On holiday in Devon many years ago we got behind this little red 3-door with an oldish couple in it – can't remember what car it was but something kind of VW Polo sized. We were heading down a narrow but flat country lane, the typical Devon lane with high hedges and steep banked verges. Coming towards us was a tractor so Red Car stops and tries to reverse back to a little gateway. Except he couldn't, he had the RH front wheel on one bank, the LH rear wheel on the other bank and the car was driving itself up this bank, the other wheels hanging in space! He tried several times, each time hitting the bank until eventually the tractor just reversed and let him through.

Amazingly, we saw him again a couple of days later, he'd tried to reverse out of a parking space and had run into the bollard on the other side of the car park and jammed the car between two other parked ones. 😯

Dez – No. Nobody you know, put it that way. 😉

Seriously every other car has a dent in it. Honest to god. Onb a business trip me and my colleages were in fits of laughter in the back of a taxi at the sheer bare-faced cheek of the locals.

Yeah, I've been there, 'tis true.

We rode the motorbikes down to Bologna and Florence a few years ago, over the Alps.
We went round Milan. 3 lanes marked on the floor, 4 lanes of traffic using them! The motorbikes and scooters all use the hard shoulder (flat out).
We were batting along the outside lane at about 90-95mph, Mrs PP was in front. I took the 'rear gunner' position because there was a car literally about 4 feet behind me at that speed. We pull over, and it's a police car that passes us: Mid range Fiat, absolutely flat stick.
In town, you HAVE to force your way out onto every roundabout. Every traffic light is a grand prix start, and I was on a big bike, so was expected to win. I didn't dissapoint, but you have to be on the ball to get in front of all the scooters sharpish!
TBH, I LOVED IT! But it does get tiring after a week or two of constant flat out riding ! 🙂

Obviously a variety of ways of classing "worst". Depends whether you think lacking the basic skills of driving is worse than lacking judgement and being scarily dangerous. Can't think of a good example of the former – but have a couple of the latter.

Coming back from Skye on those West coast Scottish roads with nice fast straights and blind bends, came round a corner to find cars coming the other way on both sides of the road. No space to stop, but fortunately a fairly benign verge on my side. Ended up with two wheels on the verge, two still on the road and cars 3 abreast (was probably still doing 40mph at that point – didn't try braking once I'd gone onto the verge).

Driving down the motorway one night, was in the middle lane with something slower than me coming up in the inside lane (I was doing ~80). Also faster traffic on my right. Spot something fast approaching in rear view mirrors – to my surprise it moves left and proceeds to undertake me. At this point I still didn't believe he was going to continue – was fast closing on the car in front on my inside. Sure enough though, he races up onto the bumper of the car in front of him and pulls out in front of me. What he neglected to bother doing was actually clearing the front of my car before pulling out – got a nice dent and scrape from just in front of the wheelarch! Fortunately at that point the right lane was clear for me to take evasive action into – otherwise it could have been horrendous. Of course I should have backed off, but it happened so quickly and I just didn't believe it was going to happen until it did.

…that is of course always assuming you can discount the time I rolled my car onto a police car as "bad driving" (I guess the fact I didn't get prosecuted for it means it probably wasn't that bad!)

On Wednesday we had a bit of snow in Wakefield and a friend of mine told me that she was trying to drive down a fairly steep hill and each time she pressed the brake it was pumping up and down. So she used the handbrake to get down the hill instead!!!!

Not that as bad as most but funny because of the look of bemusement on the women's face as she stared at her "beached" BMW after attempting an illegal right turn over a traffic island on the Hammersmith Road.

Not that as bad as most but funny because of the look of bemusement on the women's face as she stared at her "beached" BMW after attempting an illegal right turn over a traffic island on the Hammersmith Road.

A couple of years ago a woman turned out of her work carpark and turned straight into a traffic island (I think she was in a rush). She climbed out and jumped up and down shouting 'FARRK FARK FAAAARKKK'. I would have laughed but it was a MX5 that she was driving 🙁

An ex of mine saw nothing wrong with driving home from the pub on a regular basis. Watching her get out of the spaces she was parked in was hysterical, smash, smash, smash, smash, smash, smash, smash until the space was big enough.

Strangely she doesn't drive anymore…..

