pwhittle

So what's your scariest car moment (Scooby or not)?

We were talking about this at work. First one that came to mind was when the bonnet of my old Granada flipped up at 80 on the 2 lane M621, completely blocking my view, shattering the windscreen, and financially writing the car off.

Most nerve-wracking time though...

I was doing a Stock Hatch race at Mallory Park in '02. Were going to a wedding down south on the Saturday, so arranged to leave the car and trailer there on the way down.

Nobody there when I arrived to say where I should put it, so followed a track down to a small car park, and left it there. Saturday night, went to collect it to move it to the paddock (in the middle of the track). Realised too late that pulling a 1 1/2 ton trailer up a gravel hill in a front drive Audi was not going to be easy.

Took a run up, floored it, and got 2/3 the way up, before the wheels span and we stopped, engine stalled. Obviously the handbrake of this ageing car was never going to hold 3 tons on a hill, so had to hold it on the foot brake whilst gunning the throttle to start the damn thing.

Then had to roll back for another run. Rolled back about a cars length, braked, and slid another car length back. Towards the queue of cars at the bottom of the hill. Asked a passer by to suggest to them they got out of the way, then crept back foot by foot, sliding frequently. Got to the bottom, gunned it, got to the same point, and started spinning. This time I decided to keep gunning it, and try spin through the gravel to get traction. Car getting very hot, nasty clutch smell. Finally some of the bikers there cottoned on, and bravely stood next to the car, getting showered in gravel, pushing us up, painfully slowly.

I can see why so many racers use vans / pickups for towing...

gyfto1

doing a bit of spirited driving in my old kit car down some country lanes,came hurtling round a corner to find a coach,yes a coach doing a three hundred point turn across the road.knew i had no chance of braking in time and god knows how i done it but managed to slide sideways around the back of the bus and carry on.taught me a lesson too lol

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

Similar to above, 60 mph round a blind corner on a narrow back road in my first car - 1987 Mini. Skip lorry stopped in the road 50 yards down the road Braked, slid onto verge, spun 180 and stopped about 5 feet in front of said lorry.

Best thing that could ever have happened, crash free in 10 years.

ScooByer Trade

I was driving around a big roundabout and was not oblivious to a big puddle and went straight through it and almost swapped ends. That was the time to test my ralling skills. Was in my scoob at the time so was great timing for some accidentel powersliding he he he.

peachy wrx

i once hit a big chicken type thing in a classic mini! yea i know not that scary but it was bloody huge,i was in a mini going way to fast.........thought i was gonna die!

oh in the same car the drivers side windscreen wiper fell off in a thunder storm......that was nearly as scary as the chicken!

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Going over a blind crest to meet a lorry doing a 20 point turn and stuck right across the road, nowhere to go, apart from jumping a grass verge through a barbed wire fence and down a 10ft embankment into a farmer's field. I clipped the lorry for good measure and missed a telegraph pole as well by about 10cms. New trousers and 7K later car was fixed.

TonyFlow

First day of owning my Impreza 1.8GL (long time ago - all i could afford/insure) - take my mates out in it and bomb up and down the A14, when one fo them asks to get a Maccy D's. Having not been to this particular sited one before, I am told there is a tight hairpin to get into it (off the A14), so ask for some warning from the passenger. I got a warning for what seemed like 0.5 seconds before the harpin (I may have been ever so slightly above the speed limit at the time), so some MAJOR breaking (in a 1.8Gl - yeah right), and some sideways action ( BIG 4 wheel drift - dunno how I did it looking back - just seemed to come natural), and I managed to get round the bend without damage/injury (although a few brown pants) - Then turns out the Maccy D's was shut for the night!

Wish I could see a replay from outside of what happened, I reckon it looked superb - but in reality, it was probably fairly crap !

ScooByer Trade

Also i was driving up the A50 parallel with Stoke footy ground ( my home team ) in the outside lane and decided to put pedel to the metal ( me being the **** here) and a bloke in a vauxhall astra estate decides to pull out and did a Bioforger almost rear ending him. I was in the scoob so you can imagine situation. Regards Nathan.

