Automobiles : Good,Bad & the Ugly.

[elginCity]

I've only ever totalled the car with a seat belt on, luckily for me. My seatbeltless old man had a head on with a lorry down on a blind bend in a wet Cornwall in the late 60s - touch and go for him for a bit, as he went through the windscreen and his nose was actually touching the lorry's radiator when they pulled him out of the wreckage.

Incredibly a load of windscreen shards were left under the skin at the top of his forehead - remained there for the rest of his life. One of his party tricks was to rub the glass together under his skin and it would crunch loudly !

 

[Snakebite]

The only decent one was arguing with a gatepost and then ending upside down in a rally car. Checked each other were ok then realised the next car was 1minute behind us...
Released the seatbelts, ended in a heap in the roof, crawled out the window and ran up the road to slow the next car down.
Great fun.

Other minor shunts include getting T-boned at the King Billy/Debenhams junction and rear ending a car on Topsham road with my 85 year old gran sat next to me.

 

[LOG]

I reversed into a lamp post on my first driving test. Needless to say, i didn't pass.

 

[Alistair20000]

As the Swindon Plant tooled up to start Montego production it was known throughout BL as the "Cortina Basher" which unfortunately it never was.

While employed at Swindon, they'd send two cars at a time to view production at Cowley, Solihull and Longbridge. During the Solihull visit I got to drive the "Disco" before it was put on sale at the plant's quasi-military test track. However, the car that we employees fancied (of certain age) was the Rover Tomcat, especially the 220 Coupe Turbo. I love it still

B 49 TOD was a brand new 1984 Montego that I had the misfortune to drive as a company car. It was so bad its number plate is etched in my memory.

Driver's sun vizor dropped out of its holder going up Haldon Hill, which was scary. Driver's door handle came off in my hand and the clutch burned out. Matey from the dealer in Plymouth asked if I had been driving with my foot on the clutch. No I had not you To55er: the car is just a junk box. One of my work colleagues also had one of these crapheaps. He ended up with a fire under the bonnet due to some fault in the fuel system with petrol dripping onto the hot engine which was apparently quite common.l

 

[Alistair20000]

Anyone been in any memorable ‘bangs’
They would be especially memorable if they were pre 1983 & the mandatory wearing of seatbelts,survival without major injuries was a bonus.

I remember as a child(around 1970) being the front seat passenger when my parents car(VW Beetle)was hit at speed by Mini on the front drivers side,spinning the car 360*
I ended up upside down in the foot well,very lucky that me my mum did not sustain injuries.

A few years later(1981) I was driving a Vauxhall Viva van,I lost control on a wet corner & headed straight for a wall,I managed to brace myself for the impact & only tapped the windscreen with my head rather than going straight through it.

Very lucky on both occasions.

Two lucky escapes here too.

October 1972 tyre blow out or lost control (not sure which, road was a bit greasy) in my Viva SL90 as I was taking a corner and ended up with the car on its roof in the middle of the road. Climbed out of broken drivers window with nothing worse than a broken collar bone, cuts and bruises. Cannot recall if I was wearing a seat belt or not. The Viva was a write off as was the Triumph Stag that came round the corner after me and matey had to drive it into the hedge to avoid hitting the stricken Viva. He was definitely going too fast. An upper class officer from Lulworth army camp. Lots of posh effing and blinding from him.

November 1973. Head on smash in my Ford Anglia 105E. A group of drunken youngsters were in a car that came round a blind bend on the wrong side of the road. Anglebox a write off but my girlfriend and I escaped with bruises. We did manage to claim some cash off the other driver's insurance for the injuries though. Should probably have let an ambulance chasing lawyer loose. Annoyingly Plod refused to breathalyse the other driver as he was injured, or pretended to be. The bend was remodelled later after a similar accident occurred where one of the drivers was killed.

Both accidents within 5 miles of home.

 

[Alistair20000]

I reversed into a lamp post on my first driving test. Needless to say, i didn't pass.

