and up on a front lawn, then continue driving across front lawns until I'm around the pile up and cut back onto the road. Look in mirrors and nobody else made it through, everyone else just piled up at the botto of the little valley. The kids thought it was fun bouncing across the lawns, and really, being in a vehicle so uch bigger then everything else I really wasnt scared of a 5ph accident.
So, scary..... leaving the bowling alley at about 2-3am after a night of moonlight bowling (basically an excuse to drink beer on a saturday night). Driving down Rt 22 in NJ, which is one of the worst highways in the country, 2 lanes each way with a concrete center barrier in this section, and traffic lights. I'm driving a '70 Challenger with L50-15 tires on the back (what size is that in newfangled metric?) and 150psi in the rear airshocks to raise the assend enough to clear the tires. For those who don't know, this means for all intent I have no rear suspension, the back rode like the axle was welded to the frame (damn, we were dumb back then). I'm in the right lane, doing about 60mph, and my buddy is right behind me in his '67 Coronet. All of a sudden I realize there is a car stopped dead in my lane at a green traffic light. No lights on the car, apparently a drunk guy a: forgot to turn on his lights, and then b: fell asleep at a red light. I started to turn into the left lane, but truthfully there was no way I was gonna make it. Just as I'm turning, I hit a bad pothole, and the entire car does a sideways bunnyhop into the left lane, just missing the concrete barrier. Look in my mirror and my buddy went the other way, and he's sliding down the shoulder sideways. Car behind HIM (who we didnt know) was not so fast and slammed right into the back of the stopped car. We stopped and used a payphone to call, but didnt go back to check on people because we had all been drinking and we saw other cars stopping to help.
It's here.
http://excelsatnothing.blogspot.com/2012/04/most-scared-ive-been-on-road.html
It started with a guy tailgating me with no other cars in sight.
~ 1979 riding from Tampa to Pennsylvania on my '73 Suzuki GT750.
Mountains of West Virginia, 2:30AM and nothing but DARK for miles and miles........
I am dragging ass, looking for something .. anything.
I woke up headed for the guardrail.
that was the scariest....... WAKING UP on a bike I was driving!!
4 wheel hydroplaning on the interstate around 70. I play pong off the guardrails on either side of a bridge, and stop with my drivers side facing traffic. I back around so i'm not facing the oncoming lane and as I come about I see a Peterbilt in s skid. Time stops, I think "This is going to hurt" then time starts back up again. I'm at enough of an angle that the truck hits and spins me some more, but slam pretty hard into the guardrail again.
Me and standing water are a lot more cordial to each other now.
:-D
Going bu-bump on the road on a thai rental scooter, and subsequently not being able to turn in time to go around a largish section(say two feet wide at the widest, and 7 feet long) of road with missing pavement, on the outer side of a turn, on a mountain, with a sheer drop... I did however manage to not crash, and came back up on paved road where the section ended, and continued on with my heart just skipping a couple of beats.
Dark snowy night. 18 wheeler. Heavy wet snow on the road. Trailer wheels caught in ruts. Tractor wheels lost traction. Oscillating down the road with my heart in my throat. Closest I've ever come to putting a big rig in a ditch.
Driving from Boston to Dover Delaware via I-95 in the late 70's, after crossing the Hudson river on the George Washington Bridge from NYC to Ft. Lee on the NJ side at around 3:00 AM, when it appears that someone either jumped or was pushed from another ramp overhead, hitting the pavement at high speed and becoming roadkill. The tractor and semi-trailer diagonally in front of me and to the right sectioned and dispersed him like squeezing a tube of toothpaste when it rolled over him, pushing the upper torso, head and arms into my lane. I had to swerve to avoid doing the same to him. I looked over at my passenger and asked, "Did you see what I just saw?". He just nodded nervously, still wide eyed. I stopped at the first available phone, a rest area which I vaguely and strangely remember as the Vince Lombardi Service Area to call the NJ State Police and report what I had observed. They were angry that I did not stop to "assist the victim". I told them to get there quickly while there was something still identifiable as human to scrape up and bury. I hung up the phone.
