What's the dumbest/most dangerous thing you have done involving a motor vehicle?

[BSD]

I'll start. On Monday I replaced my front inner fender liner in both wheel wells after I chewed up the originals by driving without my bumper on. I also added the missing underbody cover and finished grinding down the intake manifold.

And then yesterday afternoon:

This will be the second time i've done this.....

(Psst, if you want to tell your story using a ragecomic, check out ragemaker dot net)

 

[Swordsmith]

Decided to spend the winter in Mexico in order to save money.

This was back in the mid 80s, so may or may not have relevance today, before the mexico tourism brigade jumps on me.

At any rate, the dumb part was that I did it driving an old conversion van, crisscrossing the country. Mexico isn't small, somehow it just looks the size of a US State, but it isn't. And the roads were often horrific. Distances between gas stations (which were state owned, and thus rare) were large, fuel quality was bad, and the various branches of police and military were all dubious about a "tourista" (mexican slang for what we call montezuma's revenge) pulling over to the sides of the road to camp out.

Among the many adventures:

The discovery that the one paved road we could find leading over to the coast (Punta Muldenado) had given way, completely collapsed, with an 8 foot gap 6 feet deep. Backed up to find a dirt road workaround. In retrospect, dirt roads are maintained by the folks who have to use them, while the paved roads are maintained by the state, and thus only the biggest ones are maintained at all. Sometimes I feel US roads are going the same way.

Pulled up to a Pemex, to find it was closed. Decided the next one was only 20 miles away and I could reach it. 20 miles as the crow flies up a mountain range... I ran out of gas as I crested the top. Managed to push the little bit of up slope remaining, and coasted the "ten miles" down the other side, which meant going at unsafe speeds because there were ups and downs and I needed the momentum to make it over the ups.

But the funniest one, regarding this thread, was when I got a flat, and had the tire changed at a nice clean tire station (Tegucigalpa? I forget). Drove along happily and the road started to whine at me, and then to vibrate. I looked around at the completely nowhere all around me, and managed to find a "vulcanizadora"; one of the many mom and pop type tire repair shops marked by an old tire half buried at the side of the road. I pulled in, and went into a sort of a barn looking for the proprietor, maybe ten minutes to find an old gent, we came back out to find his 12 year old had my wheel assembly half torn apart. Turns out the kid is the mechanic, the dad just handles the money. But the "real" tire shop had not tightened down the lugs, and they were half worn away, and the wheel was also half cut through! Papa and I went on a wild cab ride to find the list of parts the kid needed, he did the whole job with one flathead screwdriver and one pair of vice grips, his only tools.

 

[The Champ]

The most dangerous? Well, going end over end in a brand 4 month old 1979 Caprice Classic Landau sure wasn't very safe.

I intentionally took the ditch to avoid a head on collision. Last thing I remember was yelling "OHSH-T" at the top of my lungs as I had my foot floored on the accelerator to avoid the opposing car.

I walked away from it virtually unscathed, with a broken wrist and a chipped tooth. The car didn't survive - the roof was flattened and the only useable piece of sheet metal left on the car was the trunk lid.

Do you know how much a car depreciates in 4 months?

BTW - I'm alive today because I WASN'T wearing my seat belt.

 

[BSD]

Damn, drunk driver or just someone not paying attention?

In retrospect, dirt roads are maintained by the folks who have to use them, while the paved roads are maintained by the state, and thus only the biggest ones are maintained at all. Sometimes I feel US roads are going the same way.

Yet another reason the roads should be privatized. Besides, paved roads are just another example of wasted taxpayer dollars.

Papa and I went on a wild cab ride to find the list of parts the kid needed, he did the whole job with one flathead screwdriver and one pair of vice grips, his only tools.

He had vice grips? Kid had it made. I always leave my vice grips in my motorcycle trunk, saved me a few times.

 

[ahtoxa]

While it wasn't immediately dangerous in regard to my well-being, it was still dangerous with a high level of risk. Truck could have rolled, but I doubt I'd suffer much. I was in danger of totaling the rig, though.

When I was big into offroading, I've owned two different rigs, modded to suit the purpose. Wheeling at the Badlands (near Attica, IN), we'd hit up black diamond trails often. Well, at least sections of it. No way to do the whole thing unless you have a crawler buggy.

A black diamond trail is basically some rough ****. Lots of winching, lots of crawling, lots of banging.

