The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday in the noon hour.
QUESTION: What’s the scariest moment you’ve had while driving?
Talk about it.
hydroplaning. Lost power steering. Stuck in freeway traffic and about to have explosive diarrhea because of eating oysters.
Back in the mid 90s about five miles east of Rio Vista Bridge on Highway 12, double yellow lines, car speeding, passing and coming head on. Luckily had enough room to pull right and not end up in ditch.
As a driver? I can’t recall anything very scary.
As a passenger…. well, I was in the back seat of a car when someone (not sure who) ran a red light and the car I was in got broadsided, spun around & slammed into a cement retaining wall & was totaled.
When everyone regained consciousness and got out of the car I checked on the other driver & we sat down on the wall we’d crashed into, soon we discovered there were a few thousand fire ants that were very upset that we had crashed into the wall where their nest was…. ouch!
I wouldn’t call it scary, but there have been times when was driving on the freeway in
my Corvette, and there was a big rig in the lane next to me when the driver decides to
change lanes into my lane. The problem is the truck driver cannot see me in his mirror
because my car is small, so I have to lay on the horn. Consequently, the driver will quickly
turn the steering wheel to avoid hitting me, and the trailer will start to fishtail. So far, the
drivers were able to correct it and avoid a jackknife. Needless to say, I do my best to
avoid driving next to big rigs.
Waking up!
Just kidding.
Scariest moments are driving in heavy fog.
Once was coming over the Sierras and hit black ice . I was not speeding I wasn’t doing anything crazy but suddenly the car started going off towards the ravine. No matter what I did with the steering wheel or the brakes nothing worked, so I got off the brakes and straighten the steering wheel I hit a few of those metal road markers but then got traction again and went straight. Had I kept the steering wheel turned hard I probably would have flipped over and gone over the edge.
When I thought i was driving into a portal to the twilight zone. Thankfully it was just dense fog.
Driving home from work, evening drive on an icy 2 lane road while snowing heavily, my car decide the snow was no longer suitable and slowly began spinning (I was driving 10 mph, roads were that bad). The scary part is a yellow school bus was coming toward me. Fortunately, they also were driving very slowly, but watching the bus get closer and closer, with no control of my vehicle was the most scary moment I had while driving. The bus was easily 100-200 ft from me, but still, many adult themed words were escaping my mouth. In the end, I slowly got back onto the right side of the road, waved at the bus driver, and trudged my way home.
HW 4……
Ever notice how a lot of drivers on highway 4 have their seat fully reclined?
It’s safer that way if you’re being shot at.
1984 or 1985. I was driving over the Old Benicia Bridge, heading into Concord. Keep in mind that at the time, the bridge had no shoulder, and 2 lanes in each direction, separated by a cement barrier. It was a dark, rainy night with no moon or stars and I was the only one on the road. I was in the right lane and for no particular reason, I decided to change lanes.
As I crossed into the left lane, I caught a brief glimpse of a stalled car in the right lane. No lights, no flashers, nothing. Must have missed it by 5-10 ft. Realized that I dodged death that night. Running into a parked car at 75 mph on a bridge would have been really bad. It took almost 2 hours before the shaking stopped.
Your guardian angel was on her toes that night.
In 1975 I was driving my parents Country Squire station wagon over the Antioch bridge (160) mid day on a Sunday.. There was a flatbed work truck around 75 yards in front of me. We were both traveling on the upswing part of the bridge when a fully inflated truck tire came out of the truck and was coming right at me. I had no place to go as there was one lane each direction. The tire bounced 2 times and I thought it was going to land on my hood/windshield/or roof. 2 other people in the car, all of us were freaking out. The second bounce hit literally right in front of us, bounced over the car, hit the road and bounced onto a 70’s Jeep Wagoneers hood. Disabled the jeep, broke his windshield and another huge dent in his roof where windshield meets it. I had only been driving for about a year and that was the first traffic incident I had been involved in .The jeep skidded to a stop, we stopped and I dont think the flat bed even knew what happened. Everyone was ok. The bridge that was backed up until CHP got there was not ok LOL.
On the freeway in the fastlane … going 65-70mph, I see a VW squareback (this was years ago) from the fast lane on the other side of the freeway concrete dividers – come flying over the dividers, over my car and crashed upside down into my lane were I was seconds ago – obviously in some kind of big accident – flew over my roof by a foot or two…. fortunately there was no car close behind me …. scared the cxxp out of me
Throttle linkage bound up wide open on my race car at 130MPH.
