Biggest mistake you've made driving?

TJ Mackie

Prompted by the "Why not acknolwedge you're wrong?" thread, now is the time to repent. And for those of you who never make mistakes , why not tell us what mistakes your "friend" has made.

I've been driving 4 years, haven't been involved in any accidents thank God. Worst thing I did was a few weeks ago though, was meeting someone from Adverts at the entrance to Pearse Street station on a Sunday morning. Couldn't find anywhere to pull in, so kept driving down Pearse Street (towards Trinity). Noticed a space on the left but had driven past it, so decided to do a U-turn, completely oblivious to the fact I had passed the point where Pearse Street becomes a one way street (to do a U-turn, you have to keep going, turn right at Lombard Street and another right then on to Sandwith Street which brings you back out onto Pearse St. in the opposite direction.

Thank God it was 11am on a Sunday morning, and thank God there was a pedestrian there yelling at me (in a friendly way, might I add!) that it was a one way street. Did another prompt U-turn, and left what few witnesses there were behind me. Cringe.

Nothing bad happened, but at a different time of day it could have been a disaster. Stupid mistake to make!

maximoose

Driving 5 years and thankfully haven't made many gaffes.

Driving abroad in France for the first time last year, found it very easy the first few days when going around empty country roads to forget that I should be driving on the right

djimi

The biggest mistake that I have ever made was attempting to drive home from Clontarf to Naas on New Years Eve a few years ago in heavy snow when all the roads were basically skating rinks. Got stuck on the hills on the N4 along with about a hundred other cars for about two hours. Utter stupidity not to just stay where I was; thankfully we got home in one piece.

corktina

I never make mistakes...fact

obezyana

The biggest mistake i made whilst driving was taking directions from the girlfriend.

biko

A couple of dangerous overtakes because I was impatient and stupid at the time.
Nothing happened but it was close.

bear1

Biggest mistake I ever made was when I came back to Ireland after living a year abroad.
Landed at the airport and took a hire car, all of a sudden this maniac is on the wrong side of the road flashing it's lights at me... I hadn't realised that I was in fact on the wring side of the road for about 2km before realising what was happening.
Luckily it was about 2am and the roads, apart from that poor lad, were empty.

renofan

Mine has to be 12 years or more ago, was driving between Thurles and Templemore when a community bus ahead of me stopped on the road outside a row of houses just before a sharp bend. For some reason I just never thought of what I was doing and I just kept my speed up and passed the bus. Nothing happened but later that night it hit me like a brick, what if a car was coming the other way or a person was crossing the road having got off the bus. Gave me some fright thinking what could have happened. Learnt from it and haven't done anything like that again.

noelf

Back in the late 1970"s on my motorcycle doing the ton past Belfield college in the spilling rain ....with a good few pints consumed . I grew up that night plain stupid

Sir Arthur Daley

Biggest mistake i made is trusting the sat nav and getting totally lost, back to the old fashion maps for me.

WhitePhantom

Two mistakes, neither of which had serious consequences.

First one, many years ago, I wasn't driving long at the time. I parked outside the houses but left the handbrake down and the car in neutral... I came back out a while later and the car was on the opposite side of the road at an angle to the path - between two parked cars :eek: Could have done sooo much damage! It only dawned on me then that I had heard a car beeping madly earlier - it was probably someone watching my driverless car slowly rolling across the road

The second time was only last year - I was waiting to pull out through the school gates onto the road, turning right, and a girl coming from my right was indicating to pull in to drop her kids off. Nothing coming from my left, so off I went. Except she changed her mind at the last second - she didn't pull in but kept going straight. Straight into me... or me straight into her, whichever. It wasn't a hard collision but was enough to push her across onto the wrong side of the road. There was only minor damage done, but it was a busy time of morning, lots of cars, parents and kids around, and it could have turned out really bad. I never trust indicators anymore!!

hoodie6029

A near miss when i was about to overtake made me more cautious.

Making my biggest mistake everyday - not having a dash cam.

H3llR4iser

In just over 15 years of driving, there are bound to be a few; However there is one which is silly, funny and slightly infuriating at the same time.

Around 2004-2005ish, I was still in Italy and working some 60KMs from home; The distance however was not as much of a problem as the traffic and its unpredictability: some days I'd be treated to an absolutely empty motorway and be at destination in 30 minutes, the next day there would be 20KM queues for no apparent reasons and I'd be 2 hours late for work.

So one summer morning I was in a situation of "sticky traffic", which is what I call a when the number of cars on the road is not sufficient to cause a gridlock but enough to have a scenario where everybody is just pottering along, the overtaking lane is always hogged and so on.

At some point, I see headlight approaching fast in the mirror. Move aside, and a small train made of a mix of blue and silver Alfas and BMWs bombs past. They were literally tearing a hole in the traffic, so... I joined them.

