So, with all the talk of speeding and drinking – what’s the silliest thing you have done in a car or on a motorbike?

Me- 14 years old, riding pillion on the back of a moped down the hard shoulder of the A1 near Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire after consuming lots of alcohol. The person riding it had a broken leg (full cast to his thigh). We got off and walked (or in his case hobbled) into the service station for midnight munchies then proceeded to ride back up the hard shoulder (now going in the wrong way of course) and back up the farm track to the field we were camping in.

Ohh, and we didn’t have helmets on either.

😀

In Ibiza in ’97, riding a scooter and trying to catch up to a mate who was driving a convertible so I could grab on to the door and he could pull me along. Was doing about 40mph with one hand trying to grab the car. Then I hit a grid….

Needless to say I didn’t manage to grab the car, though I did grab the floor pretty hard, smashed my collar bone and took most of the skin and flesh off both knees. Didn’t have an e111 or insurance so just had to home repair and live with the pain, which was bloody painful, for a month or two.

Didn’t learn my lesson either and had a good few more crashes over the next few years, by 2001 the wife just barred me from scooters.

Also in the car with my dad when he was so pissed he couldn’t stand up. He had a Porsche and we (he!) were racing a Corvette along Lakeshore BLVD in Toronto through rush hour traffic for a good 10mins. He thought it was hilarious, I was terrified, I think the chaps in the Corvette were probably smashed too. I was most definitely sobre.

11 in a Lada Estate to the pub one night in remotest Galloway.
Driving a minibus (empty apart from two staff heading for a driving test) down a 1/5 hill that was grippy when I ccled up at 7, but had frozen over by 8am with the dawn freeze…cue a 200m long slide bouncing off snow banks….

😳

Hitching a lift back to our campsite from Nice with a couple of guys who proceeded to get pissed up in the car and almost killed us with a huge wipeout while driving through roadworks at 70+ mph 😯

Tried driving on the M25……

Decided to go a bit Colin McRae in my first car on the forest roads near home. Overcooked it over a blind crest and slid off on the following slight right hander. Car got stuck so I rang a chap I knew that had a recovery truck, took him an hour and a half to find me. He pulled me out of the ditch and then I somehow managed to lock the keys on the boot of the car (Mk3 Fiesta, doors were locked, boot locks when closed) so he had to tow me back. Found out the next day that a log in the ditch had gone through one of the bottom suspension arms. Ended up costing about £350 which as a student I couldn’t really afford.

Night driving with no lights.

Actually very calming by the silvery light of a full moon

Dived through the open window of a moving taxi pulling away from the lights by The Library in Leeds. I don’t remember it but photos exist.

Night driving with no lights.

Hands up who’s done that, just to see what it’s like?

(My hand is up)

Climbing through window onto car roof.
Standing on the roof while at 40mph
Lying down on the roof at 60+mph
Driving down some country lanes, turned off lights to see what it was like. 😳
BJ’s and sex while driving to KFC… Yup classy 8)
Racing various out of my league cars and winning through wreckless driving.
Drifting round some round-a-bouts along a straight road, drifting round another round-a-bout, pulling up to my friends house with smoke coming off the wheels… Then I noticed the smoke was flashing blue. I got banned for that and it was a blessing really. Calmed down a lot after that and keep it to the track.
I’m pretty sure there is a lot more, but it was hazy daze back then.

I would like to see that these were when I was 17/18.

I once had a go in a Hillman Imp.

Almost binned my C-max understeering through this corner.

I was probably too fast, it was dark and I simply didn’t expect another corner, but the tyres were fault too, the outer layer just crumbled off, ended up looking like this!

DSCN8783 by thisisnotaspoon, on Flickr

got my first car (a banger) while still at school – we used to hang on to the spolier while wearing roller blades and drive about the streets! managed melt a few roller blades wheels.

I’d kill my kids if i saw them doing that.

Flew to San Francisco from Manchester, via frankfurt and had a hire car when I arrived in SF, then had an hours drive to Walnut Creek

It was dark, i’d been travelling for 18+ hours, I’d never driven on the other side of the road before and drove a fair way down the freeway without any lights on (my car had automatic headlights)

I was pretty close to tears with fear, following massive HGVs on the grounds that if they could fit though the gaps I could :/

Also, there’s a list of crap cars I’ve driven:

Early 1980s Metro: It bounced, had sagging doors and a steering wheel that was practically horizontal.

1989 Ford Sierra GLS: Awful. The engine was lusty but the chassis felt as though it was designed by two different departments, without talking to one another. The owner was a designer at Ford and confirmed that indeed, the front and rear suspension of the Sierra was in fact designed in separate countries.

1989 VW Polo: The brakes…oh God, the brakes…no brake servo, VW couldn’t be arsed to fit one in the Polo when they designed them for RHD.

1989 Saab 9000 Turbo: Slow. Veeery slow…nothing happ…WHOA! Plus the gearchange was awful.

1973 VW Type 2: If the engine is noisy, depress clutch and stir gearlever. Release clutch. If the van is still rolling forwards without any extra noise, then you’re in the right gear, otherwise repeat.