Driving test experiences shirley worth a thread of its own.

 

[Greyhound]

Two lucky escapes here too.

October 1972 tyre blow out or lost control (not sure which, road was a bit greasy) in my Viva SL90 as I was taking a corner and ended up with the car on its roof in the middle of the road. Climbed out of broken drivers window with nothing worse than a broken collar bone, cuts and bruises. Cannot recall if I was wearing a seat belt or not. The Viva was a write off as was the Triumph Stag that came round the corner after me and matey had to drive it into the hedge to avoid hitting the stricken Viva. He was definitely going too fast. An upper class officer from Lulworth army camp. Lots of posh effing and blinding from him.

November 1973. Head on smash in my Ford Anglia 105E. A group of drunken youngsters were in a car that came round a blind bend on the wrong side of the road. Anglebox a write off but my girlfriend and I escaped with bruises. We did manage to claim some cash off the other driver's insurance for the injuries though. Should probably have let an ambulance chasing lawyer loose. Annoyingly Plod refused to breathalyse the other driver as he was injured, or pretended to be. The bend was remodelled later after a similar accident occurred where one of the drivers was killed.

A couple of similar incidents here.

Summer 1986. Hampshire. Tyre blowout in road works on the M27 near Southampton. Managed to get off the carriageway safely, and a couple of motorway workers kindly changed the wheel in exchange for a contribution to the beer kitty. I was going on holiday at the time, so had to empty a loaded boot to get at the spare wheel.

Summer 1983. Shropshire. Another lunatic on the wrong side of the road at a blind bend. I was able to avoid disaster by lurching to the left like a Corbyn-led Labour Party. This meant a closer acquaintance with a grass verge and a hedge than I would have liked, but no damage was done.

Most of my motoring escapades happen during holidays.

 

[Oldsmobile-88]

Anyone else had that horrible feeling you get when you see the flashing blue lights in the rear view mirror & are pulled over ?

Happened to me a few times...On the A30 from Okehampton a couple of times & on another occasion it was the local copper from Dawlish Warren who stopped me speeding though Starcross & just gave me a bollokcing He told my parents(I was 18) & I got more earache from them..

 

[Anonymous]

Used to work for royal mail and parcelforce when I was kid amongst other random driving jobs. Got a few stories from those jobs.

I once reversed a van into a low height popple stone wall. Half destroyed the persons entire front garden out near Ottery. Didn't really get in trouble for that one at all surprisingly. Folks were pretty chill and just rebuilt it.

The worst thing I did was get stuck trying to do a 15 point turn in a cul de sac in front of VW car showroom. The garage used the street as an extension of their forecourt which was the reason i had to attempt such a ridiculous maneuver in the first place. The hub caps on those long wheel base delivery vans actually stick out a good 3 inches. Managed to scrape all the way along a brand new golf with the metal hub cap shredding up the body work in a line. The garage owner sprinted out of his office and gave me hell for it. Dunno how much parcelforce had to pay for that one.

Not an accident but I once was bursting for a slash and running late so pulled up at traffic lights on Sandygate roundabout, jumped in the back and emptied my bladder into my empty water bottle. Jumped back in the front seat just in time for the lights changing. Would have been the perfect crime, only as I was pulling away i remembered that I hadn't put the cap back on the bottle. The grim sound of the bottle toppling over as i accelerated made me pause mid-celebration at my hasty peeing prowess. Spent the rest of the afternoon delivering urine sodden parcels around East Devon...

Also me and my sister crashed two 10 ton dumper trucks into each other while racing them round a field. My sisters ended up on its side, we thought it was funny at the time but in retrospect was incredibly dangerous.

 

[fred binneys head]

I’ve been quite lucky really. Had a blow out going 80mph in the fast lane of the M6 when I was running late for an away game at Rochdale. Could have been worse though, I only missed the first 5 minutes (we drew 2-2).