smurfy

Just wanted to share a bizzare incident I witnessed last night.

I was riding home from an alley cat scramble at midnight when I got to a six lane road which I was going to turn right on. A car in the right hand lane was hugging the curb real close so I decided to take the sidewalk instead of the curb lane. The exact time I got into the sidewalk the car left the street and got on to the sidewalk with me. For around a second or two I was riding behind the car on the sidewalk when the car took out a parking meter, smashing it down like a piece of paper. This was downtown. He would've taken me out if I had got on the street instead of the sidewalk!

After that I guess the driver just "woke up" or something and realizing what he had done he bounced back onto the street, sparks flying everywhere. The car in the lefthand lane slowed down to avoid him while he sped off. It was just like that video game "Crazy Taxi"!

Anyway I thought that was the last I would see of that car but at the next traffic light it was stopped at the intersection with the engine and lights off. The dude was still in the car and I was thinking of getting his license plate # but I was afraid he would see me do that and come after me with a weapon so I didn't want to take a chance. He must have been drinking but I was like screw it, the police station was only a block away so a cop or a park ranger would probably see and bust him, anyway. Admittedly I had a couple of beers myself so I really didn't feel like talking to a cop at that time! Fortunately nobody got hurt.

Anybody else here seen any bizzare driving antics while biking or whatever (not neccessarily directed at you)?

CommuterRun

Nothing like that, but I ride two lane, NOL, urban roads with grassy/sandy shoulders. Some months ago I heard a car behind me accelerate, then leave the road. <What's this guy doing???>
A pack of hootin', howlin' teens in a beater blow past me, way out on the right side of the shoulder next to the woods, then power slide the next right onto one of these sugar sand roads.

I laughed out loud. It was hilarious.

jyossarian

Not really bizarre, but:

1. Driving home late one night on Ocean Ave. in Bklyn., I saw a Chevy Beretta doing 180's on an empty stretch of Ocean Ave.

2. Driving to work on the Pulaski skyway in NJ, I swerved to avoid two cars that were crashing, one in the left lane and one in the right. Kinda like a video game or a movie where you have to dodge the cars as they wreck.

3. Driving to work on a snow covered I81 in NJ, I saw a black full sized pickup pass me on the left and about 200 ft. ahead of me all of a sudden turn 90 degrees to the right, cross 3 lanes of traffic and drive right into a ditch, ending up facing traffic.

4. Driving on I95S in Georgia on my way to spring break, I saw my friends in another car shoot past at 85 mph. One of them stuck his head out the window and the wind made his glasses fly off his face. Amazingly enough, they pulled over and eventually found the frames minus one lens.

5. Driving in Park Slope, Bklyn., I saw a woman from MD get "stuck" between a parked car and a double parked semi truck. She had enough room to make it, but apparently she didn't think so. I was behind her and she was holding up traffic waiting for the truck to move, but the truck wasn't going to move any time soon so I drove on the sidewalk via a driveway, past the parked car and the stuck woman and back on to the street in the gap between the parked car and a hydrant. The cars behind me started doing the same thing while the "stuck" woman just sat there watching cars bigger than hers squeeze between the truck and the line of parked cars.

SirMike1983 

Man I'm getting that sort of thing too. I was walking home on the sidewalk (which is a good 3-4 ft from the street). There was a traffic jam just off Westmoreland Circle because of tree work. Suddenly I heard something behind me- a full motor scooter had hopped over the curb and come onto the sidewalk and went tearing up past me. He yells "on your left" and blows by me (almost clipping me). Anyway I get pissed and go to check his plate. It was a paper print-out that says "2FastForYou". What the hell!

Guest

That's the kind of crap you GOTTA report to the police. By taking a "it's not my problem" approach, you could make things bad for an unsuspecting cyclist who may chance upon this fool. And that guy may not get as lucky as you. Next time, please... call 911 at the very least and report it.

Koffee

genec

Once saw a high speed chase on RR tracks... car flying down the tracks all over the place with a cop behind with full lights and siren blaring away. I was just about to cross the tracks when the noise caught my attention... coming from an odd location... down the tracks instead of the street.


Yup, just like the movies.

DCCommuter

About a month ago I was on my way home when I got caught in a mini traffic jam of about a half dozen cars, caused by someone having trouble parallel parking. A garbage truck comes up behind me, and without really slowing down pulls onto the grass median strip and drives around me and all the cars and back onto the road and continues going.

There are a lot of drivers doing crazy stuff on the roads. Yet a cyclist blows a stop sign and people get all indignant...

古強者死神

I have seen 5 car wrecks in the last week. One a day its been bad around here.

Tom Stormcrowe

At least he hollered "On your left!"

smurfy

Yeah, you're right, Koffee. I should have reported that to the police.

