These Are Your Scariest Moments Behind The Wheel

Setting: Circa 2003, Humboldt County, CA. Middle of a ‘healthy’ winter storm

Vehicle: 1990 Nissan Axxess Minivan (2.4L I4, 5 speed)

I was home from college for winter break and my mom was in the middle of radiation treatments for breast cancer which meant a two hour drive each way five days a week. The least I could do was save her four hours behind the wheel each weekday and drive her to treatment while I was home.

At the time I had a learner’s permit and wasn’t the most confident driver. We were returning after dark and a decent storm had been passing through (think 75 mph winds and 1" per hour of rainfall) and we could tell we were in for a wild ride after turning onto Mattole Rd from 101 due to the significant amount of tree debris littering the roadway. 1.5 lane road, no centerline or fogline, wipers on full, lowbeams in an attempt to maximize visibility, dodging branches on the roadway. Just south of Honeydew the roadway parallels the river and the raised road acts as a levy, but that night, after an extended period of rain, the Mattole river and Wilder Ridge Road were occupying the same space. I stopped when I saw the roadway vanish into the muddy current and turned to my mother.

Turning around meant another three hours of driving after the two we had already put in and there was no guarantee that the other route was passable either. She decided we were going to brave the river rather than backtrack, and she also decided that I would be the captain of this temporary boat. Her only advice was to keep it in first, and ‘stay in it’.

First gear, 6,000 rpm, splash! At first we were making decent progress, pushing a nice little bow wave, floating debris bouncing off the bumper and grille as we throttled upriver. But as the water became deeper progress slowed, rpms dropped... 4000... 3000... 2000... My foot was still to the floor but the wheezy little 2.4 liter was losing steam. Sputter, sputter, silence. And intermittent darkness since the headlights were right at the water line. Then an odd bobbing sensation as I could feel the wheels of the car floating slightly and sliding in the mud as the river current pushed us backward. I cranked up the e-brake which slowed our progress, but since we were anchored at the rear and the current was at the front it meant we were slowly being turned.

Despite my inner panic my mom was completely cool in this situation and instructed me to try to get it started again. Clutch in, crank, nothing. Clutch in, crank, add throttle, VROOOOOOOOOM! Let out clutch slightly... sputter... silence. It became a delicate ballet of e-brake, clutch slipping, full throttle, and turning to keep us pointed into the current and making even the slightest progress. But miraculously we did make very slow progress and eventually we could see the roadway rising from the muddy current ahead. In my ambition to get away I shifted into 2nd the motor immediately bogged, it was not happy. The next 7 uphill miles were driven mostly in first gear, but as we neared our house power slowly returned and I was able to use 2nd, then 3rd gear. Thankfully the other days home for winter break were much less eventful, even if the power was out the entire time.

Prologue: The Nissan Axxess survived the voyage and was sold running and driving on the original clutch 4-5 years later with 310K miles for $1 in Bend, OR to a family friend. My mom is 74 and still in remission.

Oh captain, my captain.

Suggested by: RidgeFish

Technically behind handlebars, not the wheel. I rode up to Paradise, CA (about a year before the town burned down) from the bay area for a friend’s birthday party. On the way back, a massive rainstorm rolled through with almost no warning, turning visibility to like 30 feet and flooding most of the roads. I honestly worried that if I even moved on the bike enough to turn off the road, I would slide, lose balance, and crash, so I decided to just ride through it. Most butt clenching two hours of my life.

More rain drama, I’m beginning to think this weather might be bad.

Suggested by: cbpaull

Scariest was crossing a flooded road in my Ford Ranger. It was the tornados of 2011 (Alabama). Me and my roommates made a last ditch effort to get to my parents house and hope their power was on. We were out of power for several days and my parents were out of the country. It was a 30 min drive to their house in regular conditions. With roads closed, no traffic lights and traffic it took us over two hours. We were about five miles away and we come up on the road flooded out. It covered that road about 500 feet. Water was rushing pretty good. We had to call it....drive back two hours and no power, or chance it and be only minutes away with maybe power? So I go and the water is up to the bottom of my door the whole time. I was about to poo myself but we got past it.

Guess what? The power was on.

I’m glad this story didn’t end with you pooping yourself.

Suggested by: nemo1

I was driving home at night with my wife in her Impreza (mid 2010s model). It was in the winter and there was a pretty decent mist/fog thing going on. Temperature was near freezing and dropping, but it seemed to be fine. I was going fairly slow, though, just in case.

