Scary Driving
 

Inspired by the Minneapolis bridge!

What's your all-time most white-knuckle driving experience? Mine was two hours of bumper-to-bumper in Montreal this summer. Talk about your crumbling infrastructure. Also your suicidal drivers.

Big Sur. Trying to drive AND look at scenery.

Watching an accident occur on the 710 and having to react to make sure I didn't become part of it.

In Flagstaff, AZ, I was driving at a pretty slow speed in a torrential thunderstorm. A lightening strike hit a light pole about 4 feet behind and to the right of the vehicle. Incredibly loud, and every piece of hair on my body stood straight up. The pole fell into the road between my car and the car behind ours.

The other one was in Flagstaff as well. Lots of snow in the winter in Flagstaff, and some hilly driving near the University. I was in a light pick up truck coming down a hill, and I lost the ability to stop. I slid a good couple hundred yards down a hill, through a red light and a stop sign. Miraculously, I hit nothing nor was I hit.

Beating the Train

On the road up to Pasadena right outside the outlet mall that looks like a cheesy castle. Someone had stopped in the left hand lane for no reason, immediately backing up the traffic. For some reason I didn't notice, and had to brake hard and swerve to the right to avoid hitting the stopped line of cars. Somehow I managed to guide the vehicle between the cars to the left and right.

I had to get off the freeway for a little while to let the adrenaline get out of my system.

steering wheel coming off in my hands at freeway speed


now THATS entertainment

Back in 1995 I was driving a group of us up to some 24-hour bowling alley in Everett, Washington, at around 2 a.m. I accelerated to pass around some slow truck and the throttle stuck completely open.

Standing on the brakes I could barely slow the car down. I'm dodging other cars while trying to decide what my options were and how long I should wait to notify my friends of our impending death. Putting the car into neutral killed speed but with the throttle full open it sounded like the engine was going to explode. Eventually with a combination of standing on the brakes, application of the handbrake, and going in and out of neutral I got to a stop on the side of the road.

Another time driving a friend back late to the University of Washignton's Pack Research Forest out on some back mountain road in the Cascades with one dim headlight.

A third time we took a back road out of Death Valley and into the Central Valley, again at night, and went through about 30 miles of the densest fog I've ever been in. Literally 15 feet visibility over winding 1.5 lane mountain road.

The cheesy castle was the Samson Tire and Rubber Company.

I was driving on highway 38 near big bear when it started to snow. I pulled over at a turnout in a curve to let some people pass. I pulled off the road a bit too quick ( I didn't want to slow down the people behind me), and hit an ice patch. The only thing that kept us from going off the edge and off a cliff (no guard rails), was a sign post that I hit. I was a bit shaky after that.

I was rear-ended going on the 91 freeway driving back from Palm Springs by a truck going about 90 while I was going 60. He smashed the back of the CRV then drove off. The back window shattered sending glass everywhere. Chris was in front of me in the other Honda and had no idea what happened.