Last week Rob Zombie stuffed his 1971 Porsche 911T into the back corner of a parked auto transport while an auto journalist was riding with him. UPDATE: It turns out that wasn’t Rob Zombie that was involved in the wreck but noted Rob Zombie impersonator, Magnus Walker. Hey, it was an honest mistake.
In fact we’ll cut Magnus, or Rob, or whatever he’s calling himself this week, a little slack because getting in a little over one’s head is something I’m sure we’ve all had happen once or twice. Today however, we’re not interested in your personal transgressions, but those of others, to which you were personally privy. What was the stupidest thing that someone has done – automotively – while you were in the car?
Image: AutoBlog
Hooniverse Asks: What's the Stupidest Thing Someone Else Has Done While You Were in the Car?
By Robert Emslie
Sep 4, 2015
Jeff Glucker
Not using their turn signal.
😛
Stop riding with BMW drivers.
/low-hanging fruit
If only it was only BMW drivers!
A guy drank a beer on the hood of the car, deliberately blocking the driver’s view, while the driver was towing a sailboat on the freeway. It was enough to make the driver put his beer down.
As a passenger: turning to me while talking/driving.
As a driver: not releasing the break so it would turn in instead of gliding straight on (on snow at low speed, so well under the ABS threshold). Bent plastic lip, could force it back. Stupid, because I was gliding for something that felt more than two seconds, I could have reacted somehow.
I was working in the high mountains for a long time, and I had no car. So occasionally I would just follow a colleague down to some settlements, to see trees and people. One time, I went with our cook. She was eating a banana while driving, which was sort of okay. Then someone called: “Take the steering wheel”, she said, and I duly obliged since she had already taken her available hand off the wheel in order to answer the call. It didn’t feel good. She somehow rolled her car the next summer season, when I wasn’t working there, and injured the boss’s niece, her passenger then, in the process.
Driving myself, I went over a mountain pass in winter, the road was ice (no salt area). Everything went smoothely, and I felt save. Suddenly, my front lights showed me something white flashing by, and then again, and the car shook a lot. Took me a second to understand that I somehow just did a totally unmotivated 360. Almost peed in my pants.
The driver reading a book at 55 mph on a crowded four-lane highway.
I can’t even begin to organize the crap I can recall from high school.
I do have an interesting track event story…
Instructing a guy in a Spec Miata the driver went wide and went off track. While we were spinning to a stop his steering wheel came off the column and there we were even more out of control.
He hadn’t secured the quick release hub when he got in the car for the session and just popped off. Anytime I get into a car and see that release, I tell them this story to make sure we’re good to go.
re: your first line…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLsDxvAErTU
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f104/jayman089/DSCN6164.jpg
I was on the water polo team in high school. Because we were a team made of two (otherwise rival) high schools, we drove to our own games rather than getting bused.
I rode in the back seat of a 1996 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX up US 131 to Forest Hills Central High School from Kalamazoo at speeds approaching 120 mph.
The driver was racing another car with teammates in it, a Firebird T/A.
It was the last time I rode with these teammates. In fact I made sure to ride home with someone else.
I went for a ride with my cousin just after he got his license. He was a few bricks shy of full load. He was driving with a transistor radio swinging from his right wrist and chattering away. I noticed the car headed for the curb as he was fighting the wheel. We hit with a bump and the car stalled. Of course the radio strap got caught by the shift lever and he was unable to steer left. What a goof ball he was!
Not let me drive.
Said, “I really like Donald Trump for President.”
Not dangerous, but still really stupid—
Passenger: “What would happen if you put an automatic transmission in neutral with the cruise control engaged?”
Driver: “Let’s find out!”
Fortunately, the only real damage was ripping apart the harmonic balancer.
Thanks a lot. Now I really want to try that.
Now there’s some engineers who didn’t plan for everything…
I could have lived my whole life without knowing that I want to answer that question first hand.
Damn you.
My Dad did that once by mistake on an interstate in his ’63 Lincoln. He caught the shift lever in his shirtsleeve with the cruise control engaged. Tore up all the belts before he could disengage with the brake.
Is Rob Zombie Eugene Zombie’s cousin?
Zombies have no blood and therefore no blood relatives.
Hooning has never really bothered me, but when someone does it in a cocky show off way always pisses me off. I think that’s because the people who do it that way are usually really fucking stupid about it.
I can also say I know I’ve seen the fear of god in a passenger’s eyes before. Same dude twice actually… I don’t think he’ll learn.
In college, a friend had a manual Civic with no tach and broken windshield wipers. I once watched him drive down my street on the rev limiter in first gear, because he was simultaneously talking on the phone, eating a popsicle, and wiping the windshield clear, while steering with his knees.
A friend pulled out his phone to answer a text. I called him out on it, not sure if he still does that or not. I’d guess he does.
I had a friend drive 50mph down a gravel road with ten people crammed into his Dodge Spirit, while hanging out the window. We really stupid back in high school…
I taught a girlfriend in HS to drive a stick. After putting around the county fairgrounds in her Mom’s 5 speed Rabbit, I thought she was doing fine so we ventured out into the streets. We pulled into a parking lot and she failed to put in the clutch while approaching a parking space. The car jumped and lurched and she rear ended the car next to the spot she was headed for, putting a large dent in the metal bumper. The Rabbit wasn’t visibly harmed.
Freaked out, she asked me what she should do. I wasn’t prepared for an ethics challenge, I was just teaching some driving skills, so I fumbled and said it was her call. She chose to take off. As far as I know, no one turned her in.
While on a test drive in a Nissan, the salesman decided to demonstrate the reclining seats. Without really warning me. So I was driving along and leaning back and suddenly ROOF!
I’ve seen people eating a cob or corn with both hands while driving, and brushing their teeth.
Stupid! See, you gotta floss after eating corn on the cob, THEN brush.
Looking up a number on one mobile phone and dialling it on another, on a mountain road in Greece.