In winter with snow on the field, tying an old kayak to the back of a Ford Sierra and being towed around the field at way too high speed, using the paddles to somehow stay alive…

Rachel

TINAS – link doesn’t work but I think you mean the three bends just after you cross the border on the way to the Glentress area.

I had a hairy moment on that same road earlier this year. It had been raining so the roads were still damp and there was a Jazz (I think) in front doing about 40mph coming up to this corner so I decided to go for the overtake as you can see traffic coming the other way for quite a distance. I wasn’t expecting a river running across the road which nearly aquaplaned the car into the side of the Jazz. I still don’t know how I didn’t crash but I like to think it was just a case of “a dab of oppo and I was away” Troy Queef stylee.

Honda C90 that had an throttle cable that was too short, as I result when you turned right it opened the throttle a bit. Net result was I ran it into a hefty dry stone wall and my fingers got smashed

Holiday in Majorca. Friend drove the hire car to the bar. He got immensely drunk, decided he was going to drive back to the villa. 3 of us spent about an hour arguing with him, trying to get the keys from him, trying to get a taxi etc
As another lad had ‘only’ had about 5 or 6 bottles of beer, he drove. The driving was fine, but I still regret getting in. I should have distanced myself from all that

Not me, but a good friend drove from Knaresborough to York and back (about a 36 mile round trip) with no brakes in his Mk II Ford Escort.

And when I say ‘no brakes’ I mean none at all, not just slightly rubbish. He’d removed the shoes all round whilst doing some maintenance then remembered he had to get to college.

Somehow, I have no idea how, he managed it without incident.

More immediately after using motorised transport- doing a biketrackday at Knockhill, on a drying track, I stupidly braked into a bit of standing water and lost the front end at, probably, somewhere around 90mph. Landed very gently and just got on with sliding, no bother. You slide for quite a long time, from 90, it’s pretty surreal and oddly relaxing on a big wide open bit of tarmac especially when you’re used to the sound of a basically unsilenced vtwin a foot from your head… I totally lost my bearings, thought “I must have stopped by now” and tried to stand up, while still sliding along at (at a guess) about 40mph. Instant massive terrifying cartwheels and somersaults of death down the track 😆

Night driving with no lights.

Hands up who’s done that, just to see what it’s like?

You just have to hope you don’t meet someone coming the other way doing the same thing.

(My hand is up too 😳 )

Maybe holding onto a mate’s car on my bike when I was 17. He told me we did 60mph.

Or maybe driving a van full of party go-ers back to a road, along miles of precarious remote forest tracks before I had a driving licence, and so intoxicated I was barely able to see. (It’s OK, it wasn’t a public road!).

19 year old just passed my test got myself a awesome Vauxhall Nova in Green with a hint of rust. Driving along Rivington at 0200 in the morning thinking i was Michael Schumacher. Took a bend too fast and flipped it onto its roof. Got My licence revoked and was told to take a extended retest.

27 year old, got caught doing 97 mph on the the m65 on Suzuki GSR 600 in the rain. I thought the BMW Estate was trying to race so i let rip. The BMW turned out to be a Unmarked plod. Got a £327 fine and banned for two weeks. No points and kept my licence. I’m now looking for something more sensible.

Climbed out of the window of a P100 pickup onto the upturned hull of a sailing dingy on the back of the truck while being driven at 50+ down the side of Loch Lomond, I might have been a bit pissed!

MkII Scirroco GTi in the snow at night with no lights at stupid speeds over the Cotswolds very sober though!

Milkie – Member
Climbing through window onto car roof.
Standing on the roof while at 40mph
Lying down on the roof at 60+mph
Driving down some country lanes, turned off lights to see what it was like.
BJ’s and sex while driving to KFC… Yup classy
Racing various out of my league cars and winning through wreckless driving.
Drifting round some round-a-bouts along a straight road, drifting round another round-a-bout, pulling up to my friends house with smoke coming off the wheels… Then I noticed the smoke was flashing blue. I got banned for that and it was a blessing really. Calmed down a lot after that and keep it to the track.
I’m pretty sure there is a lot more, but it was hazy daze back then.

I would like to see that these were when I was 17/18.

Seems we had the same early years on the roads!….awful stuff to think about now, its why i dont have kids…i know what the little shits will get up to!

I get my kicks legally now driving on blues and twos in emergency vehicles.

Bought a bike that had been sitting in a guy’s garden for a couple of years. The end snapped off the throttle cable but the bike seemed ok so I used a pair of pliers to hold the cable and off I went round the block a few times, pulling back to go faster. Changing gear was fun.
In the dark, lights off, yes.
Italian motorbikes are the best – Aprilia Futura had a sidestand sensor that would cut the engine if you put it in gear with the stand down. Good idea until the usual quality Italian electrics kicked in and the bike decided the sidestand was down and stopped the engine. Again. And again. And again. Solution to get home was to drive with my hand on the clutch and at the first sign of trouble, clutch in, switch it off and back on again, restart engine, drop a gear and let the clutch out. Decided on the quick way home so was sat at about 70 doing this faff every 3 or 4 minutes.

