Silliest thing you have done using motorised transport

Not me but my mate:
Back in the 80’s my mate and his twin brother were occasionally a ‘handful’. On this occasion their mum and dad were away on holiday but, knowing what their sons would try to get up to, the dad removed the steering wheel from his fairly new 928.
Fast forward a few days and we’d been to the grand national and had wobbled back to our local (which was within walking distance of most of our homes) for even more beer. At about 10pm there’s the sound of a car flying up and down the country lane the pub was on.
‘I know that sound’ says mate #1 and we rush outside to see the fathers 928 heading back up the road with his brother in the drivers seat.
Little bu99er had grabbed a two pairs of molegrips from the garage and clamped them onto the steering shaft and was using them to steer!

Pretty much my entire early driving career. I grew up in South Africa, where drunk driving is pretty much socially encouraged. I don’t know how I survived really. Passenger rides were the worst looking back. In a friends car in the wee hours of the morning, all of us hammered, with him clocking up well in excess of 60mph down suburban streets, not stopping at junctions, but just backing off a bit and flashing his lights. Peer pressure meant we were being cool about it, but that was just being at the fate of someone else’s dice roll.

It took me skipping a red light in broad daylight (unfamiliar roads, only one traffic light was working, due to the others being clobbered out of the ground by drunk drivers, and the one working light was at a precarious angle and obscured by a tree) and t-boning a brand new Mercedes with my aunt’s car while stone cold sober to wake me up.

Coming back from a good judo convention/week of partying in Wales in the 80s me an the mates managed to drive a fair few miles down the motorway in mk1 RS Turbo with every one asleep including the driver 🙂

I did manage to spin a few Porsches back in the day….as you do…

aged 15, driving/rallying a mates rover 400 around his farm in the snow, I clipped a corner of the barn, but the car seemed to be ok so kept going – 20 minutes later doing about 70mph across a bumpy field the left front wheel rips itself off and throws us into a wild spin – we both walked away, but was very thankful for the seatbelt which I had put on 20 seconds earlier, as the steering wheel and my door fell off!

regularly get towed to the nearest decent hill on my skis when it snows – 40mph doesn’t half feel fast when you can’t see what’s coming!

working on old Jense, which my dad was in the process off splitting for parts, we decided to see if we could work out why the engine was miss firing and generaly not working, so we took the car out of the garage and fired her up – my job was rev the engine, but what he failed to mention was not to go to 100% as the throttle stuck. A year later we were still picking up pieces of Chevy v8 from the garden.

the list is long and embarrassing
took a morris marina for a test drive from the garage I worked at at weekends and rolled it 😳
‘drove ‘back from pub to party with about 15 mates crammed into mk 2 escort 4 in boot! took 2 to drive it
came off moped fs1e on roundabout having just got round it and scraped pedals for 1st time went back for another attempt scraped a lot harder as it slid down the road.
lost a mates new to him C1 slalom boat from roof, it ended up against crash barrier still in one piece. I am lot more careful now though

Had my 1st car at 13 in 1969 (a 1960’s Ford Popular) & used it to ‘learn to drive’ in an adjacent disused quarry. I later got a Morris 1000 & took the bumpers off & we once coerced a lad to stand on the rear bumper mounts & hang on to the roof gutters while I drove like a loony round the quarry. He was covered in lime dust & could hardly breathe.
After I passed my test it was time for stupidity. Went to a party in Durham with a mate who was also driving, we both had 4 or 5 pints, raided the buffet, filled our cars with pork pies, sausage rolls & a couple of girls each & proceeded to race each other through Durham with the girls chucking buffet food out of the windows as we overtook each other.
Did a ride in Hamsterley one day & decided we wouldn’t let Mark back in the car so we locked the doors & slowly eased out of the car park, Mark jumped belly 1st onto the bonnet & was hanging on to the wiper arms. I drove him up to Hamsterley village at 40mph hanging on.
My list is endless!

Caught having sex in a car?

Anyone?

OK, just me then! 🙄

maico 490 on the fire roads and trails in the Brecon beacons … scared me shitless !
went 1 better 2 years later on an IT495 and broke a leg 🙂

Crashed into my own car. Can’t quite remember the details. Alcohol may have been involved 😉

Caught having sex in a car?

