Look, I’ll admit it: Not every minute spent behind the wheel is a good one. Some of them are boring, unsettling, or downright terrifying. Yesterday, those were the moments we asked about — your worst driving moments of 2022. You had precious few stories, but stories nonetheless. Let’s see what you said.
This could have been much worse than it was. It kind of scared me at the moment but now it’s hilarious.
Leaving Wind Cave in SD, we were taking the long way back to the interstate so the kids could see the scenery and we happened upon some bison walking along the side of the road. We came around a curve and there was one walking down the shoulder on our side of the guard rail. Being from Indiana, I had no idea what the procedure for “Bison on road” is, so I figured I would just drive around it. As I pulled up next to it, it sped up to keep pace. I realized that at any moment, it could take a sudden right hand turn and ram the minivan, so I did what anybody would do: I floored it. I don’t know what a bison’s top speed is, but I do know for sure it’s less than what a Toyota Sienna can do.
Google claims bison can run up to 35 miles an hour. That is an absolutely terrifying speed for a creature of that size to move. I’m gonna have nightmares now.
I was driving in Jersey, I could just stop here and it would be a depressing moment, but I was driving in Jersey and got a puncture. So I got out, changed the tire, drove about three more miles, and got a second puncture. I’m out of tires, and out of patience. Just those little things that get you down.
Let’s not go to New Jersey. ‘Tis a silly place.
i hit a guy who ran in front of me at the Kroger parking lot.
i saw the guy running along the sidewalk in front of the store when he darted across my path and continued running in the same direction through the parking lot.
i honked my horn at him, got the finger in response and then suddenly he cut across my path again to run on the sidewalk.
This time I clipped him with the left front corner of the car, he fell to the ground, got back up and ran into the store.
Since there were about a half-dozen witnesses, I called the local PD to file a report. By the time the police arrived all my witnesses had left and the guy i hit could not be found.
I doubt the guy was seriously hurt since i was driving under 10mph, and based on how he was running I’m guessing he was high. Still it was nerve wracking.
Y’know how dogs get the zoomies? They just run around, trying to get all their energy out? Maybe that’s what this guy was trying to do.
I had an absolute bonehead moment where i crashed the fun car and the beater into each other.
My dad was borrowing the beater (old 4Runner) while he was moving, and my Mustang was in their garage while I was there helping. I went to pull out the Mustang to give us some space in the garage, and had about 20 feet before I reached the ‘yota on the driveway. Because I had been driving auto the rest of the day, I had a total brain-fart and used my right foot to let out the clutch, and didn’t realize until I was in gear and rolling. Rather than just knocking it out of first or yanking the handbrake, I panicked and jumped my foot from the clutch to the brake as fast as I could, stalling it after a lurch forward.
Bonk.
Not serious, just some traded paint that should buff out, but was still a total dope move.
Maybe the 4Runner was just too horny, and needed to be bonked for it. The Mustang was doing a public service.
Not exactly a disaster, but:
Just got new sway bars put on my otherwise stock 2022 Miata and was dying to get it out onto an appropriate road to test. There’s an incredible road leading out of the greater Phoenix area to a tiny town (more like an intersection) called Winkleman. Tight twists and turns through the mountains all the way there. Paid the 90-minute drive-time price to get to the fun part, and was just getting to them when I encountered a Harley convoy travelling double-file at barely the speed limit (if that). No way around and no-one giving way. 10 minutes in I gave up and headed home. Busy work schedule and rain at the wrong times means I am still waiting to do it again.
No one’s ever been stuck behind a line of Aprilias or Ducatis. It’s always the Harleys that mess up traffic. Or the 12 o’clock boys in their two-strokes.
I totalled my girlfriend’s Nissan Pathfinder driving home from visiting family. Four lane road, wet from rain. I was coming to a stop at a stoplight and the car slid. ABS didn’t engage. Skidded right into the rear of a RAV4. I must’ve been doing like 15mph, tops but the damn truck folded like a tin can.
You can see the sheriff in the pic. They didn’t even give me a ticket. They said accidents happen at this particular light ALL THE TIME.
But hey, Geico gave us $8500 for a 2011 Nissan with over 180,000 miles!
A RAV4 is, unfortunately for your girlfriend’s Pathfinder, not really a path. More of a solid object. Still, at least you found it.
How it started: a small drop of unknown fluid found after parking from a track session
How it’s going: I have the engine out and an unrepairable cracked head waiting to be replaced.
On the plus side, I’ve learned an awful lot!
I mean, sure, you need coolant. But do you need need it? Signs point to yes, but I’ll wait for the science to come in before I’m sure.
That has to be getting my first speeding ticket ever the day of my 47th birthday.
Turns out a straight freeway coming down from Mammoth lakes a few thousand feet within a few miles is the perfect place to rack up speeding tickets and finance Bishop’s city council.