Hav also witnessed a couple of people driving the wrong way on dual carriage ways, a few people reversing along hard shoulders and back up slip roads, and one guy trying to join a motorway from the exit sliproad?

we had a porsche garage opposite my old workplace. they were unloading some new cars from a transporter and having a shuffle around one day and one of the staff obviously had a bit of throttle/brake confusion and punted a 911 into a Cayenne. Both cars still had the paint protection plastic on and the 911 looked a right mess – it's amazing how much enegry they have after travelling 20ft at full throttle.

she just stood in the car park with her head in her hands crying.

wwaswas, that story reminded me of this epic parking fail

If ever you needed confirmation of BMW X5 drivers…

As a pedestrian in Helsinki I watched a woman turning out of a junction beach her car on one of the big snowbanks that line the inside of EVERY junction for half the year. She did it slowly and I could see it about to happen.. funny 🙂 I'd have helped but I didn't know what to do. Thinking back I should've helped her dig the bank from under her car…

I also nearly killed myself and about 15 other people in the minibus I was driving on the A30 in Cornwall, dual carriageway. I'd passed a lorry which was the only other vehicle in view, left plenty of space and was about to pull back in. Checked my mirror, started to move and then a car came flying up the INSIDE at at least 120mph. Must've slalomed between me and the lorry. I was a bit shaken, then I looked again to move back and another car did the same thing. Racing tw*ts. It would have been total carnage.

Seen lots of things in my time but I like this one.

Saw an old man driving down a lane with a series of very tight bends, he decided to ignore the bends and just drive in a straight line up kerbs, across verges through the fields.
His missus looked petrified, white knuckles hair on end, whilst he just went on non plussed.

Outside our work. Police motorbike with lights and siren going, lorry pulls right across in front of bike. Kills Policeman.

I don't know if this "bad" driving, but in Cairo, I got a taxi to go to the railway station. I left in plenty of time, but the taxi driver was in serious hurry, as flat out as possible all the way. On the last stretch, we were behind a police car and ambulance, both with blue lights flashing, he went right up behind them and started flashing them to get out of his way.

A white van overtaking a line of traffic going up a steepish hill with a blind top to the hill, he made it, but a car tootled the other way about 5 seconds after he disappeared over the top, seconds away from carnage, its a 60 mile an hour road!

Idiot!

Driving in france, from dijon up towards the coast. I'm doing 80 or whatever the dry speed limit over there is. Car behind goes to overtake me, failing to notice motorcyclist already going round. Motorcyclist backs off to avoid being crushed against the central barrier, then when the car pulls back in, he comes up alongside it and starts kicking the shit out of it!

Couldn't believe it. They where probably doing 90 odd whilst this was going on.
Saw the car later on, side of it was completely shagged. Every panel dented in

My mother bless her used to have a mini traveller (old style half timbered) and my dad could never work out why it did bugger all to the gallon, putting it down to short journeys. One day he went out with her driving, she got in, pulled out the choke knob, hung her handbag on it and drove off.

A white van overtaking a line of traffic going up a steepish hill with a blind top to the hill, he made it, but a car tootled the other way about 5 seconds after he disappeared over the top, seconds away from carnage, its a 60 mile an hour road!

Standard procedure on the A68 (Northumberland to Edinburgh). I must see at least two dodgy overtakes like that every time I drive it. Not to mention the folk determined to do 80+ on it, despite the sharp bends, blind summits and SNOW.

One day he went out with her driving, she got in, pulled out the choke knob, hung her handbag on it and drove off

I learned to drive in a Fiesta with a manual choke. If you left it out for long enough the engine basically stopped working.

On a similar 'what do women think about' thread.. my dad once installed (ironically) an oil pressure gague in a car they had way back. He didn't secure the lines well enough and when my mum was driving one came off and all the oil leaked out. Fine, his fault – he accepted that. Except my mum continued to try to drive until the engine seized completely solid. He was utterly astonished how she managed to ignore the what must've been god-awful noise of the engine grinding its way to seizure without thinking 'what's that noise?'

Piston:
That made us laugh.
I reminded me of my assistant, who swore blind she was a good driver, on her life (even though her sister tells stories on many near misses).
Anyhow, we’ve pulled into a park, off the A1)M) near apex corner, rejoining the 3 lane carriageway, she joins the middle lane, doing 30, there’s only one car for miles, he’s in the middle lane, doing about 80.
I braced for impact and poor bloke, he slams on his anchors and stands it on its nose.
To this day, she swears blind he was driving too quickly and he had to get out of her way – not that she even saw him in the first place.
She’d had a few accidents, but mostly, she’d seen dozens in her rear view mirror!

Molgrip. I think when an engine seizes, the pistons stop moving and you stop, depress the clutch quickly! but no end-of-the-world cacophony.

Not quite on a par with some of these, but in the flurry of snow we had here in Belmont a couple of days ago, no fewer than 6 new holes appeared in walls and fences along the A675. I don't understand why people expect their car to behave like it would on a summer's day on 2 inches of snow on top of black ice. Morons…

zokes between 11pm and 5am and you'll see that drunks drive all year round during these times…The snow and ice offer less forgiving conditions for a alcohol-fogged mind.