Anyone?

OK, just me then!

Outside Beamish museum? & a picnic spot near Causey Arch, Stanley, Co. Durham?

Naa, not just you.

Edit, The Causey Arch one was me & GF in the FRONT of a Mini Pickup. Bout a 1968 model.

Next.

Oohh, years ago, 3 R1’s and a Blade – Manchester to Alicante in 1 trip. Literally flat out for an entire day – just mental. At one point I glanced, very briefly, in the mirror. Just happened to be the exact moment a car indicates to pull out a mlie or so down the road. Mate in front rolls off the throttle and sits up. I look back and pass him by about an inch, at 170+. One inch further to the left and we’re dead. No question. Wierdly, what I really remember is that past 170 ish with chin on tank it all goes kind of cartoony fast and sort of sucks you in. I left a day early and cruised, relatively, back.

50 mph on my roadbike hanging on to the open window of a mates car… not that daft until you hear the police siren.
Fell off a car in NZ was doing ok until my brother handbraked it round a bend. Still have the gravel in my arm 20 years later

8 of us on a tuk-tuk to go to the local pub in srilanka. Bit of a squeeze…..

Caught having sex in a car?

Anyone?

OK, just me then

I’m not saying where or when, but I’m pretty sure some STWers saw me.

To make matters worse it was a Lacetti, Top Gears reasonably priced car!

Swapping seats with the driver by climbing out the window, over the roof and back in again.

Me and my mates having shit box cars and nudging each other whilst driving.

Driving back on the M1 from a particularly exhuberent bug jam, in convoy, no sleep for 72 hours, mostly chemically assisted (it was the year the Prodigy played) and hydration provided by cheap french beer. Our friend in a split screen camper going up and down lane 2 providing the convoy of 8 Beetles in lane 1 with the remainder of the beer between the cars. There was roof surfing at some point too.

Quite a few stupid things thinking back

– 3 of us in car on a country lane, put the car in second and pointed it straight and all jumped out, left it a few seconds then raced to see who could catchup and jump into the drivers seat first.

– 8 cars abreast racing down a disused runway

– usual antics in the snow, getting a drift on.

Rental Luton overloaded with booze lost on a roundabout.

Not at all worried about Brian in the back.

Young, broke and trying to keep a Ford Fiesta XR2 in tyres as a boy racer….my father told me somewhere that couldnt be beaten for price, on the saturday we set off together, father and son chewing the fat and bonding about cars….I had 4 new tyres put on the beast for a price i was very happy with….

….on the way back i went down a hill which banked right and then rose again, the suspension bottomed out, the new tyres offered bugger all grip and the back end came round on me….we found ourselves sideways in the road looking out of a side window at oncoming traffic, to this day i’ll never know how i was able to save a slide that was that far gone, the car came back in line, i moved us onto the correct side of the road and a deathly silence descended on the car….seriously the silence was deafening.

By the time we got home, about another hour together in the car….in silence naturally, my nerves were shredded….i’m guessing my father, being a wise old owl knew exactly what he was doing, i parked and got out of the car….from across the roof of the car he gave me one of those ‘dad’ looks and just said “dont do that again”….enough said, message received loud and clear so to speak.
I was embarrassed my this episode of driving for literally years, he never had to say anything about it but whenever the topic of crap driving would come up he’d just give me the look and i’d want the ground to open up.

True jedi parenting skills there, how do they do that?!

My brother took a friends moped off a big dirt jump in a park, flat landed it and snapped it in half then fled from a police officer.

Can’t say I’ve done anything particularly stupid in a vehicle, according to the copper that rang on occasion when I was young I was the “clever one”.

A long list of things I won’t admit to on a public forum, but….
Driving over my own leg on honda atc 200 trike was highly amusing to all spectators!

Started off with me treating country lanes like I was rallying with the encouragement of my mum who was supposed to be be teaching me to drive. Kind of set the tone for the rest of my teens and i shall say no more. Back then I thought I could drive a real car like I would my RC cars and for the most of it I actually could. Scares me thinking about what I used to get away with.