I'm going to get into the habit of carrying a pen and small notebook with me because I'm sure I'm going to witness another incident like this someday soon!

sgtsmile

My favourite happened when I was teaching a mennonite girl how to turn left at an intersection. This turn had a left turn lane and two straight through ones in each direction. We were waiting to turn left, on the green, and were correctly placed in the intersection awaiting our turn to go. The light went amber, so we started to creep forward. JUST as our gap appeared, the impatient senior citizen behind us swung out to the left and PASSED us making his turn left as we started our turn (I stopped the car to avoid a crash). We then proceeded to make our turn on the red. That was a big mistake on his part: I got the name, model, and plate from his car as well as a physical description. The police were very cooperative, and called me back to tell me that they rattled his cage pretty good.

Actually, here is the best one. With a student, I was approaching Waterloo from Elmira on highway 86 (If you know the area, this helps). Right before St Jacobs is a traffic light. The road is 80 kmph, and we were doing around that (with flow of traffic anyways...). Anyhow, this impatient girl was tailgating us. I was talking to my student about how to handle it and what to do and how to be aware of possible escape routes etc when she suddenly swung out to pass. The only issue I had with that was the on coming truck. Sooooo, I told my student to stay on the gas, relax, and then I took the wheel and moved us at 85ish kmph onto the gravel shoulder. Impatient one behind us moved into where we were, and the truck, oblivious, blew through in his lane. The girl behind us (now beside) backed off, I pulled the car back on to the pavement and said: oh come on, laugh, dont you always laugh when you almost die? The poor kid lost it. and the moron behind us blew past 3 seconds later.......


Did I mention that if you teach driving you should ride a MINIMUM of 25 hours a week to remain sane? when I had that job, I did....

Bockman

I have one (two, really). Resurrected from an old thread:

Freshman year I'm out tooling around on my bicycle the first week school's in (Richmond VA). I'm just leaving the Fan District on my way out of town when this tiny beater Honda hatchback comes FLYING through a red light right ahead of me and f-ing obliterates- T-bones this much larger car. the lil civic does about 2 flat spins through the air and comes to rest on the sidewalk not 10 feet from me. In the crash the hatch came flying off, crap and papers and beer cans (LOTS of empties) exploded everywhere-- it was insane. So this asshat in the civic starts up the car while looking at me through the glass-- his face is bloody, he's obviously drunk off his ass, he's just looking at me with this glassy zombie panic look...and drives off the curb and speeds out of there-- of course the hatch with his freaking license plate is laying right there for the cops to see... anyway, ambulance was there in a flash, I couldn't do much for anyone so I take off on my ride.... outside of town I come to a bridge and there's an Henrico County cop sitting by the side of the road. So I tell him about what I saw, he starts laughing and says the guy lives right across the bridge, they're set up waiting for him to come home. Ok, so, one less moron on the street I figure.

Skip ahead four years-- senior year Halloween night I'm leaving night class at about 10:00 when a roaring noise makes me and my friends jump back onto the curb. SAME ****ING HONDA CIVIC, hatch tied on with ****ing bailing wire, same goddamn drunken ******* comes flying at least 50-60 down this little campus street, totally blows the turn, rides up and is high centered on a fire hydrant-- I thought I'd finally see the 'ol movie geyser-from-the-hydrant shot, but those hydrants are actually really tough-- just bent it about 60 degrees. We run up to the car, the guy's face hit the windshield and he was a godawful mess-- STILL TRYING TO START THE CAR, same moron as before, begging us drunkenly to help him get the car off the hydrant-- I quickly took his keys and he ran offf, only to be tackled by campus cops just down the street.

vobra

great thread i am nearly in tears.
bockman, highschool or college? if i missed it i am sorry. how old was the civic guy? i still cannot believe he still got to keep his license! or maybe he just got it back that night...

Bockman

That was undergrad at VCU. I would guesstimate he was in his mid to late 20's.

peggster

Great stories! (if not totally frightening...) Just this morning as I drove into work, I stopped at a stop sign... and promptly got passed by the car behind me. She didn't even slow down, just barreled through the intersection. I couldn't help laughing, though, when I pulled up behind her at a stoplight about 2-3 miles down the road. I kept thinking, if she's in that big of a hurry, I'd better just stay out of the way.

smurfy

Wow, Bockman, that was a wild one!

And speaking of two flat spins, I saw a car do exactly that except the car was a big Chevy Caprice!

About 20+ years ago I was waiting on the corner for the bus when the car got T-boned at the intersection and was flying through the air and landed on a log on the side of the road right in front of me. I covered my head and eyes thinking it might either explode like in the movies or parts might go flying off of it. Niether happened.

After I got a hold of my senses and over the shock I went over to the car to see of he was alright. He was an older man and was okay. By this time the bus came and I didn't know what happened after that.

古強者死神

There I fixed the quote for you, looks like you had a miss-type.

77Univega

--- We just had a Criterium in Arcata and a motorist drove through the barricades, onto part of the designated raceway, and back out again.