Whats the silliest thing you have done while driving?

Conor

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.. I'll kick this off - i'm sure this one is going to stick with me for a while :/

I arrived in a Lidl car park to park one day. The usual drive in, reverse into spot. This time I reversing and heard a crunch of plastic. Thinking the crunch was a bottle, I ignored, drove forward to line up and complete my parking... another crunch. At this point there was a woman and her mother standing about 10 feet away from me (I had window down) and she just asked what I was doing in complete disgust..

Up to this point I had only been using my right hand side wing mirror for direction / assessment (so bad, I know!) along with looking back on the right......I duely looked around to my left to see a car in the bay. I then quickly realised the crunching was plastic, but a car bumper and not a bottle!

A total disaster! I was beyond embarrassed and got out to inspect / apologise. I think to both our surprise there was no damage on either side and after a few minutes of fumbling around, we went about our business.

It is an event filled with shame and was also a cheap lesson.

For the record: I was always a careful driver when going forward and back, looking around all angles. I guess like most silly incidents like this, my mind was just elsewhere without even realising it. Every time I put my car in reverse now I remember that incident.
 

ernieh

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Slightly different, I know, but 5 minutes before going off on holiday with a fully packed car and two impatient kids, I filled the windscreen washer of the Daimer....through the oil filler. Clearly wasn't thinking as, in these days I did all my own maintenance and knew the difference!

Ernie
 

peternutkins

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I reversed into a parked car a few weeks ago ending 10 claim free years! The only excuse I can use is that I have been driving Peugeot 406s for the last 10 years which being front wheel drive don't have as good a lock as the Merc, I also was only watching one side but the back swung round more than I am accustomed to and scraped the wing. More unfortunately the car belonged to a friend, it was his wifes car and fairly new, he said that had he been in his own car he wouldn't have bothered about it.

Peter
 

John Laidlaw

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Stuck £20 of petrol into my diesel Galaxy before realising my error....brimmed it with diesel and kept doing that for several weeks regularly- luckily there were no lasting after effects apart from the near panic I gave myself....
 

John Laidlaw

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^ oops I’ve now remembered the utter silliest thing!
I had a Honda Prelude 2.2 vtec Motegi which had 4 wheel steering (Late 90’s we are in now)
Had an unfortunate incident with a particularly nasty pothole which ultimately cost 2 nearside tyres and an alloy. Took it to a garage where they pronounced the issues and of course had to order 2 of the three items (they had one tyre in stock which got fitted)
Anyway, whilst waiting for a replacement alloy I had a space saver fitted to the NS rear...to get me home and get back there when the parts came in.
I had just moved to a new house with a lovely drive and even lovelier newly laid front lawn.
Roll forward to the next morning, blearily I got into the car, clean forgot about the space saver and reversed ‘off’ the drive, engaged steering lock as I would do near the end of the drive, the reverse oversteer from the combination of 4ws and this space saver quite caught me out- immediately the car spun back almost 90o onto the front lawn.
Now remember I mentioned earlier it was a newly laid lawn? Yip totally soft and sand bedded - ended up to all 4 axles stuck solid.
What made it worse it was a new build house and the estate wasn’t finished- opposite was a house in construction.....can you imagine the reaction of the workies? Nowadays it would have been on YouTube within minutes!! :eek::oops: My shame was complete.....
 

A.J.

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Stuck £20 of petrol into my diesel Galaxy before realising my error....brimmed it with diesel and kept doing that for several weeks regularly- luckily there were no lasting after effects apart from the near panic I gave myself....

I brimmed my Diesel with petrol about three years ago. Total cost of draining the fuel system and bleeding ETC ?, about £490.00 all up and we didn't even go anywhere ! :(
 

LostKiwi

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Filled my 300TDi Defender with petrol from empty.... Didn't realise till it started misbehaving 3 miles down the road.
Cue draining 80 litre tank into Jerry cans at the roadside and a quick refill with diesel.
Ran it another 5 years with no issues after that (then sold it).