Aged 16 or so riding pillion on a mate’s 1000cc bike, never having been on a bike before. He was doing up to 120mph, and never touched the brakes, just dropped it down through the gears to slow down. That was pretty hairy.

Then hiring a moped in Phuket, about 17 years later, with that pillion ride being my only motorbike experience, ever. I managed a steady, controlled pull away from the hire place, got to the end of the road, slowed down. Checked both ways, nothing coming, start to turn right… except I somehow twisted the throttle too much as I was cornering, and as I was accelerating rapidly leaving my intended trajectory I panicked and just kept adding more throttle! Came very close to ploughing straight into the nearby shop window but managed to hit the brakes and get it under control.

When we moved to NZ we got a Subaru Legacy (4WD), I thought I’d take it down a gravel road to test it out… going round a steady left bend I dabbed the accelerator to try to start drifting (had no idea if that was how to do it, just sort of made it up as I went along). Cue big fishtail down the next 100m or so, no idea how I didn’t end up in a field, and very lucky that nothing was coming the other way.

Ok – in the 90s I had a Nissan Sunny GTI R the 4wd group N rally car version (made imprezas look steady) and was working in Chertsey near Heathrow – and one summers night after midnight did 238 miles back to North Yorkshire in 2 hours 36 minutes – averaged over 100mph – not that impressive well I stopped for fuel 🙂 same car coming from newcastle down to scotch corner was followed by a Police BMW 5 series and in the traffic officers words “speeds in excess of 150mph” and I got off with the offence as he wrote down the wrong SP code?
Sold it that week and don’t think I have done more than 90mph in 25 years – and yes I would take my kids out of the will….

I did a handbrake turn on a narrow country road an hour after passing my test… about 50mph in the dry, in a mini metro – it bounced a long way but somehow didn’t roll.

Ripped the exhaust clean off my mini going through a ford up on the moors. 20 mile drive home, sounding like a F1 tractor and some quality flashes from under the bonnet.

A lot of ours were regular group things: Lights off, yeah, regularly. While racing home from the pub in lines of 3 or 4 cars. Trying for the record between the Kentucky and a nightclub, while eating 3 pieces of chicken and a portion of spare ribs and steering with your knees.

Once drove a load of people home from a party I was staying at. Had no intention of driving anywhere, was totally wasted and didn’t even know I’d driven them ’til the next day when somebody told me. That was by far my stupidest moment.

One of my mates once turned his engine of to save fuel while freewheeling down sutton bank in N Yorks. Quite a sharp bend at the bottom, especially when your steering lock is on 😆

Teenagers – **** dickheads 🙄

Racing a 911 wondering why he kept looking in his mirror at me, then I realised I was at 135mph with my bike still on the roof rack.

As a teenager driven through a town centre using the choke as cruise control on my parents car while my legs were out of the window.

Slid thru a garden wall on a motorbike only for an old school mate come out of the house to pick me up and say I was the seventh thru the wall that year.

Lots n lots more.

Three weeks after passing my driving test and three days after buying my first car, a V8 Land Rover.

Wheelies in my AEC Militant.

I drove my mum’s car into my dads car.

I also crashed into a tree in Tescos car park doing 4.5k of damage.

Dude, you got outdragged by a traction engine

I forgot the time I got the Falcon sideways on a gravel road in NZ that had cliff up on one side and very big drop to the sea on the other. Over corrected and came round the bend fish tailing to find a truck coming the other way. No idea to this day how we missed it or didnt go over the edge, I had my eyes closed.

Not me but a local lad tried crossing his legs over and driving- put his car through Carpet Right window.

I was in my old works Transit pick up (when they were still RWD) and on exiting a round-about thought I’d see if it would drift. Cue what seemed like the longest fish tail in the history of man, I have never spun a wheel from lock to lock so quickly in my life!

The car stuff was when I was young dumb and full of…you get the idea.. But there’s no excuse for the stuff I did on a motorbike when I passed my test later in life in my late 20s.

Taped phone to bars pointed at speedo to see what I could get…. 158 if you must know.