On the giant roundabouts coming down from Stalybridge to Ashton every morning you'd see fresh holes ripped in the railings where drunk drivers had driven towards them at high speed in a straight line then presumably just pilled on into the roundabout 😆

Around our way – every morning around 5.30-6.30amish you can hear the familiar quick two-blips of the siren 'whoop-whoop' of a Police car alerting a car to pull over for a breathalyser…

A guy at work told me a good one. He was going through a divorce and has just seen his missus so a bit stressed out. He went to get some petrol. Pulled up to the pump, unfamilier car, wrong side. Grrr pissed off pissed off slams it into reverse and floors it …….

Right into a couple of pumps which he manages to severely damage.

Petrol starts pissing everywhere

Alarm sounds

Major evacuation incident

Sheik Zayed Road in Dubai is terrifying

Major evacuation incident

You know, for once that really does have a double-meaning when you throw in a leaking petrol station and metal on metal..

Seen plenty but have been guilty of stoopid things myself a few times…

As hora above, passed my driving test back in the mid nineties, got a car and headed off to visit mates in London…tried desperately to plan my route to avoid the Hangar Lane gyratory…but still managed to end up having to do a righty on it just after getting off the A40 to head towards Ealing – I nearly shat myself, never having negotiated anything other than two lanes during lessons etc…suddenly I'm faced with getting across around five lanes with London drivers – I'm sure I scared some of them shitless. 😯

Best ever was in Dallas when I was there for work. Driving back from yet another 3 hour Mexican lunch – I'm sat at a mahoosive junction – traffic light controlled crossroads. Four lanes of traffic on either side (so eight crossing eight with islands down the middle to separate each four). I'm in the right hand lane waiting to make a right turn. One colleague is in the passenger seat, two more in the back (all yanks). Lights go green, I go back into UK mode, go straight past the four lanes I should have turned into and make like I'm doing a right turn at home – straight into the wrong side of the road. It's empty, for some reason not a soul around, the guys in the car start screaming at me and then I realise what's happened when I see four sets of headlights coming towards me…thankfully all slowing down. All I can do is mount the central reservation which must have been around nine inches high, scrape the shit out of the undercarriage with three yanks about to faint. I must have looked like a total tw4t – but it was funny. Strangely enough, I was never allowed to drive to lunch again.

On a personal level, my sister gets my vote.

Years ago on a Saturday night my parents were at their friend's house and my sister called them asking if she could borrow money to go out that night. My mum said yes but she had to come round and get it. My sister asked if she could drive their Mercedes to get there and they said no.

She went in the huff about this and went out to get her car instead. In the garage was my MGF, in front of the garage was her Punto and behind that was my parents Merc. She had to reverse the Merc out to get her car out so still in a rage because she wasn't getting to drive the Merc, she jumped in and went to reverse it out. It's a quiet cul-de-sac so she's looked about and saw no one was there and she's floored the accelerator in a fit of rage but the EPIC FAIL moment was the fact she'd put it in first gear instead of reverse so she shot forward into the back of her Punto which she then rammed into the garage door which then hit the back of my MGF.

I don't think I spoke to her for 6 months after that.

MGF? interesting choice of car – maybe your sister did you a favour

Nope. My MGF was an excellent little car. Don't believe the hype.

My Mrs had an MGF when we met and it was **** hopeless. Terrible scuttle shake and truly shameful build quality. They went bust for very good, sound reasons.

saw police car driving down a high st. on a busy Saturday afternoon at about 50-60mph, no emergency sigals or anything and then locked the wheels up and skidded sideways to a halt when a pigeon landed on the ground in fron of the car to eat some crisps someone had dropped.

saw a police car with four police inside driving along the M4 between Bath and Swindon during really severe high speed winds well in excess of 95mph (no emergency signals) and the car was being blown right across three lanes sometimes and the driver made no effort to slow down.

seen loads more. A near head on collision sticks in my mind when some idiot decided to overtake in a dip. We were at the brow and could see the car coming the other way, knobber obviously didn't. Screech… cars skidding into the hedges to avoid each other.

Saw a driver enter the M4 slip road at Maidenhead heading towards Reading and went across all three lanes, through the central reservation (at the time there was a gap there) and across the three lanes on the other carriageway, missing our van and a head on collision at 80+mph by about 1cm and then ending up in the ditch.