Managed to reuse the petrol in my 101 :)
 

Tony Dyson

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In 1976, I was offered an overseas posting for a 6 Months contract with the firm I was serving an apprenticeship with, this was my first posting abroad and I was looking forward to the experience. At a design meeting leading up to the start of the project we had concluded business and the subject of my first foreign tour cropped up amongst the more experienced team members and as the youngest there at 20, I was subject to the usual banter one came to expect at times like this, when all of a sudden the mood changed and it got very serious with the main concern being voiced of the time it took everyone to get used to driving on the right in a LHD vehicle! I thought nothing of it, if anything it should be relatively easy to change over, I am right handed and I thought the gear changes and access to all the dash controls would be more natural, but it was then pointed out to me that the foot pedals are also transposed, meaning the accelerator was to the left under your left foot and the clutch under your right with the brake still in the middle… now that concerned me a little!

At the time I was the proud owner of a Mk I, Ford Capri 3.0L V6 and it had plenty of leg room so over the next few weeks I decided to cross my legs over and practice Accelerator and brake with my left foot and clutch with my right.

Big Mistake…

I nearly launched myself through the windscreen on several occasions while braking.

I regularly nudged the rear of my Father’s Vauxhal Victor 101 (Box Type) while parking

I often crashed the gears and locked the rear wheels because I couldn’t control the clutch properly

I ran on to the central reservation on the M62 nearly hitting the crash barriers while attempting to unknit my legs on one occasion.

It was a nightmare, I resigned myself to deal with it when I got out there and I’m sure you can imagine my relief when I came to realise it was all a wind up anyway!
 

John Laidlaw

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In 1976, I was offered an overseas posting for a 6 Months contract with the firm I was serving an apprenticeship with, this was my first posting abroad and I was looking forward to the experience. At a design meeting leading up to the start of the project we had concluded business and the subject of my first foreign tour cropped up amongst the more experienced team members and as the youngest there at 20, I was subject to the usual banter one came to expect at times like this, when all of a sudden the mood changed and it got very serious with the main concern being voiced of the time it took everyone to get used to driving on the right in a LHD vehicle! I thought nothing of it, if anything it should be relatively easy to change over, I am right handed and I thought the gear changes and access to all the dash controls would be more natural, but it was then pointed out to me that the foot pedals are also transposed, meaning the accelerator was to the left under your left foot and the clutch under your right with the brake still in the middle… now that concerned me a little!

At the time I was the proud owner of a Mk I, Ford Capri 3.0L V6 and it had plenty of leg room so over the next few weeks I decided to cross my legs over and practice Accelerator and brake with my left foot and clutch with my right.

Big Mistake…

I nearly launched myself through the windscreen on several occasions while braking.

I regularly nudged the rear of my Father’s Vauxhal Victor 101 (Box Type) while parking

I often crashed the gears and locked the rear wheels because I couldn’t control the clutch properly

I ran on to the central reservation on the M62 nearly hitting the crash barriers while attempting to unknit my legs on one occasion.

It was a nightmare, I resigned myself to deal with it when I got out there and I’m sure you can imagine my relief when I came to realise it was all a wind up anyway!
You win
 

John Laidlaw

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A friends dad when I was in my 20s was cleaning his car on his drive, whilst hoovering down deep into the drivers footwell he managed to wedge his upper body half in there somehow. In an attempt to pull himself out, he grabbed onto the handbrake and pulled too hard, ripping it off and disengaging it. The car was in neutral, the drive was on a slope......next thing the car rolled off the driveway, complete with dad still firmly stuck, over the road, up the opposite neighbours drive and crashed into their car!:oops:
I would have loved to have seen the claim form on that one....:p
 

A.J.

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My elder sister is a keen photographer. She was driving along in Bedfordshire when she spotted a mill by a pond. She stopped to take a photograph of the mill only to have her own car run her over !!. She always now checks to make sure her hand brake is securely on :rolleyes:
 

keefysher

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My late father collected his brand new car from the dealers. A young WRAF officer was trying to impress and took him to the garage. As he stopped at the exit to the main road, she didn't and smacked him in the rear. Reversed back and left it to be repaired and Ziebarted which took ages to get the Ziebart stuff as it was unusual to be done in those days.