After a few KMs, the tail car of the "train" slams on the brakes, some guy gesturing something unmistakeably like "fcuck off" in the rear window, then re accelerates while a hand comes out of the passenger window to put a stick-on emergency light on the roof.

I had essentially been bombing along with some politician, judge or whatever and their escort O_O

Supergurrier

Pulled across a few people abit too late when turning right on two occasions.

Caught rear offside quarter on a pillar twice

Besides that not much

keithsfleet

Bought a cheap 92 prelude some years back with remote start alarm installed on it.

Woke up one cold morning and while still in bed I hit the start button, low pitched chirp from the keyfob told me it hadn't started. So I hit it again...low pitch tone. Again...low pitch tone. Think I hit it another 2 or 3 times before I reluctantly got out of bed to see why it wasn't starting.

Opened my curtains and looked at the car out on the road, hit the start button and watched as my car lurched forward and into the back of my neighbours car.
I'd left the heap of junk in 1st!
As if mocking me the keyfob gave it's low pitched tone.


Thankfully the neighbour had a large tow bar on the back of his car and the only damage done was to the number plate and bumper on mine.

whomitconcerns

was driving in a bus lane on a sunday eve doing about 50, bus stopped in front of me, i didnt slow down but indicated and started to move right..there was a car right behind me in the main driving lane...luckily he was able to go to far side of road to avoid me as the road was empty, i never saw him until i heard him.....nothing happened thankfully...but scared the bejay out of me...

Kenny Logins

Tried to race an oil leak home.

vitani

Thankfully, nothing happened but the stupidest thing I've ever done driving was when I kept feeling myself fall asleep. Rather than pull in for a few minutes to get out and get some fresh air to wake myself up, I kept driving. I had my two brothers in the car with me and looking back now, I can't believe I was stupid and reckless enough to put the three of us in danger like that.

whomitconcerns

vitani wrote: »

Thankfully, nothing happened but the stupidest thing I've ever done driving was when I kept feeling myself fall asleep. Rather than pull in for a few minutes to get out and get some fresh air to wake myself up, I kept driving. I had my two brothers in the car with me and looking back now, I can't believe I was stupid and reckless enough to put the three of us in danger like that.

i did that once years ago while driving home late at night on M50...fell asleep for split second while doing 100...woke up with car about an inch from divider in centre of road...during a roadworks period...Thats the very closest i have ever been to a wipeout.....and I dont want to get any closer..very scary..wasnt sleepy after that....

oldyouth

Driving in Lanzarote. I drove the wrong way up an emergency exit ramp the police use, straight to the door of the police station. Lots of police wandering around but luckily I did a U turn and got out of there before anyone came over to me

Oink

Me: "Look at that idiot, trying to cross in front of me :mad:! "
Mate: "uuuh Oink, that was a red light..."
Me: "?? No, the red light is still 20 meters away."
Mate: "Yeah, and there was one 10 meters back ya big --- ya"


From a distance the two red lights were right next to one another and I didn't cop that there were 2.

blackwhite

WhitePhantom wrote: »

First one, many years ago, I wasn't driving long at the time. I parked outside the houses but left the handbrake down and the car in neutral... I came back out a while later and the car was on the opposite side of the road at an angle to the path - between two parked cars :eek: Could have done sooo much damage! It only dawned on me then that I had heard a car beeping madly earlier - it was probably someone watching my driverless car slowly rolling across the road

Had similar happen to me - wasn't driving too long either.

Parked the car outside the house and went inside. I only had it about three weeks, and didn't realise that the handbrake wasn't 100% effective until it was pulled up at least 3 clicks. Left it at one or two :rolleyes:

Arrive back down two hours later to find the car wedged against the pillar of the gate. Only the front wing was damaged, and I couldn''t believe that such a small bit of the car catching had stopped it. Would have rolled out onto a fairly busy road otherwise :eek:


My other bad one was falling asleep at the wheel on the M8 near Fermoy. Had been working in Belfast from 6am till 7, and then went to drive to Cork.
Drifted for a few seconds, and bumped the back of the car in front of me.
Was lucky that there was no injuries and very, very little damage done.
Thinking about that one still terrifies me (4 years on).