RoRu

Trying a banzai overtaking manouver on the N137 (i think) to Le man (98) in my fd3 rx 7, did'nt appreciate that the 106 coming in the other direction was doig about 90, overtook 2 lorrys and thought i had enough time to do the 3rd alas not, the lorrys were nose to tail so i could'nt squeeze back in so i did the only thing for it and moved over to the far left of the road allowing the pug to go down the middle, 2 wheels on the grass a over a ton made me think twice about any more over taking that day.
Taught me a good lesson as well.

matchmaker

Taking my Dolomite Sprint for some "spirited" driving on some Dumfriesshire back roads. I was young and foolish and was absolutely hammering the beast. I came over a crest doing well over the ton to find a t-junction a couple of hundred yards ahead. Hit the brakes - no brakes

Typical crappy DS brakes - they'd faded away to nothing

Ended up in a field.

I never knew that brake discs could glow that brightly orange

I've matured since then

vindaloo

1) trying to slow down on a humpbacked bridge after spotting a 38 tonner coming the other way (road kinked after the bridge and I wanted more time/less speed). LHS front wheel had gone light, so the brakes threw the car at the lorry! Had to let go of the brakes, recover the steering and aim for the gap.

2) Getting pulled by the Police after an enthusiastic run up from the rock club to the chippy. Mum's car - 1300 Dolomite so wasn't going that fast .... but... 30degrees **** out around the roundabout and h/b turn into the chippy, then the night turned blue and flashing lights. I have never sh*t myself so much. "What do I do", I asked my passenger, "errr... don't panic" was his reply. I think that because I wasn't pissed and probably because I looked sh*t scared they let me off. My best mate who had arrived in his own car needed two other people to help him into the chippy because he was laughing so much he couldn't manage the step.

J.

FirebirdUK

Think my scariest moment was in an MG Metro Turbo Don't laugh - I was only 17 at the time and the car was only 2 years old...

It was winter time and I was on a section of a three lane road (either direction could use the middle lane). It had been snowing, but the road seemed to be free of snow (it was dark). I overtook a lorry that was crawling along, but when I got into the middle lane I realised why the road looked so clear - the snow had been pushed into the middle lane (with the grit and dirt making it looked black).

Anyway, after overtaking, as I tried to move back to the left hand lane, I hit some black ice and went sliding across into the very right hand lane - crashing head on into a Cavalier coming the other way

I wrote off both cars and managed to close the road in both directions for a few hours

The Metro ended up being smaller than a mini - the bonnet had vanished (it was so squashed) and I couldn't open the doors (they'd buckled in).

Ended up going to hospital - I'd split my head open on the steering wheel and passing out (from the sight of the blood rather than from concussion)

Was still a scary moment though - I knew I was going to hit the car coming towards me, but there was nothing I could do. Everything seemed to go into slow motion - I remember seeing the Vauxhall Griffin badge coming towards me and then a loud bang

trails

iTrader: (41)

a couple of weeks a go; accelerating out of a 30 into a derestricted, not full throttle but close. at the bottom of the road 80yrds away i see a mondeo indicating right, i make sure i make eye contact with the driver, he turns to look left and pulls out anyway with me around 20ft away from him at ahem slightly over the national speed limit but nothing nuts...no time to hit the horn or anything so slammed on the anchors and managed to slip passed him by swerving into the road he had just pulled out of (luckily it was empty).

scared the ****e out of me, i thought i was going to kill him and yet he just carried on...lesson learnt tho; trust nobody, especially if you THINK they have seen you. Even if they have they probably haven't clocked your speed.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I'm glad that you recovered- no-one should have the Griffin badge being the last thing they see before they die!!!!

Thanks for a sharing your 'off' moment!!

All the best,

NS04

topoff

iTrader: (1)

A few years ago i was travelling up to Halstead with 3 of my mates, the 1 who was driving had been involved in an accident the month before and was going to pay the driver of the other car, anyway on the way back through Halstead we came to a roundabout but instead of braking my mate hit the gas and we went straight over the roundabout... bounce off a stone wall (about 6 foot high) surrounding a graveyard and ploughed head on into a ford escort coming the over way pushing the bonnet of the escort up to the windscreen.
Luckly it was still driveable but my mate was crapping himself after nearly writing off his mums 1 litre Polo.

cookstar

iTrader: (6)

Im assuming that all things admitted here are put down to being young and very stupid.. and are therefore forgiveable. So heres mine.

17 year old lad, been having goes of older mates cars for a while, so thought i was the Man and could drive as well as anyone else, lisence or no lisence.

Brought myself 1.3 Escort (XR3 lookalike) in preperation for passing test, of course being the tw@t i was at the time used to drive it all the time. Few friends came round and we all agreed it would be a great idea to go for a spin.