I also failed to my one rule of not getting speeding tickets “never be the biggest maniac on the freeway”.
I’ll neither confirm nor deny having driven any faster than the 95 I got ticketed for.
Once you’re up in the 90s, you should never confirm or deny your speed. This is not legal advice, but it is absolutely advice.
Neighbor and I was both driving our trucks down our street in opposite directions. Car parked on both sides of the street, I was over as far as I could be, neighbor wasn’t. We smacked side view mirrors. Now I have a mark on my mirror, but it folded in like it should. Neighbor wasn’t as lucky, his mirror doesn’t fold, so it shattered.
I once ran into a similar mirror-on-mirror situation in a rented Corolla, in a Toronto parking garage. At low speeds, you’re fine when one side of the collision has a folding mirror. Higher speeds, though, call for more flexibility.
I was driving home from work. There’s this one part of my drive about 2 miles from that is always stop and go. But living in the town that I do; we have many drivers who decide to be courteous at the most inopportune times...
You know you, like, you’re driving a few car lengths behind somebody. There’s no one in front or behind both of you in the foreseeable distance. But the dude in front decides to let someone in on a cross street to take a left to go on the road in front of him. So, if you’re not paying attention you have to slam on the brakes not to rear-end the guy who being “nice”? When the car waiting to take a left just as easily could have waited the five seconds to let two cars pass by? That kind of shit.
Anyways, someone about a 100 yards ahead decides to let someone in or out, or take a turn...whatever. And then it’s a succession of everyone stopping short. Well, I rear-ended a Jeep Cherokee. There was just slight damage, a bumper indentation with a crushed a rear fog light. That doubled my insurance. My damage was minor and I did not bother getting it fixed. I did not even get a ticket when the police showed up.
Situations like this, the little courteous moves that disrupt the flow of traffic, are exactly why you need to be so attentive behind the wheel. You never know when something will shift away from your mental plan.
Returning home from a baseball game in which my team won on a 2 out walk-off home run and traffic was a normal mess. About half way home traffic came to a stop on I-95, not a really quick stop but not an easy smooth one. I stopped without issue but the car behind me decided that they would just dive onto the shoulder and continue, the van behind them then slammed into me and I was pushed into the car ahead of me.
Thankfully everyone was fine. My car was totaled, the car I was pushed into was the driver’s first car that they had just picked up 30 minutes before and was now undrivable.
It took about 4 hours to get through all the police and tow situation. It took another month for the insurance stuff to get completed as the tow company was being less than cooperative. About a month earlier I had decided not to get a new car and used the some of the funds for a vacation.
First off, I’m glad you’re okay. Secondly, as long as you’re okay, it’s a good thing your team won — at least the day had something good.
Mine could have been a lot worse but was still a very brown pants moment. I had just got the battery recall done on my 2017 Bolt, the battery had been charged up to full by the dealer and as I was heading towards a stop light I tried to use the regenerative brakes and they did very little.
As it turns out regenerative braking is restricted above a certain battery charge to avoid the risk of overcharging the battery (and if it’s high enough it doesn’t work at all because the resistance is from converting the kinetic energy from the wheels into electricity. if it electricity can’t go to the battery because the battery is at full capacity there is no circuit and thus no resistance. So how well the regenerative brakes work can vary above 90% battery charge. Luckily my normal brakes worked just fine but after that I did my research and set the battery to only charge to 90% so that my regen braking was consistent.
I’ve driven my fair share of EVs, and I can’t recall any that disabled regenerative braking at high levels of battery charge. Now I’m going to keep an eye out for that, in other cars.
Went bumper hunting on Halloween. Got an 8 pointer. It’s now early January, still don’t have car back. Mix of new OEM and new aftermarket parts. Body shop that was putting my car together was using used parts, even though insurance said to use new parts. It was done, once, but started leaking. That is when the used parts were figured out. Tech lost his job. Now waiting on a connector to show up because it was broken again taking bumper back off again. No fault accident, but almost $14k in damage, over two months, and been without a paid for rental after 30 days. Body shop gave me their loaner because they admitted to the error.
Is eight points a Predator-era Lexus? Those are pretty pointy.
My 350Z’s rod started knocking at the drag strip. My car was mildly modified, just some bolt ons. Oil level and pressure were good. But it just started rattling bad on the way back after my third run. I really loved that car and it was very clean but I just don’t have the time or space to rebuild or swap the motor.
It’s hard to find time to do car stuff for me lately so breaking the car on the only motorsport related thing I did in 2022 was heartbreaking. Getting another car is on hold until my wedding this year and until we buy a house. I have a 2001 E55 as my daily but it’s a little banged up cosmetically so I can’t say I’m as proud of it as I was my Z.
RIP to the VQ engine, never to trumpet again. We hardly knew ye.