My sister lived 100 miles away in Milton Keynes, I could do it in less than an hour…. You work out the average speed.

Treating front facing speed cameras as a delimited area…. There are no front reg plates on a bike remember.

I’m ashamed to say this only stopped this year (I’m 37) when I got a dirt bike instead, I’ll likely never own another big CC sport bike again, I just can’t rein it in on one so it’s best I don’t ride on the road anymore.

Riding a micro scooter being towed by a Lotus Elise.

Speeking of incredulous journey times and average speeds.

Middlesbrough to Wokingham, google says it takes 4 hours 30min.

Got a lift in a friends CTR, did it in 4h30. After stopping in Castleford (which isn’t on the way) for fish and chips, and calling in on his mum and dad to have a cup of tea to wash the chips down.

Plenty whilst in the army. Donuts in trucks (Canada).
Jumping from truck to truck whilst moving at speed (Gulf War). Airborne for nearly 20mtrs (N. Ireland, flattened the sump and seized engine).
J Turns in a Nissan Patrol (N. Ireland – Armagh helipad, needed to be flat out in reverse and ended up on 2 wheels).
Lisburn to Aldergrove (Belfast International) in less than 15 minutes. Any one that knows that route will appreciate the challenge and the fact it was done in a police spec Vauxhall Omega.
Now I rarely speed and just shake my head at other peoples stupid driving.

Burned out the clutch on an old Talbot my brother and I were given. Cut a hole in the housing and welded the plates together.

Seemed to work fine until about ten minutes later there was a bang and several holes appeared in the bonnet, like it had been machine-gunned from underneath. Never found the bits of clutch.

Speeking of incredulous journey times and average speeds.

Middlesbrough to Wokingham, google says it takes 4 hours 30min.

Got a lift in a friends CTR, did it in 4h30. After stopping in Castleford (which isn’t on the way) for fish and chips, and calling in on his mum and dad to have a cup of tea to wash the chips down.

I love stuff like this, its what the magazine Performance Bikes used to be about until it went all grown up….how fast can we get a Hayabusa to the Bosphorus?….how fast can we get a GSRX-1000 round the M25?….can we get a big heavy ZZR1400 to win the Cannonball Bike Run? (to be fair they got 3rd!)….the ring leader was a journo called Dale Lomas who i’m sure wasnt right in the head….sadly for my love of that magazine he went to the Nurburgring, fell in love with the place, had a bad crash and gave up bikes….he’s done well though, runs a fleet of hot-hatches from there as hire cars/demonstrators for people wanting to drive the ‘Ring in something other than their own vehicle!

172 on a motorbike one early morning, but I wasn’t happy unless a journey got into triple figures for speed.

Silliest, hanging out of a mates merc getting my knee down whilst hanging out of the passenger door.

Back when I was a mere slip of a lad (sixteen) a mate’s Dad asked me whether I’d been on the back of a motorbike before.

“No” I replied, quite innocently.

An hour of pillion passenger riding later, I returned giddy and impressed at the performance a 305cc bike carrying a total of twenty two stone could msuter.

A few years later, same friend’s Dad bought himself an 1100cc machine as a retirement present and offered to take me out on the back of it. Just before we hit the A133 he explained that could keep station with a McLaren F1 all the way to 120mph. Being forewarned didn’t prepare me for the savagery of the acceleration that felt like it was trying to wrench me out of my seat. I’m not ashamed to admit that I clung to the bike and to my mate’s dad for dear life. I’ve no idea how fast we actually went, because I couldn’t see the speedo. Even if I could it would have been academic as my eyes were clenched shut.

When we returned home, he casually announced that he’d only opened the throttle two thirds of the way. I’ve never felt like such a wuss in all my life.

Circling a roundabout on a GSX Suzuki at about 60 well leant over I cracked the throttle wide open — just to see what would happen?
What happened was that the seat dropped six inches or so from under my arse. I rolled off the throttle and it came back into line smoothly. When I got home I found lots of squiggly marks on the side of the tyre.

I once bet some friends I could turn a scrap moped into a motorised skateboard. I did it and survived riding it. Most others who had a go on it lost varying amounts of skin.