Worst case of a bad driver you've seen?

@dean: Holy crap that is a good one.

A friend and I spent 5 minutes sitting in our car just watching a lady trying to parallel park once. We wanted the spot if she abandoned it, and from the lack of success she had, she should have done so. She kept pulling in and back out of the spot with her wheels turned the same way. As in, not changing the direction they were turned. I have no idea what she thought that would accomplish, but she sure was dedicated to it. Every now and then she would back halfway into the spot and wave us around but we would just toot our horn and wave her to keep going. I think by the time we gave up there were tears running down both of our faces from laughing. I felt bad for gawking and laughing but seriously - learn how to park or else valet it.

Some crappy 4x4 runs a red light and nearly t-bones me this morning. Honking and evasive lane-change ensues. It's the boss's personal assistant. Greaaaaaaaat.

Hey that reminds me, on Friday I was driving through a particularly dangerous area, a one-way road 5 lanes wide with people trying to get all the way across to the other side from both sides. I'm almost alongside a slower-moving car to my left, and just ahead of him to his left is another car trying to change lanes to the right, we'll call this the shiny happy person car.

shiny happy person car begins to change lanes a little too violently for my taste and I suspect he's trying to jump two lanes at once, which would put him right in front of me with a good 40kph speed difference, and he probably can't see me or anything that would be in my lane from where he is.

A small fraction of a second later I'm pretty sure that's what he's doing and I begin braking as hard as possible, but I instantly figure out it won't be enough as shiny happy person car is now halfway into my lane, so I ease off the brakes, very quickly glance over my right shoulder (there isn't really time to look), half using my ears to guess that nothing is there, and turn hard right to avoid shiny happy person car and then a quick bit of left steering to avoid the curb. Luckily there was indeed nobody there.

It's one of those things where the idiot was lucky he didn't try that on a lesser driver.

I was waiting to get a trip in front of the cab company one night. Another driver pulls up along side me in the parking lot to were his rear passenger door was across from my front door and stops. We sat there for about 5 minutes and started making small talk. Because of were he stopped he was turning his head around at a goofy angle. I guess he got sick of this and went to back the car up. Popped the car in reverse and instantly lit up the rear tires. Then he stopped a car length behind me, the P71 he was in still roaring at full throttle.

I didn't know this guy and thought he was showing off or something, until I looked back in my rear view mirror. He let off the brake, and went 200 ft into the corner of the cab building. The passenger rear corner of the car just brushed up against the building and nailed the fire escape stairs and a curb. Oh guess he's not showing off after all, I think and turn around just in time for the finale. The car makes a hard 45 degree turn goes another 100ft into a chain link fence that blocks a dirt hill. The P71 still in reverse at full throttle runs up the fence both rear tires made it about 5 feet in the air. Finally the car stops and just starts spinning the tires until the driver puts the cab into park and turns off the car.

The old guy was shaken up but ok, I asked what happened and he said he didn't know. Later after talking to the mechanic it turns out the veteran cab driver mixed up the gas and the brake, which to this day still do not understand

JohnInKansas wrote: We've got those here too. More of the tailgating than refusing to be passed. My theory on serial tailgating is this: its easier to check your text messages (and therefore it *must* be safer, right?) if you follow another car. Really, if you're following another car, you let them watch for deer, idiots merging, police, road debris, etc etc, you just have to keep your peripherals open for their brake lights. Makes driving a car a comparatively simple operation if all you have to do is maintain your desired following distance and watch for brake lights.

I agree with this theory. We towed a race car with a cube van that got awful mileage. It improved if we drafted a friends enclosed trailer so we would tuck in nice and close. Our thought was if there was an accident when we hit him the difference in speed would not be too great so it would essentially be a 5-10 mph collision and then his oversized airbrakes would bring us all to a stop. In our defense we were all pretty young and not always the brightest crayons in the set.

I was passed by a semi going about 100MPH on Route 11 in Vermont near Lowell Lake.

http://goo.gl/maps/pylH7

It was just very lucky that nobody was coming around the turn you can see in the distance.

