Club Arnage

Just to follow on from Robs Car thread, what’s your best car Prang?
Mine was in the Snow in 81, although not driving, that was down to my brother in law. We were in his Marina 1.8TC going down a country lane far to fast and met another car coming the other way - no seat belts, lots of claret; we were taken of to get stitched up. Police arrive on the scene far too fast; Jam Jar broad sides into the back of the Marina just to finish it off. Jam Jar driven by PC Bob Skidmore!!! Bob now resides in Milton Keynes and drives (or did last year) a Bright Yellow Marcos LM 500, just by coincidence turned up to look at the MG last year with a view to buying it - I was slightly nervous on the test drive!!

Aged 10

I had a kinda "accident week" (all events took place in guernsey):

Monday:  Pissed and drove into a blimmin great boulder cruising round Fort George in the dark - utterly smashed front wheel n shredded tyre;

Wedesday:  Pissed, drove into an earthbank in fog, not sure if i was asleep or not, dont remember much- utterly smashed front half and twisted chassis on Ford Escort Harrier ;

Friday:  Hire car supplied by insurance company was written off outside my home by off duty policeman driving whilst pissed! 

Odd thing was, when i came out Saturday morning, i thought i had parked in front, but the red hire car was in the side road, tried the key and it didnt fit, wrong reg. no. on key fob!  My first thought was that i had got pissed and driven home the wrong red Fiesta!!! (in those days a lot of the keys to Fords were "interchangeable") - the neighbour then told me that the hire company had towed away the wreck and replaced it already - the key was dropped into my letterbox!

Ah the joys of island living eh Martini!!

P.S.  Of course I absolutely dont condone driving whilst pissed, but that was a long time ago, and it was just a phase that i grew out of!   :-[

The first time I landed on my head in a kart seems to stick in my mind when I was 14. A 2day meeting at snetterton then ellough! (Beccles) Beat Ralph Firman and Richard Westbrook in the end. Next, 2 weeks after passing my driving test, on mothers day I had a head on in a lane and wrote off mums car! Seemed like a tame shunt at the time! No blood though

I have also grown out of the driving whilst drunk, BUT, it was something we had to do because we were always too pixxed to drive!!! Honest

>Martini...

I turned over my Kart in my first real race, back onto the wheels, complete 360 (?) jumped out and tried to start it again... my brother would not come and watch me again... I was only 30 at the time... late starter...


>Martini...

Martini
My brother was running me at the time. He ran over to see if i was ok. then said they hadn't red flagged the race and advised me to "lay down"! So I did and the race was stopped!
I thought, if you were the reason for a red flag you could not restart. But after a change of steering wheel and lid, there I was!

I love karting officials!

I am not sure that any accident is good is it. However my most spectacular accident occured the day after my 18th birthday party.

To start with my party got stopped by an off duty police man sat in the members bar because he smelt dope which some gate crashers had brought to the party ! Bastard !

Then I was sat up messing about with friends from work until about 4 am at home afterwards.

The next day i went 10 pin bowling followed by 2 games running around in lazerquest with my friends.

I then drove my friend home and was feeling a bit tired. I think you know whats coming next.

I was driving across a local common about 1 mile from home and the next thing you know, I am waking up in the garden of the farm house at the edge of the common. I awoke to see a 10 feet tree disappearing under the front of the car as a Mr Mooney hit me on the back of the head from out of the back window.

I fell out the car as it was now sat at a 45 % angle on the tree and wandered to the road to see where i was. I then saw a man approach me from the road to ask if i was alright and he said that I had gone across his path and he had to take avoiding action to avoid me ! D'oh ! No recollection of the other car at all.

I had been doing about 50mph when i fell asleep ! Anyway my Mk1 VW Golf wiped out about 12 foot of hedge row, half a rockery bed and the yew tree.

I can tell you, its not a nice feeling knocking on the door of a complete stranger to tell them that you have just parked a car in his garden and destroyed his garden in the process.

The next day he dragged my car out with his tractor, i changed the flat front wheel and slowly drove the car home.

It needed a new bonnet, front bumper and light and indicator, a new rear arch welding on as it got flattened, a new front wing and a re tune as it knocked the engine out of time.

I don't like accidents!



But the "best" one I was in, was when I was being given a lift to work in my mate's A35 one very cold frosty morning. Due on at six we were so at half five we were belting along Wake Green Rd in Brum on very glittery roads (Ice I believe, snigger snigger) About to be early to work for the first time all week! Suddenly as we passed a large side road the wind which was getting gustier by the minute, picked us up and threw us at the offside kerb. The little car (taller than it was wide remember!) hit the very tall kerb and was bounced off its wheels onto its roof, back into the proper lane for the road. Luckily the road, which is a major bus route had no traffic on it, 'cos all sensible people only go to work after t-wits like us had aired the streets.

The road runs down a fairly decent hill curving around to the right and we went gaily (BEFORE THE DAYS OF GAY MEANING PERVERTED!) sailing down the slope like a curling ball (OK stone!) on the roof of the A35. As we floated down the roof was getting bloody hot and we kept jumping up and down under the affluence of gravity trying not to get roasted. The car gently bumped up the slope to a handy driveway outside some geezer's house and drifted down along the pavement to a handy bus stop. Luckily it was a request stop and as we wanted to stop it did it for us!

