Scary moments you've had in a vehicle.?

Gday
I am absolutely petrified when my wife drives ,,

washed off a causeway in a short wheel base cruiser.

Sliding backwards down a dewey, hill in Sth Gippsland, at midnight.

We were out fox shooting in a Subaru Brumby.
Two in the back, one with a shotgun, and the other with a .222, and were heading towards a good fox patch, when 2 foxes run up this very steep hill. So mate driving, who is son of owner, decides that with 2 people in the back, he can get up hill. So the chase began.

What he did not see was wet dewey grass on the top of the hill, and the little Brumby broke traction, and started to slide backwards, and then spun around and around as it decended backwards, to the flat at the bottom of the hill.

Total distance 800-100mts

Cannot understand why we never let him drive again
Any other vehicle would have rolled, but the little Brumby just slid.
Cheers
Bucky

Two trees.

Driving Melbourne to Sydney in the kingswood; three kids, my wife and I in the car; middle of the day; on the narrow, single lane, with typical rough edges, old Hume Highway, somewhere not too far south of Yass. Coming downhill around a long somewhat hidden curve to the right around a largish hill where you couldn't see much "around" the corner. Truck coming the other way was, for some reason, half on our side of the road. No other way than to put the left hand side into the dirt. We started to slide out so I touched the accelerator to get control and ended up going around the rest of the bend with two rear wheels spinning up the dirt and two front wheels on the bitumen.

Stopped at the bottom for a breather and to calm the kids down. They thought it was fun!! Ahhhh, the innocence of youth.

The amazing thing was how long everything took to happen. It was as if the world went into slow motion.

All those days mucking around in the old beaten up farm ute, sliding and learning how to control a slide really paid off. Pity advanced driver training isn't obligatory.

Phil

This only happened a couple of weeks ago,
I was heading in to Wandong to do some shopping & was approaching a sweeping right handed corner which was also at the top of a hill, when suddenly I noticed a motorcyclist barrelling around the corner on my side of the road (he was obviously going so fast that his momentum had carried him onto the wrong side of the road), my natural instinct was to swerve to the right hoping that he would stay on my left hand side, which he did and passed me with only inches to spare. Had he tried to correct and get back onto his side of the road we would have had a head-on collision.

Cheers, John.

Driving along at night and a 4" spider (a massive Huntsman as it turned out) dropped into my lap from the sun visor. Very invigorating :-)

I did this while travelling to work towards Rosebery,Tasmania,about 2am,damp road pitch dark,freezing cold, on a 100cc motor cycle,low on fuel.I decided to coast down hill, turned of the ignition, bleep e the head lights went out as well,was travelling about 50klms,I can tell you it was a couple of scary seconds till I turned the ignition back on.

Hi Axle,
My first car was 71 XY 250 auto Fairmont station wagon.
It was about 1984, traveling from Ballina back to The Bay late one night after being at the Shores Bay Hotel, just near the Byron/Ballina Shire boarder there use to be a very sharp 90 degree bend.
As I approached it a car had just came around it so I dipped my high beam, the car past by and I hit the high beam floor button as I came into the bend doing about 50mph and the lights went out.
Fysh screamed, my heart raced and I hit that switch a million times and the lights wouldn't come back on. I drove around the corner on pure memory.
I just about had come to a stop when the lights stayed on.
Drove Fysh home very slowly, next morning I got another one from the wreckers.

Some thing similar, 1992 In an XW Fairmont sedan, driving home after Tech one night in winter.
Beautiful clear night, listening to some AC/DC and all the windows fog up within a couple of seconds as I approach a set of S bends.
Down with the window, head out. I pull up and I could hear hissing. Not coming from the engine bay, but under the passenger side of the dash behind the glove box.
Heater box has let go. re-route the heater hose back to the water pump.
Continue on my way home, don't make, stopped at the pub for a couple straight JD's.

In my younger days my travels around Australia were done on a good old parallel twin Kawasaki, the golden rule was to make camp before dusk due to wildlife activity. But wanting to make it into Katherine for the night I broke my own rules and pushed on into the darkness, I was doing about 100kph and just crested a rise and saw a mob of cattle on the road.
I was hard on the brakes and had just lifted my hand of the grip to grab a lower gear, when the handlebars clipped the ass of a cow. My hands were ripped off the handlebars and the only sound I heard was the bang of the handlebars, as they hit each steering stop repeatedly.
I figured this was it, I'll centre punch a cow and slide off the highway and never be found. Miraculously the bike chose a path through the rest of the mob, and once the speed bled off decided to just stop tank slapping and sedately roll along waiting for me to catch up and grab the bars again.

