What's the wierdest/funniest accident you've been in or seen?

[DELETE-PLEASE]

Reading the topic of a shingle hitting a motorcyclist, I figured I'd start this. Might be kinda fun.

For me, I was driving down the highway one foggy day and was hit by an iron table.

It was myself and my ex-girlfriend driving back from the Jersey shore on a very VERY foggy morning in a 92 jeep Cherokee sport. The kind you could barely see about 50 feet in front of you so we were in the slow lane, doing about 30 mph with our lights and blinkers on trying to make out highway exit signs BEFORE the exit came up on us and surprised us.

A truck passed us on the left going around us about 15 or 20 mph faster with a whole bunch of stuff tied onto it (I guess someone was moving and trying to get everything in one load in the back of a heavy duty pickup). A little further down the road a large, bouncing iron table emerges out of the fog coming for us. Bounced in front of us, hit the hood, bounced off the hood to bounce on the roof of the jeep Cherokee, and finally wobbles a little behind us and rolls and falls in the shoulder. Stopped the car in the shoulder and walked back to see WTF just hit my jeep. Yup. An iron, circular table. The kind you might have in a backyard and then lay glass on top of it.

Turns out our exit was the next exit and I opted to just let it go instead of speed up to try to catch up to a truck that had stuff falling off of it in drizzle and fog. The dents were minor enough that I didn't even report it to the insurance. Just got some cheap coverup paint and let the dents stay.

Alexi

 

[Silver Penguin]

Maybe we should entitle this thread 'Near misses', since there are some who may not see any humor at all when a motorcycle accident is involved.

Almost attacked by a flying BBQ.

Two bikes on a deliciously twisty road with no hope of passing a pick up truck, driving ten below the speed limit. Very frustrating!! Fortunately, DH being a smart rider stayed well back, and I stayed well behind him. On a mild sweeper, all of a sudden there was a huge cloud of dust that pretty much obscured our vision completely. The unsecured BBQ had flipped out of the truck bed and rolled along the soft dirt shoulder. The dirt and the ashes made a spectacular cloud, that we were thankfully able to ride through safely, since we were going so slowly.

Truck pulled over. We were now through the dust and enjoyed the rest of the road at a speed suitable for an FJR.

 

[Toecutter]

Just saw this comment in a stereo review:

It's an awesome deal! You get an ipod and a video player all in one when you get to do long drives and watch movies for hours.

:blink:

Why not DRIVE when you do long drives? I don't think that's gonna make for any interesting/funny accidents....

 

[Silver Penguin]

Just saw this comment in a stereo review:

It's an awesome deal! You get an ipod and a video player all in one when you get to do long drives and watch movies for hours.

:blink:

Why not DRIVE when you do long drives? I don't think that's gonna make for any interesting/funny accidents....

One of met pet peeves there TC, where manufacturers support the culture of driving without paying attention. Sad, sad advertisement a while back for a muscle car. They showed someone having a bad day, getting upset and angry then jumping into their powerful monster to make himself feel better. NOT!!!

 

[HotRodZilla]

One time when I was still in our traffic division, I was on duty driving on the freeway in the left lane. There was a white car in front of me and both that car and I were approaching a semi that was driving in the right lane. The truck was carrying a load of 1000lb rectangular hay bales (usually referred to as 1-ton bales but they are not 1-ton)

About the time the white car got to the semi, I saw a strap on the trailer break. In slow motion, a bale of hay from the top of the double stack fell off the trailer and onto the white car next to it. The next thing I saw was a panick of brakes, flying hay, swerving semi and a dust cloud when the car quickly exited into the dirt median. I nearly soiled my pants trying to avoid all the flying stuff.

I was amazed that no one was killed and even more amazed at the small amount of damage actually done to the car. I would have thought that bale would have crushed that little thing, but the twine ties holding the bale together came apart widening the bale's weight distribution.

After it was done, the guys I work with laughed because I had begun to call out a traffic stop with the truck. I had intended to pull him over and tell him about the strap before that bale came loose. So, the middle of my radio transmission was peppered with "Holy ****" and some other choice words. I did not even know I had said them. It was funny after it happened.

 

[Toecutter]

Since a new Distracted Driving Summit is in the news of the day, I am reminded of one of the most remarkable incidents like that I've seen. I've mentioned it before, but not recently.

A woman driver in a Camaro ran a red light at an intersection, collided with a man driving a Vette, then hit and knocked down the traffic signal in the median, which came to rest across the hood of her car. The scene looked like major carnage, but no serious injuries.

According to witnesses, the woman exited her car, obviously shaken and disoriented, but still holding a mascara wand up in the "ready" position....