There was some stuff on bikes that happened so fast I didn't get scared till the next day. At one point I'm pretty sure I cut a curve under the edge of an 18 wheeler in the oncoming lane.
I-70 in a thunderstorm. Can't see diddly ahead of me because of the rain and hail so I try to pull over. Semis are not slowing down even though we are all hydroplaning.
US 50-400, also in KS, SCDD. Two blizzards have gone through the state, and the northern part is ice-locked (Dec '07). I'm OK on I-70, not so bad on the highway from Ellsworth past Great Bend because I am the only thing on a totally snow-packed road. If it had shoulders you couldn't see them, ditto lanes. I think the county skipped the plow and just graded the 18" of wet snow, and it worked fine. However, all good things come to an end and the snow eventually became 6" of heavy slush. Apparently some big-rig drivers have no problem going 65-75 on that sort of road, but my Subaru couldn't hack it. I ended up in a ditch and just let all the big boys go by. I finally got to my destination and then had to explain why there was road stuff coating the roof of my car (where the trucks had sprayed it).
I was not fond of the pass going west into Albuquerque while it was down to one and a half lanes. More than one "oh Lord, please may I not end up as a hood ornament or an accordian" moment when all I could see in the mirrors was grill.
LittleRed1
Well Jay, that would probably be when I was eluding the local NJ po-po at speeds in excess of 150 mph on my Kawasaki 1100 - I came up to a cluster of cars and went by them on the shoulder, which at the time looked about the width of a piece of dental floss - needless to say this was done during my reckless time as a yute - I've since reformed and only drive the speed limit ;)
HankH
It was a dark and stormy night...
No, really it was a hot summer afternoon. I was in an 81 Chevy Citation, (don't ask), headed south on I-95 about halfway between Florence and Columbia in the flat South Carolina low country. It was about 2 in the afternoon and I had just had lunch about an hour before.
If you've ever been in that part of SC you know the road is flat, monotonous, and boring. I was having a hard time staying awake.
I nodded off. Suddenly, I was rudely reawakened when my right wheels fell off of the pavement on the right side of the road.
I was past the breakdown lane and found myself on the *wrong* side of a guardrail going about 70mph in cruise control.
And why was there a guardrail? Because just ahead of me was the upright pillar section of an overpass!
I stood on the brakes, slewing the car back and forth, spewing gravel (...and one hubcap) ever which way. There was about a 4 foot wide section of flat ground between the immovable concrete pillar and the concrete ramp the went up the 20 feet or so to the top at the end of the overpass. I hit the edge of that ramp with my right side and for about 30 feet was, literally, driving on the two left wheels.
I came out the other side and "Boom!" the car came back down on four wheels. Luckily, I didn't flip the car and I managed to get the car under control and get it stopped about a hundred feet on the other side of the overpass - on the correct side of the guardrail, I might add.
I put the car in park, and rested my head on the steering wheel and just sat there and shook for awhile.
Suddenly, I heard a "tap" "tap" "tap" on my window. I looked up and there stood one of South Carolina's finest. I rolled down the window and he said:
"License and registration, Please."
I presented him my papers. He examined them and then said:
"What happened, son?"
"I fell asleep, officer."
"That's what I thought. You would be amazed how many folks get themselves killed out here for just that reason. You're going to stop and get some sleep now, aren't you?"
"I sure am, officer."
(Of course, I had just taken the biggest adrenaline shot of my life and there was just no way I was going to be able to sleep!)
The trooper let me go with a warning, and all I lost was a little time and one hubcap. Well, that and at least a year or two off of my lifespan.
Traded my b.i.ls 911T for my truck one night so he could move.
After a night on the town giving potential mates rides from bars to bars, I headed home.
The 911 will draw attention at that hour, and a Charger wanted a piece.
At wheel to wheel on the freeway at 130 indicated, we came to a big sweeper to the left and as I was on the inside, and not winning, I realized "shit, I got one more gear".
As I pulled ahead I started losing grip and drifted into his lane.
But that big Dodge had already lost it and I watched him leave the road and roll.
Stopped, backed up, baled out, and downed to the wreck.
Guy and his girl were already crawling out.
Worked out kinda.
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