So I never broke my rules ever again !

Regards

Mark

There's been a few but I reckon it was when I pulled down the sun visor and a huge huntsman spider dropped down.

So what you say? Well you obviously have no idea what it's like being the driver when the Missus is freaking out.

Years ago while driving a 60 series at last light through a rainforest track, came around a corner and at the last minute saw a log lying horizontal above the ground, pointing up the road at me.

Narrow track nowhere to go and couldn't pull up. The log speared into the right hand side. It entered below the headlight and then ran up the inside of mud guard before I pulled up.

Expected broken battery but all was OK. Pulled the log out of the guard. It had penetrated up to the firewall. Mudguard was okay but the right headlight (still working) had the mount crumpled and the light shone into the trees.

Once at camp, belted out the headlight mount and drove home the next day. The plastic under the headlight was still broken when I got rid of the vehicle. Very careful in low light (or good light) for logs pointing straight up the road at me.

Alan

Had many, but the first was when I was doing my driving lessons here in Perth. Driving through Bentley on the Albany Hwy heading into Perth, opposite where the old drive-in was and where Leech Hwy now is I hit a patch of oil.Well the car slid this way and I steered that way, bounced over the curb and footpath, back into my lane then the next and finally straight again. Good job there wasn't as many cars on the roads in those days (mid-late 70's) as there is today. Instructor wasn't that impressed and neither was I.

I think I can equal that , many years ago driving an ambulance at 120kph
coming up to a bend to the right , the bonnet flew up ,F100s have a huge bonnet
thats sticks out past the edge of the windscreen , lucky I new the road , in those
days ambulances had a large AMBULANCE sign above the W/Screen with raised letters in plastic luminated from behind , it hit so hard an fast that it stamped ambulance in the metal bonnet backwards before it smashed it ,
that scared the bejesus out of me , let me tell ya .
mechpete

Travelling early morning to Warwick from Brisbane going up Cunningham's Gap only to meet 3 Ipec trucks coming down 3 wide

In my first car, back in the UK, about 45 years ago. I am driving to work, take a sharp left bend then a quick right turn .....but this VW gets in the way I wasn't traveling fast but I didn't see were he come from. Wham, one bent fender.....oh #@$^ but then the other driver gets out 6foot tall and a Policeman !!! My old man sorted it latter, goes and has a look at the scene then goes to the Cop Shop tells the Sergant that one of his fellas left a long skid mark before bounincing off my fender....never heard another word, but got a right telling off.
Have a great weekend...Drive safe keep your mind on your driving ...keep your hands on the wheel
:-))
Brian R

Two occasions spring to mind,

Many years ago I was driving from Coffs Harbour to Urunga. We had been into Coffs to celebrate New Year so it was about 1 am. There were 4 of us in the old LH Torana.

Luckily I was being good and not going too fast, a bit unusual in those days, that's why it was so lucky. As I climbed a small hill and entered the cutting at the top I was confronted by two cars heading the other way - side by side.

I really don't know how we missed. The cutting was not wide enough to get 3 abreast through there, I know I went onto the dirt and that everyone in my car, except me, screamed. It was about another 10 min back to the CV park we were staying in and it was as I turned in there that it hit me. I could barely drive back to my parking spot, shaking like a leaf and it took some time to settle enough to turn off the engine.


The other happened out near Yarwahl. I was fairly new to 4wd. I had walked the hill and spent ages planning a route to get past a nasty obstacle. Low 1st and head down real slow. I was just approaching the bit I was worried about when the front left caught on a small bump. It spun the steering wheel out of my hands (keep your thumbs outside the wheel) and turned the car across the slope. My left elbow was on the centre console with both hands on the wheel and the left wheels of the car were bouncing lightly on the ground as it teetered on the brink of a rollover. When I looked out the right hand window it was a long drop to the creek.

Both occasions got my pulse rate up but the one in the 4wd lasted longer and taught me more.

Duncs