Maybe they should take the mirrors out of womenfolk's (and metro guys') cars....

 

[Patriot]

tripped in WalMart, fell into the shelf in the tools dept, and a bench vise fell off an upper shelf and hit the floor less than 12" to the side of my right foot. Yikes. My prayer life improved the rest of the day.

Wifey almost was a rich woman.

She comments these days that the vise would have been damaged and we would have had to pay for it !!!

let's ride safe and be careful out there,

Mike in Nawlins'

 

[BikerGeek99]

When we were driving through Atlanta last year, we were in heavy traffic.

We came upon a mini-van.

It had a cage strapped to the roof.

The cage had 2 turkeys in it.

2 live turkeys.

I almost wrecked 'cause I was laughing my *** off. That was the funniest damn thing I've ever seen.

Well, second-funniest.

JWilly telling the green nut-hugger story has to be the funniest.

That's all I got here.

 

[happyPuppy]

I was a kid at SF State and had a VW beetle. I set the brake and forgot ( late & lazy) to curb the wheels. I locked the door , and saw my car rolling down the hill backwards. It hit a building and caused no damage other than a dented bumper. A roommate had persuaded me never to leave a manual in gear on a hill as it would wear the gears out by pulling them backwards. I hate to admit what an ***** I was...

 

[Patriot]

I was a kid at SF State and had a VW beetle. I set the brake and forgot ( late & lazy) to curb the wheels. I locked the door , and saw my car rolling down the hill backwards. It hit a building and caused no damage other than a dented bumper. A roommate had persuaded me never to leave a manual in gear on a hill as it would wear the gears out by pulling them backwards. I hate to admit what an ***** I was...

geez, my car to goto (Tulane) college here in the city was a '64 VW bug.

I had a funky old battery, but no $$$ to replace it till holiday job. I would park at school near an older car with hood latch on the outside so I could get out my long jumper cables and borrow a jump to start the thing if battery wasn't up to it.

Well, it had a flexible rubber sunroof. My bud and I learned to drive it together. I would sit on the top of the back of the seat sticking out the sunroof. Art would sit on the edge of the passenger seat and put his feet on the pedals and do the gas, brake, and clutch. Got lotsa stares.

The big one was reading about folks who modified/customized the bug. Well, there were, I don't know, 60 bolts that attached the body to the chassis. It was possible with a little work to pick up the body, spin it 180 degrees, and bolt it back. I could drive by carefully peering out the back window and everyone thought it was going 40mph down the city street in reverse. Then hang a perfectly executed turn and go some more. I thought it was pretty cool, but feared a lawman seeing me and pulling me over...can't imagine what he'd say. Switched it one weekend, then next weekend put it back to normal. I was too scared to take it on the interstate, but smile about the possibility.

Gotta go find those pics.

Also, I drove my Mom's '67 cougar with standard on the floor 3 speed like a speed demon. There was a good "bump" like a small ramp in or neighborhood. Buddy and me wondered what it would be like to hit it at speed. Didn't know my Mom had her craft paints and ceramic creations in the trunk. I won't say more except all four wheels did get airborne. She wouldn't let me drive it for quite awhile after that.

My brother had a '72 Chevelle SS. Nice car and pretty fast. He sometimes let me drive it. I was used to standards and his was an auto. Early on, I was traveling on a newby, newly surfaced 4 lane. No traffic that day, so I decided to see what it would do. Well, it would roar and then chirp the tires as the auto trans shifted into second. Well, I thought that was cool. I came to a stop and then dropped the shift handle to 1. Hit the gas, spun the tires, and roared on. Revs were high and I shifted to 2. Car was roaring down the street and I purposely throught through about deciding when to shift. As my mind told my hand to shift into D, my left foot said to itself to jam in the clutch at the same time. Well, all of a sudden the car with me in it was slowly spinning down the street with a loud screeching sound. I looked around, saw what was happening, and made a conscious analysis of what was going on. I then realized there was high pressure on my left foot and in my brothers car, there was no clutch. Geez. I actually waited until the car came around and was pointing the right way and pulled my foot off the BRAKE. Locked right back in and was traveling down the street again. Let out a big breath and breathed again. Said a prayer of thanx that there was no traffic around..

 

[Kasey]

Well this was certainly the weirdest I've ever experienced...

Back in '05 while riding Alberta Kananaskis Hwy 40 a vehicle ahead kicked up 'something' that I saw flying through the air towards my head. I ducked and hearing a series of impact sounds I steered toward the shoulder.