Driving down Longbridge Road in Barking (30 MPH road) single carriageway, behind a bus (87 if memory serves ) decided to blindly overtake it. Now for those that havent driven a 1.3 escort with four passengers, it aint the quickest of things.

So slam into second, swing out to overtake, and Bam bus coming the other way (didnt get the number of that one), pure panic took over and just held on for dear life, bang bang. I actually lost both wing mirrors at the same time.

Doesn't sound too dramatic but there where for teenagers in that car who thought they were hard as nails, three of us at least screamed! I thought that was the end of me and that moment still comes back to me when overtaking.

To make matters i took my test about 2 weeks after and FAILED

My story

Cookie

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

My scarest moment actually invloved my dad driving, on holiday in Crete or somewhere, driving down a thin lane with sand on either side, one side it was like a wall of sand, the other was a beach with loads of people sitting near on the road. There was a car waiting to turn onto the beach so being left hand drive it had to pass in front of us. Just as we got to it the women who had be moving at about 15mph turned.. now your talking less than the lenght of bus.. were doing 40 the cars on the other side where moving at 15 along behind her and there are holiday makes on the other side!
To make it worse we where in a Jeep! my dad flicked the wheel and the jeep kind of bounced around her, we missed her by about 3 inches and the on coming cars by about 2. It was amazing, I honestly think if the jeep hadn't gripped the road so well I'd be dead.
My dad had to pull over cause he was shaking so much, this is a man whos been driving 50 years..
His reactions save ours lives, i dont think I could have done it!!!

With me driving I guess it'd be late breaking heading towards a roundabout.. nothing special managed to stop..

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I think it had your number on it!

NS04

pmacFTO

Coming back from a big FTO meet at the Trossachs and I am being followed rather quickly on the M9 by another FTO - we then see a nice silver Evo on the inside who sees us and guns it - obviously quicker he goes up the sliproad I am going and he is in the left lane and I am in the right - still doing a fair pace I look over and wave a hello then look back to find stationary traffic coming towards me rapidly....slam brakes on and stop just behind the last car....embarrassing!! Thank god for Endless pads - standard GPX ones would have faded....

Generally I am always aware that you always have to think that the other drivers are not concentrating or aware of you so I drive pretty carefully and even tho I have a bit of power I still like to see that it's clear for miles b4 I overtake! When I do I realise I could have done it 4 times over and still had time! Better safe than sorry tho.

Gary C

Going upside down in a soft top car.

Flipped an MR2 Roadster end over end three times on the M6.

All in slow motion, still remember the feeling as it went airborne. Got out without a scratch.

Gary C

[QUOTE=matchmaker]

I never knew that brake discs could glow that brightly orange

QUOTE]



Did that in Austria in a MK1 astra SR, pads (not standard) were fine but boiled the brake fluid, managed to stop on the handbrake but the hub caps melted and fell off !

Discs were bright orange and the pads had flames.

Scoob99

iTrader: (1)

Being trapped in my works van after being hit head on by a drunk driver, not knowing if I was going to suvive
Cheers
Colin

Redkop

Aqua-planing from outside lane of M54 to hard shoulder after hitting surface water at about 70mph. Luckily I was about 100 yds clear of the car I had just overtaken in the slow lane and nothing else was in slow lane.

Rewolf

While at Uni, I did some canoeing, and got into the Canoe Polo team (which is a bit like rugby but with 6' sharp edged poles and legally moves including pushing people upside down), and we had to get to the inter-university finals. Two teams of 5 plus 10 boats to get down, and no minibus, so those with the biggest cars volunteer.

I end up in the back of ancient Ford Cortina with 4 others and 5 canoes on top going down the M1 at about 80 in the middle lane which was all it could do. When thud noise followed by fishtailing, followed by at least 2 complete 360s with the universe spinning around us - time stood still... spinning in the middle of a very busy M1.

Amazingly we ended up on a grass verge with just the rear wheels on the hard shoulder and hit nothing at all! Rear tyre had blown out, and it turns out all the tryes we remoulds because it was all the driver could afford. Woman that we had just passed in L1 stops and demands to know what we thought we were playing at, while we were going "how the hell did we walk away from this?". Police soon turn up and help us get car back onto hard shoulder (but pointing wrong way) and then escort us the wrong way until we get to slip road that they block so we can do a 3 point turn. Funny thing is I have never found that same spot again as the armco is always hard up against the hard shoulder which if we had hit that would have bounced us back into L1 and into the path of the trucks.