Brett_Murphy wrote: I was passed by a semi going about 100MPH on Route 11 in Vermont near Lowell Lake. http://goo.gl/maps/pylH7 It was just very lucky that nobody was coming around the turn you can see in the distance.

How the hell can you even get a semi truck to move that fast?!

I was a pedestrian for this one...

Early fall on the U of M campus and students are back. A coworker called to me to wait up as he stepped into a full pedestrian crosswalk. Local law now states drivers must stop for pedestrians in crosswalks so no one even looks for cars any more.

So I stop and turn around and hear tires hitting the curb- and witness ten people diving out of the way to avoid being run over. No one was hit but lots of scrapes and bruises.

The driver returned five minutes later- a female international student that just got her American license, running late for class, dropped the phone she was texting on and reached down to get it.

She could have killed someone!

Sky_Render wrote:

Brett_Murphy wrote: I was passed by a semi going about 100MPH on Route 11 in Vermont near Lowell Lake. http://goo.gl/maps/pylH7 It was just very lucky that nobody was coming around the turn you can see in the distance.

How the hell can you even get a semi truck to move that fast?!

I almost got run down a couple times yesterday on 65 going north from Louisville, me in the MX6, SWMBO in the MSM. We were going 80mph. Semis coming up on us FAST and then tailgating. Really unnerving, especially considering the E36 M3ty condition of that stretch of road, us dodging potholes and pretty much being forced to hit everything at speed.

Sucked bad.

paranoid_android74 wrote: I was a pedestrian for this one... Early fall on the U of M campus and students are back. A coworker called to me to wait up as he stepped into a full pedestrian crosswalk. Local law now states drivers must stop for pedestrians in crosswalks so no one even looks for cars any more. So I stop and turn around and hear tires hitting the curb- and witness ten people diving out of the way to avoid being run over. No one was hit but lots of scrapes and bruises. The driver returned five minutes later- a female international student that just got her American license, running late for class, dropped the phone she was texting on and reached down to get it. She could have killed someone!

Several years ago I was driving up I-26 in the rain and fell in behind a Sebring convertible. The girl driving was texting with her cell phone, I could tell because she was holding it up in front of her face and the keys were lit bright blue. (This was long before smartphones.) She was speeding up, slowing down, weaving side to side in the lane and generally driving like a dumbass. Traffic was such that I was stuck and could not get out from behind her so I was folowing her beside a 18 wheeler with a flatbed trailer. At about that time the skies opened up, it turned into a real frogdrowner. That's when she suddenly spun out in front of me! I jumped on the brakes (1994 Accord, no ABS!) and did threshold braking, she slid off to my left and down into the median. I missed her by maybe 3 feet. Where she slid off was all open meaning she wouldn't hit any trees. I figured she'd spend some time stuck in the median and be able to ponder just how she got there, a good object lesson.

I now had clear road so I boogied past traffic in the left lane till I was able to move over. The rain slacked up but was still heavy enough to require the wipers to be on low. That's when she passed me again STILL TEXTING ON THE GODDAMN CELL PHONE.

Not the worst, but a recent one: Yesterday, I was driving with my younger brother in the passenger seat of the Miata., and we're stopped at a light. This is a fairly busy intersection, so there are 5 lanes--2 left turn lanes, 2 lanes going straight, and 1 right turn lane.

I am on the inside left lane, and a little kid in the back seat of a camry (in a car seat, actually) is giving us the thumbs up with a big smile on his face. This car is immediately to the right of us.

Light turns green, and we proceed to turn left. Right lane is moving slower than the left, and the idiot in a newish Acura SUV ahead of the aforementioned Camry is cutting the turn way too tight, and I'm about to T-bone him. I lean on the horn for a solid 30 seconds, he gets back into the right lane, and I am thankful that my little brother was in the car to yell at him so that I didn't have to. As we're passing the moron, Erik just smiles real big and real sarcastically, giving him a thumbs up, saying he didn't want the little kid in the car behind the Acura to see the middle finger.