The list is endless…

Plenty of bad but 'the worst' in terms of consequences and the effect it had on me and the family:

Heading out of Bath on the A36 a few years ago, on 'Good Friday' of all days, for those who might know it, the Warminster Road. 30 limit up-hill. Me driving, family on board, in a queue of traffic doing 30. I see a red Corsa attempting some diabolical overtakes in my off-side mirror. Pushing his way past people in the face of oncoming traffic, I move left and let him by. He looked possessed.

Ahead of us is a Landrover with another family onboard. The road narrows and he's stuck behind it.

At the end of a straight there are a series of S bends, it goes from 30 to 40 to NSL.

We lose sight of the Corsa and Landrover as they head around the bend.

I slowed anticipating the worst and sure enough around the next bend the Landrover was across the road, the Corsa on it's side and the oncoming car smashed up (I forget what it was – probably couldn't identify it front on come to think of it).

As anyone who's come across a proper collision will testify the results are not pretty.

Corsa driver was not wearing a seat belt and got thrown out of the drivers window, taking off the back of his head. He was still conscious and combative though and screamed for a good few minutes before going quiet.

Thankfully no-one else involved was seriously (physically) injured but the woman and young female passenger (daughter?) who he collided with and the family in the Landrover who witnessed his death were understandably traumatised.

I put gloves on before trying to deal with him but ended up cutting my hand on broken glass trying to cradle his head on the floor – my blood mixed with his, my suspicions confirmed, he turned out to be an IV drug user so I had an agonising wait for Hep and HIV test results.

His parents phoned me a couple of days later, he'd had an argument with his girlfriend. They wanted to know how he had died and I lied and said "peacefully".

Ride and drive carefully out there 😉

my mum in her smart car trying to do a 3 point turn 😯

I'm not saying who, but I've been in a car with someone who really thinks they are a good diver, but in reality has absolutely no skill at all.
They spend all their time either flat out on the gas, or hard on the brakes, and really is a danger, but just can't see it. Too close, too hard, too fast, no observation, no concentration, no smoothness. An utter mess.
I've been in their car a couple of times, once in heavy traffic, and I was absolutely scared witless. Never again, if I can possibly avoid it. I'd rather walk.

If it's a STWer you're referring to, I reckon I could have a stab at who it might be…

My two favourite are the guy who pulled out to overtake (I was on my bike) in sight of a T junction managed to lose control of his car mount the pavement and hit the grass bank. Bit of a brown trouser moment for me as he was quite close.

Second was a guy who was so impatient that on a single lane bridge about 5 m long he decided that he would overtake me by mounting the curb with two wheels and trying to get past.

seen a few people drifting (full on tail out) on round abouts in rush hour traffic – some in better control than others but still pretty stupid!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGMI3sqDwXo

1996, Walking down the to the pub to watch Euro 96, hear a screaming engine….. Mini flies up the road, clips the roundabout (2ft high), mounts the pavement opposite me and knocks down the bus stop much to the horror of the 6 people stood there!!!
As the car went passed i saw the driver with her head bent backwards over the seat…..
i ran in the nearest shop and got Them to call the emergency services then set off up the road after her.

She had made it around the bend before her engine seized having ripped out the sump at the bus stop and people were helping her out of the car.

She was very elderly and asked "was i going a little fast back there"?

…… HER RIGHT FOOT HAD A PLASTER CAST ON IT !!

Policeman suggested she wouldn't be driving again …… saw her a month later driving the same car!!!….. go figure?

I rolled a baby suzuki 4wd thing fairly spectacularly. That was utter rubbish driving. It was on a straight dirt road. I forgot I wasn't driving a hi lux, I swerved to avoid a bird, as it started to slide I lifted off rather than powered thru – spun then flipped corner to corner. about 3 rolls IIRC. No glass left in it, whole body at a funny angle not an undented panel. No injuries fortunately bar a severely bruised ego.

FAIL

my scariest time in a car was just after I left school and was working in a small engineering office to get some work experience before going to uni. Well the boss had a habit of falling asleep (there's a name for it) and also did this while driving I soon found out. Thank god for rumble strips on the motorway 😯 Hill starts (or should that be stops) weren't much fun, stopped at traffic lights and he would fall asleep and start rolling back, its not easy when your the new kid nudging the the company owner to tell him he's fallen asleep at the wheel again 😯

i forgot about a guy from work, that i don't know, came out of car park. rear wheel seized – car slid to a halt, he got out kicked the wheel and drove off, the wheel of course seized again – this time he continued driving – engine bouncing off the limiter – rear nearside wheel completely locked, tyre smoke every where, tyres are screeching by the time he's caught up with me (walking) 1/8th of a mile – got out and looked at it really puzzled like!!

moral of the story – replace the wheel bearing when it starts to rumble!