Once I got the bike stopped and on the side stand in order to assess any damage - oil poured from the filter and covered the roadside. The object had struck and dented the left fork, punched a hole in the edge of the v-piece and fairing section, then came around my foot and punched a hole smack in the middle of the oil filter...in just a few seconds.. In addition to the most obvious damage the rear tire was coated in oil.

There was very light traffic and no cell service in the area but a car eventually stopped and offered to go ahead to the Ranger Station and call a tow truck. As I waited two other vehicles stopped to see if I needed any assistance and both remarked they had seen a large grizzly bear cross the road at this very spot earlier in the day. Needless to say it was a long and anxious wait for the tow truck!!

I did walk back down the road until I found the object - a piece of rebar about 18" long.

Kasey

 

[Barabus]

Dropped my beloved FJR while Jdog was filming a bunch of us parked on a picturesque Angles Crest ride. Forgot to redeploy my kickstand- duh.

 

[Wingman]

About a month ago I was driving along on I64 in Illinois going pretty close to the 55 mph truck speed limit when I notice a red car in my right mirror coming up pretty fast. There are about 3 other vehicles in the left lane behind me, closest one maybe 75-100 feet behind my trailer that are just barely going faster than me. At first I thought the red car was going to pass me on the right, but at the last possible minute he jams on the brakes and dove between the cars in the left lane and my trailer bumper. When he reappeared in my left mirror the rear of the car was beginning to fishtail, and was really beginning to get my attention. I let off the throttle and began to apply the brakes. I was down to about 25 mph or so when the rear end of the red car finally broke loose and all hell broke loose. The rear end swung to the right into my lane about 10-15 feet in front of me and presented a great view of the driver to me. Teenage male with the cell phone still in his left hand, with three passengers in the vehicle.

I think it was about this time that I let a few more expletives loose and added some more brake pressure in an effort to stop all 80,000 pounds before squashing a car full of children. As the smoke began rolling off the car tires and soon thereafter off my trailer tires, the car spun completely around and exited the pavement to the right about the same time I came to a complete stop. The car exited the freeway at about 20-30 mph and skidded sideways about 40-50 feet down a fairly steep grassy shoulder. I began making my way to the right shoulder to park and see if anyone was hurt, but the car never actually came to a complete stop. The ***** hit the gas and brought the car back onto the freeway and took off up the hill and out of sight. I'm pretty sure he had removed the cellphone from his ear by this point, but with all the smoke and flying grass and dirt I could have been mistaken.

After collecting my thoughts for a couple of seconds, I started working my way through the gears and back up to speed thinking the excitement was over for the moment. I did get a good laugh about 2 miles down the road when I passed the same car on the right shoulder with both tires on the right side flat and one of the passengers throwing up out the window.

David

 

[v65]

At a gas station paying the attendant, the lady in front of me is furious because the stuff in the window wash bucket is blue. The stuff is on her paint and she is having a tirade about how it's going to ruin the paint. The somewhat awestruck manager gives in and gives her a free car wash. She sure that her stupendously large truck, a generic full size chevy just like every other one on the road, wouldn't fit in their tiny car wash. The manager finally prevailed, lawsuits where avoided, and she accepted the free car wash.

I had the good fortune to follow her in. It was a bit of chore getting that monstrous vehicle in the confines of the car wash bay. This is one of the automatic bays that has some line up ramps in it - a couple of pipes your tires go between. The truck drove over them top of the line up ramps quite easily, if a bit awkwardly. The rear end of the truck accidently lined up quite nicely, so there was a nit of body roll that could be noticed. So she pulled forward to get it unjammed, and right out of the car wash. In retrospect the polite thing to do would have been to pull my truck out of the way and let her take another stab at it. I didn't. So the truck backed in, and needless to say it didn't go well. Fortunately the line up ramps were well constructed. Perseverance paid off and several attempts later the truck got washed.

The manager got to watch the tail end of the incident. He said something about unbelievable. I told him, "Buddy you haven't heard it all yet. When she pulled out of the wash and back in she used my wash." It was hard to say through the tears. He looked at me funny, chuckled, and punched me in for the full monty wash.

 

[Patriot]

Bust Had One Recently...

 

[zip]

Summer, 1985, California's Sierra Mountains

Between college, I'm working as a whitewater rafting guide. A guide buddy and I decided to head to Yosemite to do some rock climbing. We take his gnarly, kitted-out Baha Bug. (I know all of you on The Forum are old enough to remember those... Big ol' tires in the back, skinny ones in the front, cropped trunk, exposed engine, roll cage, top lights on the top rack, Blaupunkt stereo, ridiculous rough ride, all that.) We're going to climb for a couple of days, then get back to the river to work the weekend.