Curmudgeon wrote: That's when she passed me again STILL TEXTING ON THE GODDAMN CELL PHONE.

"OMG nrly died in axidnt! Dum jerk nrly hit me from behind, shd watch wr he's going!"

I can't say today's idiocy was the cause of one person.. but it was all aimed at one person.

I am at an intersection. Three lanes, left and middle go straight (no left turns here) and the right lane is a turn/straight lane. The right lane, while it can go straight, merges into the middle lane in 100m.. I am in the middle lane with a pickup ahead of me and a BMW 7 series to my left. Two cars pull up on my right and are going straight. Seeing this, I decided to accelerate slowly to let them merge.

Light turns green and the pickup, sensing trouble to his right, floors it as the two cars also give it all they have. The BMW on my left accelerates a little faster than I do. The two cars lose to the pickup and dive into my lane before the merge is over. The first car then continues on across the front of the BMW's path to the turn lane in the centre of the road to pull into a shopping centre on the other side of the road. This made the BMW panic stop to avoid colliding.

We no sooner get going again when the other car infront of me does the same thing to the BMW to make a left at the next light..

It was not the BMWs day.. but thankfully no paint was traded

I have a submission from Saturday. Not the worst I've seen, but it reminded me of this thread.

Went with my girlfriend to test drive an NC, for funsies. We took our white NA, and are driving on a 4 lane, divided street in Tucson. I get in the left turn lane next to the median to turn into the Mazda dealer, and see a blue newish ford escape coming the other way so I start slowing down early (that way I won't have to stop, then clutch and go into first again. I'm lazy). The escape also slows down, and comes right into my left turn lane.

So the guy driving the escape notices that I am there, stopped at this point, and procedes to give me a WTF by throwing up both his arms. I do the same thing back at him, then honk and give him the finger. He goes around me, ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD, for another 100 yards and turns to his left (my right) and goes into the Ford dealer.

Not sure if salesman, test driver, or troll of an owner going in for service.

I drive 2.5hrs/day. I've seen it all. Yesterday it was a woman toll booth racing who just had to get to the open lane. Well it was closed and there was a guy walking through it. She slammed on her brakes and almost ran the guy over, giving him a WTF look in the process. Then she forces herself into the lane that was open. Brand new Infiniti FX35...typical.

Today I pass a woman doing 40 in a 55. Up the road I go 15mph through the speed trap school zone and now she's right on my bumper. I go to turn and see the front of her car dip and prepare for impact. Not sure how she didn't hit me. Just a typical constant speed driver who's either too slow or too fast. Honorable mention is the halfwit in the SUV driving 85mph who I almost side swiped because he flew by me on the right side as I was changing lanes.

The cake- This happened last year. A punk tried to cut across 3 lanes of traffic to get to an exit and almost ran me over. I'm the shiny happy person who was in his way. He road rages, follows me off the exit, traps me in, throws a circular saw through my back window, and hits my car as he drives off. I testified infront of a grand jury last week. He says he wasn't there even after I picked him out of a line up months after it happened. He's charged with a felony and the DA offered to drop the charges if he repaid the $1300 damage. He declined and now is most likely going to be sent to prison after trial and still have to pay me the money back. Bad driving + losing your E36 M3 for 60 seconds = ruining your life.

I've also been hit twice in the past 4 years from drivers passing me on the shoulder the same direction I was turning.

I don't know if this qualifies as worst but it's certainly pulling equal if I take an average. I parked in front of my barber. It's a strip mall place next to a tire store. So... there are always cars going around the lot from the tire store - you have to look before you back out. Like, um, you are supposed to when operating a vehicle.

I'm in the chair getting trimmed and hear a screech/bang literally 5 feet from me outside the door. The guy whizzing around the lot ran into the guy who just left the barber and backed out without looking.

They are having a shouting match outside while the guy who was circling the lot (pickup truck) backs out of the rear door of barber patron guy and hits someone backing out of a spot behind him who... um... didn't look while the guy in the pickup wasn't looking. I am out of the barber chair laughing my ass off.