I made the repair and was back in line for third round eliminations.
If you keep cool in surprise situations at speed, you will usually come out OK.
That said, Ygnacio Valley Road is a whole lot scarier. than any racetrack.
It’s as if there has been an announcement, “All stupid unskilled drivers report to YVR, and make sure you are on your phone also.”
domo wins!
I have been subjected to some precarious situations during my driving career. I once lost oil pressure on HWY 24 just before entering the Caldeott tunnel. I had to get all the way over from the fast lane to the right side shoulder doing 40 and listening to all the people I cut off honk at me. I didn’t have a cell phone at the time, so had to use one of those posted phones. The guy on the other end could barely make out what I was saying.
We finally got it figured out and I got a tow.
I also once flipped a 2000 gallon water truck. The scariest part of that was having to explain it to the boss.
On a sports car rally in 1968, out in “the middle of nowhere” back when there were no speed limits. I was driving my ’67 Barracuda Formula S and this was back when there were no speed limits in Nevada. They had warned us about a section of road that was undulating (“the dipsey doos”) and not to push over about 60-70MPH. I was driving through that section at 60, then 70 and it didn’t seem too bad, so I kept picking up my speed. I went over one at around 110 and “where the he## is the road?” I was airborne, not sure how high, but the noise when I landed was awful. The car seemed to be driving fine and all of the gauges were indicating normal, so I pressed on. When I got home I found scrapes on my oil pan. I wasn’t the only one who did it; one guy (a Chrysler engineer) landed “nose down” and broke a sway bar mount and shortened his oil pan about a half inch and it was leaking. My Barracuda had 52:48 weight distribution and landed almost level, which helped prevent anything bad from happening.
Actually 2 things scary things happened to me both driving incidents. Only within a year that I had gotten my drivers license, it was evening and dark out. I was driving through the Delta valley on Vasco Road. I was by myself and it was the thickest pea soup fog I have ever seen. I drove so slow, and it took what felt like hours to get all the way through.
The other incident was a few years ago in the morning driving on Hwy 4 eastbound just before the 242 exit. There was an 18 wheeler ahead of me and one of its tires blew. A huge chunk of tire came at my windshield. It happened so quick, there hadn’t even been time to get into the shoulder. I lucked out incredibly. It just tapped the lower corner of my windshield and also put a hairline scratch in my hood w/no dent. I was incredibly lucky that it was catapulting and only bounced off my car. I hope no one behind was hit by it. My work was just a couple of miles away in Concord and I shook all the way there.
That reminds me of a similar incident. I was driving north on I-5 just this side of the Grapevine, where it intersects with US 99. A truck right in front of me drove over a truck tire tread in the road and it flew up and hit the front of my car. It was so big that it wrapped around the front of the car and took out both headlights, the grill, the hood and damaged one front fender. Fortunately, it didn’t damage the radiator, the car was still drivable and I had enough daylight to get home. If it had hit or gone through the windshield I could have been badly hurt.
Wow, glad you were okay.
I just purchased a new 1974 MG Midget that is smaller than a sports cars. I drove it home on Route 4, just outside of Manhattan. I was in the right lane when a big rig passed me on the left. Its tires were taller than my car. (Gulp) On the plus side it was easier to find a parking space on crowded city streets.
Midgets are really cool, but so low drivers don’t see you.
Plus they only weigh 1750 lbs.
More protection than a motorcycle however…….
When I was younger I was flying (65+mph) in a green Volkswagen bug on the freeway. I wasn’t paying too much attention. All of the sudden I see the whole freeway stopped, and I was probably 150 feet away from the back of the stopped cars. I down shifted, put on the brakes and the brake pedal hit the floor not doing anything for braking, immediately I grabbed the hand brake and that did do too much at all because the cables were stretched. The only thing to do was to straddle the white line going in between the cars, as God is my witness the fenders on the right and left only had 3-4 inches or so before hitting the other cars. Believe it or not I shot down the middle for about 5-7 cars before stopping. I sure thanked my lucky stars for coming out of that OK with no problems. Very Bad On Me! Yes, went home and fixed all of the issues concerning braking and since then look ahead in order to help control the situation. I still thank God on that one.
I actually saved my own life by being distracted on my phone and not going through a green turn signal. By the time I looked up, a tourbus-sized RV was flying through the red light exactly where I would have been, and it no doubt would have crippled or killed me due to the sheer MASS of this thing versus my compact car.