A bloke driving the other way saw what happened and came dashing to our aid, brave really but no stink of petrol at the time and helped us push the car back on its feet at the kerbside. Apart from a few scratches along the side where the bus stop saved us and some very heavy duty scrape marks on the roof the car looked OK, so we thanked Sir Galahad and sent him to work. Phil, the owner/driver tried the engine and it started so we set off, a little more cautiously and finished the drive to work.

We weren't even late!


 ::)

In my early twenties I did two years of Contintental trucking. Drove a wagon and drag (full truck plus a trailer behind it) for quite a while, and one afternoon I ended up at some village just before Vienna. Been there before, and backed up the trailer up the loading bay. But they were busy inside and so after I was told it would take a while, I went for a kip. Being woken by the rumbling in the back, I figured it was time to drop the trailer in the parking area, so the guys could unload the truck as well. Went inside to check, all was okay. Pulled off the bay and made my bend to back up into the parking space. In the mean time it had become dark, pitch dark. Backed up the truck, and as I couldn't see anything in my mirrors I hit the breaks. I thought I felt a small bang, but thought those were the breaks being funny. Checked the mirrors more careful, and started backing up again. An even bigger bang was clearly felt straight away.
During my sleep some other truck had parked up in the parking space. Then it became pitch dark, and me just woken up, didn't notice or even paid attention to the other lorry that got there in the mean time. It was quite funny to see the other driver jumping out of his lorry in his underwear halfly panicing, wondering why someone was driving up against his cabin twice within a few seconds ;D

So we had to fill in the accident papers. And it appeared to be a French man in a Swiss lorry, while I was Dutch driving a Belgian lorry. And the accident was in Austria.
That's probably why we Dutch call it international trucking, instead of continental ;)

No metion of the blowout last year (although it did not culminate in an accident)!

Best Accidnet = 9 months before 17/01/77 when mummy and daddy got drunk and the rest is a shame...... ( so my boss keeps telling me )

July 1983, twenty years old driving home from my girlfriends house late on a Sat. night and had a big white tailed buck bound across the road in front of me, locked up the brakes on the damp road and slid into the blunt end of a cement bridge at about sixty five MPH in a '69 Chevy Nova.  When I woke up the EMP's were starting a IV drip and cutting the transmission away from my legs.  Spent a couple of weeks in hospital.
Fax

mine was less than 2 months ago, and i left work on a friday afternoon to pick up my girlfriend, and on the way along a single track road i (used to) use i was going a little fast for the road (altho not speeding) and ended up meeting a transit coming the other way and planting it in the front of it :(

Aged 10, my Dad decided it was time for me to learn to drive, so he installed me behind the wheel of a citroen C15 van, told me all about the clutch, and the accelerator, and sat beside me while I drove it straight into a wall.

Had he told me about the steering wheel and the brakes, the outcome may well have been different. ::)

Apparently the tears shot out of me a' la' Gazzas spitting image puppet. :'(

A mate of mine rolled his works transit, and still in it upside down, rang his boss, and asked him

"What's white and flat?" :D

Not so much an accident, more a mechanical failure but still pretty funny, although not at the time.

Back from Uni, holiday job van driving, weekend i thought i'd "borrow" my works P100 to go to Hull from Wokingham to get pick up my stuff. So set off nice and early to get here and back in the day. Been sat at 85-95 all morning, just 10 minutes from Hull so about 3 and a half hours in to the trip, at 85 in the fast lane overtaking, still going so empty van no weight in the back, the gearbox seized, rwd so teh back wheels locked instantly, the gearstick moved about a foot, popping the dash open into my face and onto my lap, the back started jumping around side to side, lots of wheel twirling and screaming like a girl, black smoke everywhere, strong odours from my arse, and i finally, somehow, bought it to the hard shoulder sort of pointing the right way with big stripes on the road as far as i could see, still shaking and weeping fluids, me and the van, phoned the RAC who turned up an hour later, then left again to get a flat bed, another hour or so i got winched onto said truck and taken to Leicester and unloaded, then waited for another truck who took me back home. Gutted, i hadn't got my stuff anf had to explain to the boss why their van was blown up outside hull on a saturday!!

Not to worry got a brand new transit out of it which was nice  ;D

Not my best but my most recent :-[ Launched my ZX9R on Saturday whilst on the Isle of Man on cold tyres and lost it ::)...........result RHS forked all riding gear forked 16 mates pissing themselves ::) for everything else theres mastercard ;D

Sounds like a tempting fate topic to me...been lucky and not had too many accidents...many near misses, had a big one in a go kart a few years back, was in the middle of an endurance race over taking for third on a very fast right hander, I was on the outside when he decided to Schmacher me, kart spun a few times before meeting the tyres and my left hand side impacted the engine - bruised ribs hurt so much I couldn't get my race suit off without a lot of pain - got back on track to finish my stint though, caught him up a couple of laps later, he just finished his braking for the hairpin when I caught him, seems I'd forgotten about the braking bit, the impact slowed my kart so I could make the corner, his impact with the tyres ended his kart's race oh dear! - red mist great stuff! seem to recall the clerk of the course wasn't best pleased!

Road one was a near miss, in my old citroen BX I rounded a corner on a country lane a bit quick and found a queue of cars waiting for a milk tanker to back into a farmyard, hit the middle peddle and due to the momentum from the corner the car spun 360 degrees later I let go of the brake pedal, and somehow was on the wrong side of the road still going forward, so just shot past the queue of cars,  went half way up the opposite bank to squeeze passed the front of the tanker, and waved thanks to the driver in the first of the queue of cars coming the other way...the sakes started about 30 seconds later!!!

cheers! Adrian.