Noccy_Mondy

Completely missed stopping at a few zebra crossings, when people were starting to cross. Not me, but others swinging their doors wide open onto the road, in the path of cars passing, and then you have to jam on the brakes. What makes it worse is that they don't even acknowledge that they're wrong...

robbok

I turned on the M1 late one Friday night and there were some cars going the wrong way in the fast lane, in fact there must have been dozens of them, I tried flashing my lights and beeping the horn but to no avail, luckily I was only going one junction

TouchingVirus

I've had a few in my years:

1) I hit a cyclist on this roundabout back in 2007. From that view I was going straight at the 12 o'clock exit. Cyclist came up from that road, took the inside lane (closest the centre of the roundabout) and was going down to Clondalkin (the left exit). It was rush hour, the feed from the N7 (right exit) was constant. I saw a gap after a van coming from the right and going to Clondalkin and I moved onto the roundabout after him quickly. The cyclist, shielded by the van, crossed my bonnet and I hit him with all the torque of a Peugeot 206 1.1L at ~10-15mph. He was hurt with some damage to his teeth, a broken full carbon fibre bike and hobbled to the ambulance with a broken knee. He cleaned out my insurance company to the tune of €47k, a small price considering he had no helmet. I wasn't prosecuted.

My other mistake(s) cannot be admitted to because I'm not convinced that the statue of limitations applies. Use your imagination and you will figure it out. I'm not proud of it, and I've not done it in almost 7 years.

bear1

TouchingVirus wrote: »

I've had a few in my years:

1) I hit a cyclist on this roundabout back in 2007. From that view I was going straight at the 12 o'clock exit. Cyclist came up from that road, took the inside lane (closest the centre of the roundabout) and was going down to Clondalkin (the left exit). It was rush hour, the feed from the N7 (right exit) was constant. I saw a gap after a van coming from the right and going to Clondalkin and I moved onto the roundabout after him quickly. The cyclist, shielded by the van, crossed my bonnet and I hit him with all the torque of a Peugeot 206 1.1L at ~10-15mph. He was hurt with some damage to his teeth, a broken full carbon fibre bike and hobbled to the ambulance with a broken knee. He cleaned out my insurance company to the tune of €47k, a small price considering he had no helmet. I wasn't prosecuted.

My other mistake(s) cannot be admitted to because I'm not convinced that the statue of limitations applies. Use your imagination and you will figure it out. I'm not proud of it, and I've not done it in almost 7 years.

Where did you hide the body?

Stallingrad

Driving a 205 into the back on an 80's Volvo many moons ago. That wasn't a fair fight, the Volvo was unmarked, the same cannot be said of the poor Pug.

TJ Mackie

TouchingVirus wrote: »

My other mistake(s) cannot be admitted to because I'm not convinced that the statue of limitations applies. Use your imagination and you will figure it out. I'm not proud of it, and I've not done it in almost 7 years.

I've a terrible imagination then, because I can't figure this one out! Video games have ruined my mind

Give us a clue?

Jesus.

.....

corks finest

lucky you,i fell asleep in the middle of romania,fast asleep,driving a truck full of aid,3 days non stop,derry to ro,nightmare,lucky we didnt hurt anyone ,only our pride.

Voodoomelon

Doing about 160-170kph in lane three in an S350 on the autobahn. Suddenly the lane started to end (yes lane three, beside the inner barrier). I wasn't paying attention to road signs and only noticed the lane merging into lane two with about 50 metres to spare (1 second at that speed).

The concrete barrier actually verged inwards across lane three. SLAMMED on the brakes and turned into lane two, almost clipping the concrete on my left and just missing a small box truck on my right. By the love of Jesus the car slotted straight into a gap in traffic. A real near miss that could have killed us all. Didn't enjoy driving for the rest of the trip, gives me the shakes just thinking about it.

Why they have lane three merging into lane two is beyond me, can't think of an example of it here, surprised the hell out of me obviously.

TouchingVirus

TJ Mackie wrote: »

I've a terrible imagination then, because I can't figure this one out! Video games have ruined my mind

Give us a clue?

It'd be fairly common in parts of the country, rural parts.

bigtimecharlie

2 mistakes.

1. Not long after getting my first car, on a rainy morning, car in front moved into the verge and caused my windscreen to become dirty. In the time it took me to engage the wipers and have a clean screen, the car had stopped and I cruised into the back of him. Nothing serious and the insurance looked after him while I was out of pocket by 350 punts for my grill/bumper/lights repair.

2. Not replacing my old e34 with another BMW (damm these french gearboxes).

dgt

Fuel light bingo with the 406. I destroyed my stem seals and clogged the sender as a result

Buying a dogged 406. What a hape of sh*te (no, a different one to the above example)

On the road, some arsehole was trying to direct traffic when the M3 was being built. I was barreling along, outside the fairyhouse road when this fella in the middle of the road started waving at me. Thought he wanted me to stop so I pulled up, sharpish. Que the line of cars behind me locking up, then me shouting angrily out of the window at said fellow, who was actually directing a dumper out. Oh dear

blackwhite

TouchingVirus wrote: »

It'd be fairly common in parts of the country, rural parts.

Look, we're all friends here, just admit it.

You drove a tractor, didn't you?