Running a stag do event for a farm manager type a few years ago on one of his farms. Him and a load of (getting more and more drunk throughout the day) mates. Us and a few of the farm staff trying to control things a bit…
Pulling donuts in a 200k+ combine harvester.mnot me driving but was a bit mental! Had an old Landrover on aircraft tyres for pest control, bugger all grip but it didn’t destroy the fields. That, our WMIK and a Mule quad, plus one of the guest’s Merc 4×4 thing all full of tipsy posh blokes armed with paintball guns. The stag on a quad in a fox suit, with 4 smoke grenades taped to it. He got a head start and then the carnage of the ‘fox’ hunt over around 1500 acres started.
It was pissing it down, soaking wet recently harvested fields. Nothing teally had any traction. I was driving the WMIK, keeping to the tracks as much as possible and trying to stay below 40mph. The Merc went past me at one point, on the actual field and must have been doing 60+. He could barely stay in a straight line and when his front bumper parted company with the rest of the vehicle it nearly took mine and my front passenger’s heads off. Thank god the WMIK has a central bar on the roll cage where the windscreen should be!
I have no idea how anyone didn’t get killed or at least seriously injured that day. Still, they tipped us nearly as much in cash as they had paid for the whole event and got us blinding drunk once we’d wrestled the vehicle keys off them…

Honestly. Drove drunk. At uni, had borrowed by dads car for the weekend. Car in uni car park, me slaughtered in the Union, intent on walking home when I met an friend who had failed to find a cab to take him home to the other end of town. I volunteered to drive. I got him home and me home safely. But I know I was hammered and it would have taken very little to put me in a horrible situation.

On a similar note, some nasty morning after driving. You know the score, 2 or 3 am finish the night before then driving at 9am to football the next day. Not good.

I now won’t drink if I have a car, nothing at all. I also won’t drive for 24 hours after a session either. I may be being paranoid but I can live with that.

I was a teenaged pratneck racing another of same along canal towpath – him on Yamaha Fizzer, me on Kawasaki X1, I overtook him of a narrow muddy section, lost it, bike slid into the cut, me half in holding on to my pride and joy (read shabby uninsured nail) while sparring partner legged it back the other way. I managed to drag the bike out under the glare of nearby unamused fisherman.

Think that’s it, apart from reversing Shogun with L plates hard into side of ambulance. 😳

Driving while tired is probably the stupidest thing I’ve done.

Done plenty of skitching on my skateboard, that got pretty hairy fairly often.

Been pulled on my my snowboard, by land rovers, snow mobiles, electric taxi in zermatt, moto x bike and a quad.

Went to a party and forgot my money so borrowed a mates car and drive the 4 miles back to my house. On the way back to the party the “chemicals” started kicking in sooner than expected. Just about made it back before lift off. 😯

Bouncing my brothers GS750 (bored out to 860, with a Yoshi racing kit) off a stone dyke doing “60 mph very fast” certainly wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Especially as I didn’t have a licence, insurance or even have my helmet strapped up. Also considering I’d already almost binned it half a mile back on a previous corner….

Yup, that was pretty silly really.

Lane splitting on a motorbike on the m4 at 120 with traffic stopped. For several miles. I had to get off at a service station and wait for the traffic to clear. I just couldn’t help myself. Probably the most fun I’ve ever had.

To make it weird my parents were driving the other way going to heathrow and said that they saw me. No comment that I was doing anything in any way unusual…

Drove to and from School when I was 15, left the Car on a nearby Housing Estate.

I went to Hull on a train once.

Bought a turbo diesel VW.

Oh yes. Ran over a policeman on the motorbike. Defused this dangerous situation by going mad and calling him a ****. To be fair, he was a ****.

Mid 80s working as a motorbike courier.

3 up on a CX500 (I was in the middle), none of us wearing helmets, me tripping my nuts off on acid.

Headed up the M32 out of Bristol for a laugh and raced a Ford Capri, got up to about 90 with the bars weaving like crazy and my laughing my head off and screaming like a loon.

Lots of similar antics but that was probably one of the stupidest.

So glad my kids aren’t as stupid as me.

matt_outandabout –
11 in a Lada Estate to the pub one night in remotest Galloway…..

Fair play, that couldn’t be too far off flat out in one of them.

Rolled my Lada. Well, half-rolled it – it wouldn’t go fast enough to roll all the way over.

I once changed my trousers at 60 mph down a country road, between Southwell and Hockerton if anyone knows it.
That was bloody sketchy in the extreme!
On the same bit of road, as you come out of Southwell, there’s a hump backed bridge over the river Greet. I could get my car well off the floor over that at will…..
I’ve been in my car, with me doing the pedals, front passenger steering and rear passenger changing gear.
I did a reverse flick to turn round on a side street in Nottingham once.
I use to regularly get a 26tonne Volvo loading shovel sideways coming down off the stockpile. It’s quite graceful actually, but you’ve no chance of getting to back if it goes wrong!