All kinds of name calling and shouting went on, the PD rolled up and calmed it all down. I would still have been laughing but I got to sit there for 40 minutes because they all had me blocked in and apparently needed to operate it like a CSI crime scene rather than just move the berkeleying cars so people could get thru.

In reply to Sky_Render: The big pedal on the right.

mtn wrote: Not the worst, but a recent one: Yesterday, I was driving with my younger brother in the passenger seat of the Miata., and we're stopped at a light. This is a fairly busy intersection, so there are 5 lanes--2 left turn lanes, 2 lanes going straight, and 1 right turn lane. I am on the inside left lane, and a little kid in the back seat of a camry (in a car seat, actually) is giving us the thumbs up with a big smile on his face. This car is immediately to the right of us. Light turns green, and we proceed to turn left. Right lane is moving slower than the left, and the idiot in a newish Acura SUV ahead of the aforementioned Camry is cutting the turn way too tight, and I'm about to T-bone him. I lean on the horn for a solid 30 seconds, he gets back into the right lane, and I am thankful that my little brother was in the car to yell at him so that I didn't have to. As we're passing the moron, Erik just smiles real big and real sarcastically, giving him a thumbs up, saying he didn't want the little kid in the car behind the Acura to see the middle finger.

I hate it when there are two turning lanes and people always want to start in one then magically midway thru the turn end up in the other. I swear everybody does that around here. I almost assume that they will and give them room now

yes, I see that everyday. People always try to slide out into the outer lane when turning onto a 4 lane (2 each way) road.. which is bad if you are on the outside of the turn from them

The trick is to drive a really ratty truck and let them add some nicer paint when they cant find their lane.

My wife didn't see it but drove through the aftermath. At least he didn't take anyone else with him but he did collect an NB in the process.

In reply to Kenny_McCormic:

Heh. I have a few freinds who made money off of their junky trucks in high school, when rich people hit them and just paid cash to walk away from it.

Mines approaching ratty levels that would be appropriate for such endeavors, but I tend to avoid accidents when I can.

Having a ratty truck is nice for parking lots though...You know how when you pull into a spot only to find a shopping cart there? I speed up now to see how far I can make it roll

Only try it when emptyish though, or you might send a cart-missile into someone else's pretty car.

I remembered a good one that happened many years ago. I think I was maybe 10 at the time, but I still remember it. I was in the car with my mom sitting at an intersection of two roads which are both two lanes and 35 mph, with signals in all directions. As the light turned green in the direction we were facing, a red pontiac sunbird going probably 60+ mph came from the right and locked up the brakes a several car lengths before the intersection, slid all the way through the intersection and scored a direct hit on the drivers door of a blue ford escort in the process of making a right turn, and launched the escort up in the air where it did a perfect flip and came down on its roof. Here is the intersection, the escort ended up near the upper left corner of the sidewalk.

Intersection

110K a year, plus 16 years as a cop, I have literally hundreds.

My stand out is the guy who cut someone off, they both start raging, decide to take it to a fist fight.

Now our hero isn't one to rely on his fists so he pulls out his knife and opens it, as he comes to screeching stop.

Then nothing, the other driver comes over to start in on the fight, only to find out hero has stabbed himself to death in the process of coming to the sudden stop.

Genius.

Bababooey wrote: The cake- This happened last year. A punk tried to cut across 3 lanes of traffic to get to an exit and almost ran me over. I'm the shiny happy person who was in his way. He road rages, follows me off the exit, traps me in, throws a circular saw through my back window, and hits my car as he drives off. I testified infront of a grand jury last week. He says he wasn't there even after I picked him out of a line up months after it happened. He's charged with a felony and the DA offered to drop the charges if he repaid the $1300 damage. He declined and now is most likely going to be sent to prison after trial and still have to pay me the money back. Bad driving + losing your E36 M3 for 60 seconds = ruining your life.

Hey you get a free circular saw.