I noticed up ahead on the highway about an 1/8 of a mile or so (this was right after a turn) that some cars were spun out on the road. I went to gently apply the brakes, aaaaaaand I completely lost traction. That mist had turned into black ice.

I laid on the horn to give the other drivers up ahead (and hopefully to warn the ones behind me) that I was heading their way, out of control. I worked to get the car to steer between two of the spun-out cars and somehow managed to make it through unscathed. I had at most two feet of clearance for either of them.

Again, we weren’t going very fast as I was already concerned about potential black ice, but still, we slid past at around 30-40 MPH. Took a bit for that adrenaline to come down.

Did anyone else join the spinning party once you’d come to a stop? Did you manage to get going again? So many questions.

Suggested by: timtheninja

Driving from Denver to Salt Lake city for work on super cold and snow day on I-80. I was in my AWD Suzuki Aerio mini wagon. Traveling about 75, which wasn’t too bad, no active snow, hadn’t seen any ice, so I was just cruising.

Coming around a long sweeping right hand curve I hit a good bit ice, all four wheels lost traction and I was sent off on the tangent of the curve.

The car moved to a rearward trajectory, I switch the gear to neutral.. and just held on.. but the slide through the median didnt slow me a bit it was also frozen over.

I was headed at the oncoming lanes of traffic rear of the car first. I remember taking the crash position and just thinking to myself, cars are good these days, I have airbags... I’ll be ok... lucky for me the Semi that was oncoming saw me and moved. My car came to rest facing the correct direction on the incoming lane, I was able to pull back out to the median, had two flat tires and a lot of adrenaline.

If you came out with nothing more than a few flats, you’re doing OK.

Suggested by: the_AUGHT

Driving a Chevy Suburban at night in the rain on Mass Pike. A floor mat (piece of shit weather tech) got on top of the throttle pedal. And because the mat was heavy, the pedal got jammed down. Truck accelerated to 85mph (or so) real quick. I jammed the brake pedal with my left foot, while at the same time trying to lift the throttle pedal with my right foot. Everything lasted a few seconds, but scared the shit out of me.

I didn’t realize it was the floor mat until after I pulled over. The GMT900 variants (at least in a suburban) didn’t have the securing pins for floor mats, so the mats literally move freely. Those adhesive pins and other pins they sell on Amazon never worked for me. They just ripped the carpet.

Good thing I had my comfortable shoes on.

Took it to the mechanic next morning, had them disassemble the entire pedal and check everything. Paid like two hours of labor, all because of a shit floor mat design.

At least you discovered it was just the floor mat causing the issues, and not faulty manufacturing that caused the gas pedal to jam.

Suggested by: willzyx

Oh man, I’ve got a good one.

A few years back I found a dirt-cheap Wrangler for $1,500 bucks, the only problem was the guy needed it off his property immediately.

“No big deal” I thought. I hooked the trailer up to my Gladiator and headed out.

It was smack in the middle of a three day sleet storm-turned-ice storm-turned snowstorm. The drive to get the Jeep was no issue, but actually getting the Jeep and loading it turned into a fiasco when we found that the Jeep didn’t want to start. So, about an hour behind schedule, the sun had gone down, and the sky started dumping snow. The hour-plus drive home was pretty uneventful, until in the last five miles from my house, a car accident forced me to make a choice: Sit and wait in the traffic jam, or drag the Jeep and trailer up over a steep gravel road.

It felt less like a choice and more like an opportunity to do something cool.

The road in question was a one lane gravel road that featured a wicked 250 foot rise in incline over exactly a quarter-mile.

Now, townships typically plow this road whenever they just have nothing else to do, so I knew it would be a snowy mess. Now, between the Jeep and the trailer it was sitting on, I was probably dragging about 5,000 lbs up this hill. However, there were a few tire tracks heading up the hill, so I had some false confidence that it wouldn’t be too bad. At the bottom of the hill, I dropped it into 4-low and engaged both lockers, rechecked all my chains holding my new shitbox to the trailer. Off I went.

I took off in 2nd, and skipped to 4th gear, trying to build as much momentum as possible before the steepest part of the hill. About 200 feet into the climb, I saw the tire tracks go from 2 sets of tracks to a converging mess. Someone had tried to go up, and turned around and came back down the hill, and it looked like the turn-around attempt was MESSY. Still, I was moving along at a good 15-20 mph and had plenty of grip.

Until I didn’t. As soon as I crossed over the mess of tire tracks, the tach needle jumped, I started hearing that god-awful sound of all 4 of my tires spinning, and then my gut dropped as I felt the loss in momentum. The speedometer dropped to zero, and I knew I was in deep shit. I mashed the brake, and the trailer started dragging me backwards.

