Today, March 23, is Near Miss Day, commemorating the day in 1989 when the asteroid 4581 Asclepius got close enough to Earth that astronomers thought we might end up like the dinosaurs. That would almost be as bad as if something were to damage your car. A few years ago, I took my 66,000-mile Lexus SC300 factory 5-speed for a completely unnecessary drive just to stretch its legs. I noticed something I never see while in my daily: a large truck wheel bouncing over the freeway median. It was headed right toward me. Luckily there was space enough to swerve two lanes, and a second later it obliterated the front end of the Prius that had been behind me.
What’s your most terrifying near miss story?
The most entertaining comment by next week will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “How did you learn to drive?“.
If we’ve learned anything from this week’s answers is that JNC readers are a bunch of scofflaws. c1ph4 learned to drive on a Starlet purloined from a friend’s parents’ garage. Taylor C. borrowed the family van with a plastic AAA wallet key. Kyuusha Corner, Negishi no Keibajo, and crank_case all got behind the wheel prior to driving age on a gravel lot, army base, and farm, respectively.
We also learned an interesting fact thanks to TheJWT. Ohio license holders can much more easily transfer their driver’s licenses to Japan, bypassing some of the notoriously difficult steps otherwise required to obtain a Japanese license.
streetspirit‘s tale of passing a driver’s test despite running a red light could frankly be resubmitted for this week’s near miss question.
However, the winner this week is Joe Musashi, who proves that playing video games isn’t a waste of time at all:
Not sure myself.
I did the thing like in the other poster here said, where he sat in dad’s lap at 8 and you steer and dad presses on the pedals because I was 8. I think there I got a feel for the steering that never went away. The vibrations and weight shifting as the car moves around. Those things I didn’t forget. I knew I wanted to play that driving game on the PlayStation right after that. And I did.
The next memory I have (that I can share *cough*) was probably being 13 or so, just taking mom’s minivan around the neighborhood. Auto-tragic two pedal driving. Easy.
All I did was play those racing games through out my teenage-hood. I had GT2 and GT3; and the other crazy NFS games. I more or less had a basic understanding of driving at this point but never got on a car to drive it. I’m kind of glad however.
By the time I was an adult, I instinctively knew how to pilot the car around. No shocker to anyone or to myself. I missed the shock that everyone goes through driving for the first time. I never had that.
Got my license, asked the license lady if I got any, what are they called? Faults or whatever? She was like “aw nah bud. You ain’t go to worry about a thing.” The people I went with that day, they were all something. Failed something. A missed something. Something.
Some years later, I got a manual. Same thing. Like I had the DLC already installed or something. Gimmie a semi or something. Let’s try that.
What was the question? I don’t know dude. I just did.
Omedetou, your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop!
One very early morning back in the late 90s, I was driving home in my ’87 Corolla FX hatch hand-me-down after a late night of hanging with friends. While approaching a red light from the right lane of a two-lane street, I could see that there was an old Dodge conversion style van already stopped at the light up ahead. Rather than stop behind the van, I changed into the open left lane where I was next to it instead.
As I came to a stop, I glanced over at my passenger side mirror and saw a flash of headlights. There was a third vehicle pulling up behind us but by the speed of its headlights passing through my mirror, I knew it was moving way too quickly to stop at the light with us. I barely had enough time to finish that thought when it slammed into the back of the van next to me. The impact was violent and loud, splashing coolant, plastic, and glass onto my ‘rolla like a tidal wave of car blood and guts. The van was pushed halfway through the intersection in front of me and turned nearly 90 degrees. The third vehicle slid sideways and came to a 90 degree stop in the middle of the intersection.
At that point, I got a look at the third vehicle to see it was a Nissan Pathfinder style SUV. I turned on my emergency lights and pulled the emergency brake but with no more time to react than that, I hear the SUV attempting to start back up. It was dark but it looked like it was missing half its front end so I couldn’t believe that after several cranks, it started and struggled to stay in a straight line as it sped off into the dark.
I couldn’t just leave the driver of van, so I pulled off next to it and thankfully, the driver got out and appeared okay. There was a hole in the van’s driver rear quarter big enough for me to crawl into. The driver told me about how he would normally be driving home with his infant daughter as a passenger, but that she was with his wife that night (I found it strange that he’d have his daughter on a regular drive that late, but I wasn’t in a space to question). I agreed to stay until the police arrived despite having to work early. After giving my statement, the police shared that the SUV only made it a few blocks where it jumped a curb, taking out a phone booth and coming to a stop in a business parking lot.
Had I not made the last second lane change out from behind the van to next to it, my little hatchy and me would have been sandwiched in between it and the SUV. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and be safe out there!
Yep, my was an errant wheel as well. Crossing a freeway bridge, we were transfixed on a car speeding like it was stolen, trailing geyser of sparks. Just as we saw the police chasing him, BAM! A wheel came straight down on my hood and it obliterated it. Later we found out he continued a few more miles in that stolen car until the police arrested him. The front end was a mess but we were still alive.
I was driving home down a 100kmh tree lined road when a girl jumped out in front of my car – 1989 CA Accord. I spun several times and ended up going perfectly between two trees. No skill, pure luck. Both the girl and the car were fine. I drove the girl home as there was no cell reception to call anyone. Turns out her and her boyfriend had an arument and he dumped her on the side of the road! Maybe the sharp handling of the Honda is to thank that everyone survived… Lessons learned – Don’t ever dump someone on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, always pay attention when driving, and always drive a Honda 🙂
Thanks for making me a two-time, two time QotW winner! I love it, thanks guys.
I have one, but it’s not much of a story. I drive a NA Miata which I used to daily to college not too long ago. At that time, we had recently had a new stretch of road behind the college. It wasn’t on the google maps. That fresh.
Anyway, at that time I was taking night classes because that’s all that was available, it sucks, we are all tired, and what else is there to do? I said to myself, “huh. they’ve opened up the road. blockade is removed. nobody is around. uh huh. just took this test, let me reward myself a little.” Turned into it, kicked it into 2nd, watched that RPM tach rise and….
This stretch of road, smooth as the finest 0w-20 oil there is. Has this uphill, bridge over a man-made lake, downhill, and a long straightaway, a bit of curve and a stop light. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “where’s the near miss?”. Well bud, you might’ve seen that meme that floating around, google “bmw miata crash” you’ll see what I’m referring to. It was a white BMW, in the wrong lane (my lane) going downhill on my uphill on the bridge.
Luckily we both swerved just enough to avoid anything tragic. I avoided that street for a month afterwards. Like seriously. BMW drivers are something else.
Thought my story would be shorter. I don’t think there’s a character limit, so there. and post.