I was climbing a double-step-up ledge one time, and the second step was difficult due to height of ledge and the back tires still trying to climb the first one. The ledges were about 3-foot high, so I had to bump onto it. Couldn't do it with 35s alone.

As I tried to find the right line, I throttled it, rig side-stepped, and I ended up at an angle to the ledge. Mind you, this was all facing uphill, so I quickly found myself off-camber to the left, taring straight down to the ground, with the right side partially on the ledge and the left side off.

My buddies and spotters had to run up to the right front corner of the bumper and hang onto it, because the truck was at the tipping point, rocking back and forth.

No matter how much you wheel, you will ALWAYS pucker hard when off-camber and the rig is getting tippy. I don't care who you are. But it's like skydiving. Addictive as hell.

 

[Natesriv]

Drive drunk, used to do it all the time in my bar days.... never got a DUI or caused any accidents, did have a fender bender with a parked car late at night.

By FAR the dumbest thing I ever could have done behind the wheel... I don't even like having 1 beer and getting behind the wheel now...

Would go kick my own ass if time travel were possible. Either get a cab, have a DD or walk!

 

[ahtoxa]

Drive drunk, used to do it all the time in my bar days.... never got a DUI or caused any accidents, did have a fender bender with a parked car late at night.

Now that I think of it, I used to do this all the time when I was young. Multiple times a week.

I actually got pulled over twice. Once when I was 18 and a cop saw me and my buddies drinking in the park after dark and then driving off. Got off with a warning.

Second time I got pulled over, I was driving one of my aforementioned offroad rigs; leaving a buddy's house, I had no business to be on the road. Not two blocks after I left his house, I got pulled over. Cop gave me a brethalizer, I blew, but he didn't take me to jail. He told me he was going to follow me back to my bud's place, and make sure I stay there. If I didn't I'd be in jail.

THAT was the stupidest thing I have ever done while driving. More importantly, that episode didn't stop me from driving drunk for years after.

I've not driven drunk in a very, very long time.

 

[Natesriv]

Yeah I'd been through checkpoints and passed, sure makes your heart race!!!

As I got older and thought back of what COULD have happened... If I had hurt someone....

Buddy of mine did get a DUI and had to have the device in his car which he had to blow into, and his insurance went to the moon...

 

[sonic_braaappp]

Most dangerous... well, the night before I left for bootcamp I did multiple "Dukes of Hazzard" style jumps in the pasture with my 2000 dodge neon derby car after spray painting 01 on the sides and drinking a bottle of crown. Was also one of the most fun things I've done lol I had my dirtbike helmet on for safety, and it was able to complete 17 jumps before the mounts gave out/broke and the motor/tranny used the ejecto seato cuz haha

 

[Swordsmith]

Another reason the Mexico trip was dumb;

Living in Mexico was cheap pennies per day instead of the dollars per day it would have cost to live in the states. Except gas prices were only half what US gas prices were, so that was the most expensive part of the stay... and driving all over, on crappy and very winding roads, was really expensive. But in budget... until the day Pemex decided to literally double all gas prices. If I had taken a train somewhere and stayed, that wouldn't really have mattered. But I was down in Oaxaca, about halfway through the trip, and stuck in a vehicle that got 13 mpg on good roads with good fuel!

 

[ahtoxa]

Another reason the Mexico trip was dumb;

Living in Mexico was cheap pennies per day instead of the dollars per day it would have cost to live in the states. Except gas prices were only half what US gas prices were, so that was the most expensive part of the stay... and driving all over, on crappy and very winding roads, was really expensive. But in budget... until the day Pemex decided to literally double all gas prices. If I had taken a train somewhere and stayed, that wouldn't really have mattered. But I was down in Oaxaca, about halfway through the trip, and stuck in a vehicle that got 13 mpg on good roads with good fuel!

Sounds like it was a great experience, though. I'd not mind something like that.

 

[Blue Moon Sonic]

The Dumbest thing I've done was when I was driving around my 06 awd vibe and turning into an elementary school parking lot at 80mph during the summer. Almost gave my friend a heart attack cause he thought we were going to hit a giant rock since we were sliding right towards it. Was fun... but never doing that again.

 

[ahtoxa]

I thought of another one.

When I was 17 or so, a friend and I were out cruising in my old POS beater car that I got nearly free. It was a rusty, semi-broken '89 Taurus station wagon.