Down a one lane, twisty, icy, road.

With a ditch on one side, and a 15 foot drop on the other.

In the dark.

I looked in my mirror as I started sliding back, to see nothing more than a 6x6 inch square of pitch black, except the reflection of my taillights in the headlights of the Jeep on the trailer. As I realized I was starting to pick up speed, I yanked the parking brake up, and got ready to bail. About a split second went by, and the ice spot gave way to gravel underneath. Somehow, the whole thing came to a stop. The trailer was sitting about a foot away from going over the hill.

After saying a few quick “Thank you” prayers, I walked up to the front of the truck and grabbed the winch. I spent the next hour trudging through snow, wrapping my line to trees, dragging myself up about 20 feet at a time, again and again, until I was to the top.

Definitely the most harrowing thing I’ve ever faced behind the wheel, and I learned my lesson.

No bargain Jeep is worth all that, surely?

Suggested by: h4llelujah

This just happened to me a few months ago.

This past January, I was driving home on a two-lane one night during a torrential downpour.

I was the last in a line of cars, crawling along at 30-35mph (in a 45mph zone.) Even on their highest setting, my wipers are not keeping the windshield clear. Normally, I would have found a safe spot to pull over and wait for the worst of the storm to pass, but I was less than two miles from home, and is typical of central Georgia roads, there was no shoulder to pull over to.

Suddenly, the car at the front of the line hits the brakes to make a left turn. Everyone in front of me panic-brakes, and I find myself about to slam into the rear end of the BMW SUV directly in front of me.

Instinctively, I yank the wheel to the right, and find myself going down into a gully. The next few seconds were a blur, but I remember taking out a road sign, (I remember thinking to myself how glad i was road signs are mounted on break-away posts.) and a telephone pole whizzed by maybe two feet from my right mirror.

Suddenly I came to a stop - my right foot still firmly on the brake pedal and both hands with a death grip on the wheel, and the car still running. Once my heart rate returned to normal, I took a moment to assess my situation - I was at the bottom of a gully, about 6-8 feet below road grade, but fortunately both the car and I were mostly unharmed. It was pitch black, still raining hard and visibility was near zero, and even with a flashlight I couldn’t see any way to drive the car out of the gully.

I turned on the four-way flashers, girded my loins and called 911 to explain my situation. I also mentally prepared myself to spend most of the night in my car and tried to figure out how much the tow company was going to charge me to drag me out of this mess.

About 20 minutes later, I hear a knock on the window. A young man in rain gear shouted ‘follow me’ and pointed his flashlight to a spot on the right. I put the car in low gear and crept along a path lit by the flashlight through a grove of trees that lead to a paved driveway; it seems that so many people had driven into that gully that the property owner had cut a path through the trees so people could just drive out.

Once the car was out of the muck, I thanked the man and handed him a $20.00 then drove home. I did remember to call 911 to cancel the tow truck.

The next morning, I assessed the situation: my shoulders and back were sore, but nothing was broken, I had a bruise on my thigh and I could taste blood in my mouth from biting my tongue. The car fared a little worse - there was a deep gouge in the front facia where i took out the road sign, the splash guard was gone, probably buried in the muck, and my left front tire was off the bead.

Plus the whole underside of the car was caked with mud that took me over an hour with a pressure washer to remove.

After driving past the scene of the accident the following day, I saw how close I came to hitting that phone pole. Things could have been much worse.

Imagine having to cut a path across your land because there are so many car crashes there.

Suggested by: earthbound-misfit-i

I’m American, I travel to the UK, I have learned how rotaries work. Imagine my horror when on approaching one in some godawful place in the middle of England, just on entering the rotary, the guy on exit to the left turns to right on the rotary right into my path. I ended up on the grass in the middle trying to avoid them. Sure as fuck, they were American too. Even on another continent I can’t get away from the FIBs.

For UK rotaries, you give way to traffic on YOUR right. And move to the left once on it. They literally did the opposite. If it had been a busier time of day, or a busier bit of England, we would all be dead.

It’s called a roundabout, actually.

Suggested by: skeffles

Ferndale, CA 2008. After attending a house party in Arcata, CA, our friend invited us out to a bonfire at the river in Ferndale, CA. Seeing that I wanted her to be more than a friend, naturally we dropped everything and drove out. My roommate/best friend and I show up to the bonfire and immediately start getting sideways glances from the rest of the attendees (over 50 people). It didn’t take us long to realize it was due to my roommate being the only person of color at the bonfire; his family is from Mexico.