ClintUK

In case anyone's still reading this:

About 93 Very wet very busy M1 southbound Sunday night just north of Derby. Me in a Mini doing 70 - 80 in heavy traffic, outside lane following a VW Corrado too closely.

A big black thing came out the back of the Corrado and I had no chance to avoid it. Braced for impact and ran over it. Sounded like a huge lump of chain and front nearside tyre disintegrated.

There was a bus in the middle lane and a truck in the left lane. Me in a Mini in the wet with only 1 front tyre. Some how managed to get to the hard shoulder without being wiped out, or spinning. Felt like Nigel Mansell, but it was probably down the the other drivers giving me the space - Big thanks to them.

Turns out it was a tyre that had bown out on a lorry. 2 other cars with knackered tyres on hard should too.

I enjoyed a drink that night.

pwhittle

I found when my bonnet flipped up, I tentatively slowed as the motor way was busy, using wing mirrors and rumble strip to stay in lane, pr*cks were undertaking me - where did they think I was going to go?!! fortunately an astute lorry driver noticed and blocked the road while I got over to the hard shoulder. They can be useful sometimes!

ClintUK

OK so we've relived the scary moments what about the funny ones.

This ones a bit of both. A friend and I were towing a knackered Mini Clubman (with my Mini).

It didn't have a windscreen and I was being towed. It then started to rain and to cap it off 'my friend' didn't think when we got to a newly finished road that was still covered in loose chippings.

All I could do was duck and slam on my brakes. Bent the rear subframe in the mini doing the towing (mine) !

It was alright though, we got a large lump of wood against a wall, wedged it onto the bent part and reversed into the wall till it looked right

Mungo

I was about 19, doing 100ish on the M27 in a Pug 205.
Suddenly I saw what looked at first glance like a wardrobe fall off a vehicle in front and land about 50m in front of me - I couldn't change lanes and just hung on to the steering wheel. Shortly before impact I realised it was actually a double mattress (not terribly wardrobe-like). I was expecting a huge accident. Instead the car somehow just blasted across the top of it. I stopped at the next junction, my heart still pounding, to check the damage. All the suspension members were covered in mattress material and horsehair type stuff, but besides that, nothing wrong with car!! Underpants were definitely worse for wear...

Second incident was more recent, and in the Scoob. I was on the main road towards Fort William and had been following a 328i being driven by an old giffer at about 40. Finally a longish (600m) straight opened up so I pulled out to overtake. Anyway, as I draw level I realise that the beemer is also accelerating. I'm doing 75-80 and not making enough progress, so I keep my foot in expecting him to yield. By this time there's an oncoming car, and I don't want to brake in case the beemer does too, so I keep my foot down doing about 85-90. He doesn't yield and before there's an accident, I notice a long layby on the other side of the road, not protected by a verge, and make a dive for the layby, across the path of the oncoming car, where I can then perform an emergency stop. I caught the beemer doing 40ish again about 5 minutes later, and let him have a piece of my mind.

ClintUK

I see, you get similar drivers in BMWs in Scotland as in London
But to be fair I had a play with a Z3 and the driver was cool so they are not all bad.

P20SPD

iTrader: (1)

2 Ocassions i have ever been moderately scared whilst DRIVING a car in nearly 13 years of driving on the road.

No. 1. - 4/2/2002

Set off to overtake a slow moving queue of traffic (40mph) on a long straight road, only to get to near the vehicle behind the front car, to hint at pulling out, then not, then actually pull out to overtak the front vehicle without looking, i went onto the grass verge (whilst flat out in 4th) to avoid hitting the pick up truck, over took the truck and the lead car, then lost control as i brought it back onto the tarmac at 90mph+, it flipped and barrell rolled and land in a tree upside down.

Seeing the horizon change from top to bottom at 6.45am was an experience i have never forgotten, and never will. I nearly lost everything that day, and was extremely lucky to be alive. The top of the windscreen was touching the steering wheel!!!

Seeing my 1 year old son and my pregnant wife when i got home, brought home what i could have lost.

No. 2. - 22/5/2005

Whilst driving Mark Aigin's Lateral Performance car at the Scooby Shoot Out, and doing a demo top speed run at the end of the day. A Very strong head wind was present, and at an indicated 140mph, the front windows popped out, so i couldnt hear thing. Then at an indicated 175mph, the head wind disappeared momentarily and became a cross wind, which moved the car to the right 5 meters, and set a mild waver from the rear of the car. I kept my foot down and steered through it, and went on to do 189.7mph at 1.25miles.

With hindsight the cross wind scared me quite a bit.

Steven