We were on this backroad in far norther burbs of Chicago. Sort of rich area, decent-sized lots. Good space.

Suddenly, we see that the road's ending. So I stop and I need to turn around on this narrow road. Mind you, this is a boat of a car and I'm a new driver back then.

So I go to do a K turn, but one of my front tires goes off the roadway and into the deep ditch that full of mud after the fresh rain.

So here I am, in the car with my buddy, my car is teetering with one front tire in the ditch. Back opposite wheel is totally in the air.

No cell phones for us back then. So we walked house-to-house. No one would open the doors. Finally, we were able to get some local guy to borrow his phone. I had a AAA card that my dad had for this car. They came in a couple hours and got me out.

Got home at like 5am that day.

 

[CheapFuneral]

I'll start. On Monday I replaced my front inner fender liner in both wheel wells after I chewed up the originals by driving without my bumper on. I also added the missing underbody cover and finished grinding down the intake manifold.



And then yesterday afternoon:

This will be the second time i've done this.....



(Psst, if you want to tell your story using a ragecomic, check out ragemaker dot net)

I did this to a customers hummer on the test track not once but twice... I when I work hard I forget stuff. Not the worst thing I've done still...


**** you auto correct!

 

[CheapFuneral]

Ok so when I was in high school I was really into drifting. Actually I still kinda am just don't have a car anymore. Anyway I blew the motor in my car and started taking my parents to work. My mom had an s10 blazer I used a lot of the time. One rainy day I was driving my gf home and decided to drift this corner at about 45mph. I was doing ok until I hit a dry patch. (In Florida it rains funny sometimes it won't be raining on the other side of the road) the blazer went up on 2 wheels I drove over the raised median on 2 wheels into on coming traffic. I put it down fast once I was over the median avoided a couple cars and drove back over the median. Last time I ever drifted an suv


**** you auto correct!

 

[lousypirate]

I picked up my wife by jumping my 05 Subaru legacy around 3am


Sober


The rest of my stories are better off told


Drunk.

 

[CheapFuneral]

The other dangerous thing I did also involved drifting. It wasn't too dangerous but it was dumb. I was driving my 94 z28 down a small road getting ready to turn on on to a larger 3 lane in each direction. The light turned yellow and I floored it. I was already doing 45 and I got to about 70 or 80 and drifted perfectly thru the intersection and kept on the gas til the new light which was red. When it turned green a cop came up behind me and pulled me over. my windows were broken they wouldn't go down, so I opened the door. Wasn't the first time a cop pointed a gun at me but it's still not fun. He cursed me out and told me to roll down my windows which were over tinted. I told them they were broken that's why I was getting out. He told me to get out, then cursed at me some more and said if he wasn't on his way to church id be going to jail. He never wrote me a ticket just got back in his cruiser and left. What I did was dumb. no matter how good I am a, person could have walked into that road and I would be in jail for man slaughter.

The last story I have doesn't involve me driving . I was riding shot gun in my friends 72 nova and it has been raining off and on. He was running slicks in the back . We pulled up to the light near our house and his gf and our other room mate pulled up next to us. She was in an s2000 and he was in an eclipse. Light turned green we took off and the nova hit a small puddle and sent us into oncoming traffic before the intersection ended. There was a median and he wasn't turning around. We waiting for a clearing in the traffic (which was much to small) and he went for the next opening. You wanna talk about puckering...


**** you auto correct!

 

[jgrote]

Oh, I could go on for hours... But I won't. Here's a fun one when I was shotgun. My friend had an 86 fox body that would run 9.8 1/4's. We had just gotten onto the Bayside bridge in FL when a dark blue Mustang pulled on us a little and put down his window and said he wanted to go. We backed off to 35 and went on his jump. It wasn't much of a race, and we won with no problem. Little did we know until we got to the other side of the bridge that he was an undercover cop. 135 in a 45 is apparently not okay with the police.

 

[sonic007]

For me id say it was in my gsxr days. Ended up racing a buddy of mine who thought his bike was quicker. He learned that day. Got up to about 191 before I let off. He took a few minutes to catch up.

 

[CheapFuneral]

For me id say it was in my gsxr days. Ended up racing a buddy of mine who thought his bike was quicker. He learned that day. Got up to about 191 before I let off. He took a few minutes to catch up.

Done this while running from cops


**** you auto correct!