We're over the crest, into the park, heading down into the valley on windy, alpine roads. Probably doing 40 or 50mph the whole way.

Suddenly, we feel this super nasty shimmy - abrubt, a bit violent - and then it stops.

Kevin, driving, now white-knuckled and panicky, looks over at me, "What the hell was that?"

I look back in his direction, still a bit stunned myself, noticing something in the left lane beyond him. "Not sure, dude (obligatory buddy salutation in those days),.... but I think that's your rear wheel passing us right now", pointing out the rogue racing tire speeding past his left.

(No wheel on the vehicle or any like it had probably ever been better balanced, or rolled truer than at that moment.)

The car continued to roll pretty well on three wheels in the slight left hand bend, as we watched the former left rear wheel pick up speed, merge back into our lane, then Evil Knievel the National Park's road shoulder. It gained about 30' in elevation before flying and bouncing about 200 yards down the 60 degree, forested slope.

Kevin tried to slow the vehicle as we continued down the highway, but as the road curved back to the right, the left rear of the car dropped with a sickening thud and a rooster tail of sparks out the back of Herbie on steroids.

He finally got it stopped, and after a momentary silence, followed by a rhetorical chorus of "Holllllllllly ****, did you seeeeee thatttt????", we had a good laugh about it.

Lost the weekend's work on the rafting trip, but knocked off some nice climbing routes while we waited for a rear axle to be delivered to the Yosemite Valley Chevron.

 

[Scoops]

How to be stupid at EOM 09

if you frequent another forum . . . you've already seen this!

 

[Tenchi]

Ok, I'm gonna have to buck the "no major injuries" thing for mine, it was pretty damn funny to everyone watching.

I was booking it on my bicycle, probably doing around 25-30 mph down a hill. About half way down the hill there's an intersection, and the light's normally green. It's cold... real cold... like... black ice territory. Well, the light changes to amber, I brake and instantly go down. People at either side of the intersection see this cyclist slide through the intersection from one side to the other, get launched into the air by one of those wheelchair ramps they have on either side of the pedestrian crossing and go flying into someone's garden. It was practically a "Australia's funniest home videos" moment. The landing was thankfully soft.

Now, the downside was I'd gotten my foot caught in the triangle of the bicycle, so I ended up on crutches for a week and didn't walk properly for 3-4 months after tearing ligaments. But, you can imagine sitting at the light, waiting for it to change and all of a sudden seeing some guy slide through the intersection, bicycle in tow, then get launched over the curb and disappear over some guy's hedge.

 

[Fred W]

Dropped my beloved FJR while Jdog was filming a bunch of us parked on a picturesque Angles Crest ride. Forgot to redeploy my kickstand- duh.

+1 BTDT Got the icon. :blink:

In my case it was in front of cota95 and ionbeam, but they weren't filming. And being regular guys they actually helped me pick it back up. :thumbsupsmileyanim:

The most surreal "near miss" for me was in early December back ~10 years. My father had just suffered a serious stroke and was in the hospital, dying, up in Portland, ME. So I was traveling up and down the Maine Turnpike everyday for a couple of weeks to see him.

One day during the drive north it started to snow lightly. The temps were just right to cause the wet melty snow to freeze into black ice when run over by car tires. I was plodding along in the center lane (of 3) at a reasonable, controlled speed when a 4x4 ripped past me in the left lane. When it was about a hundred feet in front of me it began to spin out, and swerved right toward the center lane where there was another car. It crunched into that car, who promptly pulled his wheel right and lost steerage. A car to my right tried to brake and began to execute a 360 off into the ditch, exit stage right. The original 4x4 miscreant continued to pirouette and eventually slammed onto the guard rail left. And finally the car that had been in the center lane in front of me followed the hard braker off-road to the right.

So while all three of these cars were spinning, whacking into each other like at a demolition derby, shedding parts, flying off road and whacking guardrails no more than 100 feet in front of me I was gingerly applying my ABS brakes and looking for a hole like a halfback following his pulling guard. I think my unnatural calmness was as a result of the heavy emotional stress I had been in for several days previously. Also that I was driving my company car. IOW I really didn't give a **** if I hit one of these chuckle-heads, so it was all somewhat amusing to watch unfold. It was one of those situations where everything was moving in slow motion and you had plenty of time to comprehend, decide and then react. Weird...

Oh, I slipped through the line with nary a tackle. And since there were plenty of people around to lend aid, I continued on to the end zone. I probably didn't increase my karma quotient at all that day by not stopping, but it was some trying times for me.