Fast forward 20 minutes and we get blind-sided by about 15 rednecks who jump us from behind. I come to about 30 yards away lying on the ground getting kicked in the face with a steel-toed boot. I fight the guy off and realize most of the group has gone after my buddy so I catch up to him and we duck out into the brush.

We call the cops, who are no help, so when the coast is clear my friend gets a non-racist redneck to let us into the back of his truck to get back to our car. After a few minutes driving on the river bar we see headlights flying towards us and I bang on the window to tell him to floor it. We’re flying through gravel whoops and I have to grab his dog to keep it from falling out of the truck.

By the time we get to my car (Mazda 3 hatch) they are right behind us and we end up hitting about 80 mph on the (now smooth) gravel roads with two trucks right behind us. By the time we hit paved road we’re over 100 mph in the middle of the night on unfamiliar roads before we finally lose them. Right about then, however, a cop lights us up and pulls us over.

The cop, a giant a$$, couldn’t care less that we’re covered in blood and mud and, had we not been on the phone with a dispatcher, I think would have arrested us. Instead he told us to slow down and that he’d “look into it” but of course we never heard a thing.

I assume you weren’t in the mood to be “more than a friend” after all that?

Suggested by: santacruzin6

Driving to visit my parents one Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the Greater Boston area in my 2006 Scion Tc, I get off the highway to an interchange and the guy on the road I am joining is flying. Still a ways behind me though and he doesn’t beat me to where the lanes merge to one. Now this is feeding directly into a residential area with narrow roads and maybe, at most, a 35 mph speed limit. I can tell this guy is probably an asshole from the way he is driving, so instead of braking I down shift a couple times to slow me down. While that is kinda a dick move on my part, I am still not slowing down much more than if I had just coasted.

Well apparently this guy took exception to this and, on a winding road, proceeded to pass me in the oncoming lane and then stop in front of me. He gets out of the car and starts heading toward me. And not to say ‘hi.’ Wasn’t much time for thinking so, since there is obviously no reasoning with someone like this, I just threw it in reverse, did a quick 2-pt turn, and hauled ass out of there. At the time it wasn’t scary, as I just reacted, but looking back on it, it was pretty nuts. Glad I decided upon ‘flight,’ as I don’t think any other course of action would have had a positive outcome.

Not long after that, the police arrested someone for doing similar stuff, except on the actual highway, in the same area. Probably the same guy. Fucking nutjob.

It’s probably best to get the heck out of there in a situation like that.

Suggested by: iblamerichardscarry

Never pass big trucks on your way up a mountain.

I was driving from Detroit to Vancouver, and we were crossing the Rockies. On the way up, we passed one of those cranes that build skyscrapers being hauled. It was going so slow, I thought nothing of it - we were still barely up the mountain yet! Yeah, about that...

After we’d crested the pass and come down a ways, I saw headlights in the rear view. The next time I looked, they were closer. Then pretty close. Then it was obvious that this was the big crane on a truck barreling down on me! See, heavy things like that have a pretty easy time making traction, and so they can come down at speeds you wouldn’t expect. I had to summon all my Gran Turismo and Forza skills, and whip down this mountain at 80+ mph in my bugeye Impreza for about three miles before we got to a straight enough stretch for it to pass us - in the dark, in the mountains, in January, with on-and-off snow all night.

If I’m ever driving into the mountains and see something like that rolling through again - I’m gonna get off somewhere before the pass, and just hang tight for an hour or so. I’m in no rush, certainly not to die…

The more you know…

Suggested by: skamanda42

Engine Grenaded?! - 1985 I’m working at an Autobody shop with a contract with a local BMW dealer. I used to be the one to run over with our Secretary to pick them up to bring back to the shop. The drive back was always fun in that I had a mix of a short run on local highway then some nice local roads to our shop. I got to drive every brand new model of BMW from that year including an M635CSi which was my all time fastest car at that point.

Anyway, I was pretty used to the various models and their features but one day I had to bring a 528e back. So as usual I attempted to take the off ramp which was a nicely cambered decreasing radius turn as quick as possible and accelerate hard onto the main road. Except this time as I ran through second the car suddenly died. oh crap I blew the motor, crap crap crap I’m gonna be in trouble... but the thing is this was my first eta engined 5. They don’t rev like the “i”s do so I hit the rev limiter which temporarily disabled the throttle.... whewww!! Made it back with no-one any wiser to my heart attack.

Thank God the engine didn’t grenade!

Suggested by: ajr666

Just now, typing this on my phone!

We cannot condone behavior like this.

Suggested by: modusoperandi0