Another time, the only time we lived in Officers quarters, dad was going to a mess do in his best dress c/w patent leather shoes with shiny soles. Dad always used to leave the drivers door window down and pull the car to get it rolling, then open the door and jump in putting his foot on the brake pedal. This time his foot slid off the brake pedal, the car ran down the drive, across the road and straight into the side of his Senior Officers car that was picking that guy up for the same do. Dads car had a tow bar, and the ball went straight through the door :cool:

When I first had a car and learned how to fix them I always had a trolley jack, toolbox and a set of stands made from timber. At the canoe club one evening some mates decided to move my car behind some bushes and hide the keys. My revenge on the one with a car daddy had bought him, a MKII Escort Ghia with the internal bonnet pull, was to reach under the car and open the bonnet, remove the rotor from the distributor and put it in the glovebox. Then put the rear axle on my wooden stands to just lift the wheels clear. Then whilst under there remove the prop shaft. When he came back and realised the car was off the ground his mates jacked it up and removed my stands. They found the rotor and put it back on, started up and were dumbfounded as to why it wouldn't drive as it went into gear ;):cool::D Never found out how long it took to figure it out and refit the prop shaft, hey ho all part of growing up.
 

Naraic

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I turned off a main road into an avenue and spotting a parking space as I drove past it I reversed to get into a better position to take the space. Three time I tried to go backwards but the car refused to move, I only stopped when the moped rider got up off the ground.

At first I thought it was a pram... Anyway, the strange thing is as I was apologising as profusely as I could (and all in Starbucks looked on), the rider couldn't get away quickly enough. I think he was probably illegal in some way.
 

Chrishazle

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You didn't reverse hard enough Ciaran - he was still able to ride away!!:D:D:D

May as well fess up to mine - last August. Parking the 968 cab nose first at local supermarket, under the trees as far from the entrance as I could, heard a slight scrape as the nose went over the kerb. Without thinking just put the car in reverse and pulled back - pulling the undertray and front bumper off in the process. Cue a trip into supermarket for gaffer tape, 30+ minutes taping the front back up so the car was driveable, a trip to the bodyshop followed by a repair, thankfully covered by my insurance as I have accidental damage. Cost me £100, total repair cost £2800! Still hurting as 11 years ago, in the same car park but different area, I'd done a similar thing in the 968 coupe but got away with just gaffer tape then some replacement fixings.
 

denchen

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Many moons ago I had a 803 Morris Minor, no money and a dud battery. To start the procedure was to turn on the key, pull the choke full out, second gear and push from the side with the door open. I had done this many times but one morning I must have been half asleep. I opened the door, turned the key, choke out, second gear and push, but this morning it fired up straight away and was off. There was me running after that little Minor at about 20 mph, with me trying to open the door ang get in. I did catch it and get my foot on the clutch but even today I never forgot because I thought I had lost it.
 

Ken_R

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HGV driving. Coupling up to a trailer on a down gradient. I've read/seen so many instances of where this can go wrong and am/was therefore 'anal' about setting the parking brake. Except, I didn't.:oops:

Connect lines (air and electrickery), and then go to release the Trailer Brake. Whereupon, Unit and loaded trailer (30 tonnes) start rolling towards the Staff parking area.

The temptation then, is to run around the vehicle, try and jump into the cab, and apply the footbrake. Not for me.;) I've read too many tales of people dying that way. They fail and finish up under the wheels. I always adopted a policy of once releasing a trailer brake, to retain hold of the valve actuator in order that it can then be re-applied.

Having re-applied the trailer brake, it still took 10-15 seconds to fully apply, whereupon the combination had moved about 30 feet forwards before it halted. I'm standing there. Alive and uninjured.:) As the vehicle passes by.;)

No Staff cars, or fluffy kittens, suffered as a consequence of this incident.:geek:
 

mercmancdi

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Passengers door fell of a old v w bettle one night when I was in a dance hall , when I came out around 3 am I drove for about a mile before I noticed it missing , could not find it as I was parked on a wide grass verge had to go back at daylight to find it ,
( should add the car was being worked at and the door was ok as long as you didn’t open it , someone must have opened it when I was in the hall)
 

peternutkins

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I did a number of diesel conversions many years ago which my wife also drove, she got quite used to the Morris Oxford with no reverse and the Oxford estate to which I had fitted an electric fuel pump under the floor at the back which frequently failed, she got quite adept at driving over drain covers or similar to get it going again.

I used Perkins 4/108 engines in the main which were prone to the injector leak off connections coming loose, so my wife carried a 7/16" spanner in the glove box for when the smell got to bad, it happened in Lyme Regis one day and the spanner was missing so she nipped into a local garage to borrow one, but chivalry is not dead, a mechanic came out and tightened it for her.

Peter
 

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