Rough night last night/Learned my lesson--LONG

[MrBean85]

Last night just sucked in general for me. The first thing that ruined it for me is I was talking to my friends in the church parking lot about where we were going to go eat dinner---there were like 3 of us standing next too/leaning on my car when all of a sudden it moves. Some old man in a 4x4 2500 Ram had backed into my car. Luckly it didn't do any damage but the fact he just sat in his truck smiling the entire time made me want to loose the little bit of religion I have left.

After leaving one of our favorite restaurants mind wasn't totally where it should have been and I missed the exit ramp I needed to take. I was only running about 30 mph and I thought I could make the turn. I didn't. The next thing I hear is my tires screeching and the smell of burnt rubber and then a thump thump. I took a second to get my bearings and realized what had happend. I ended up sliding sideways and jumping a curb in front of Applebees. I hopped out made sure there was no visible damage and made it to a gas station to check everything out. I was lucky. No body damage, no visible damage to my wheels although the front end is slightly out of alignment now and there is a shimmy at 55mph but not severe and I think its just where my tires are out of balance.

Anyways I learned my lesson that I need to slow down and pay more attention to what I doing. If I had been running the speed I normally run on that road the damage would have been more severe and I probably would've been hurt.

[Legacy777]

Other thing I tend to do.....if you miss an exit....there's always another you can get off or turn around and come back.

[mikec]

Just don't reverse down the side of the highway like some idiots I've seen.

[entirelyturbo]

I always go to the next exit myself, 5 more minutes is always worth it.

Don't feel bad dude, there is not one person on this board who has not done something stupid and fubared something on their car before. Just learn your lesson and go from there

[Legacy777]

The whole reversing down the highway thing reminded me of a pretty good story.

I was coming back from college for I think the thanksgiving weekend or something.....i don't remember. I had just dumped onto I 78 E in PA where 81 splits off. There was construction going on, and there was only one lane open. Apparently some dumb ass got in a wreck and completely blocked that one lane. Traffic was just piling up, noone was moving, and people just got out of their cars and was walking around.

I talked to the guys in front of me. It was four guys from Jersey. I wondered around a bit. Walked around in the grass median and such.

The kicker to all this was....we had just passed an exit that would take you to a back road that would bypass the accident.

So I got talking with the guys from jersey about the exit and stuff.....and driving across the grass median to the other side of traffic. They were like....if you do it...we'll do it......I was game!!

So we had to get like two cars move slightly so we could wiggle through....we were in the right lane of traffic. This girl was like....I don't think that's a good idea...blah blah. They guys from jersey had an suv....so once they got through....I got through pretty easily. I took the lead and crossed the median at a slightly less angle so I wouldn't hit the front or rear when crossing the center. It was a V shaped median. I got up to the other side and slowly crept along the shoulder until an opening came up....then dumped it. I could hear people honking their horns and cheering....hahaha.

Anyway....that exit I mentioned before. Well it didn't have an off ramp going west.....only an on ramp. At this point....I wasn't giving up.....so I said fook it.....and backed up the on ramp so I could get to the road I wanted to get on. The Jersey guys were pretty much right behind me.

I stopped at the top of the on ramp and waited. They needed gas and some other stuff, there was a mini-mart right down the road.....so they thanked me.....and we took off......I got back on the interstate past the accident....and was on my way home again.

I'm not saying go and do this.....but it was one of my more public defiances of the law and "traditional" ways of doing things. Usually I'm a little more subtle about it

[MrBean85]

Looking back I should kept going and wiggled my way around depending on which way I took it would've only taken an extra 5-10 minutes. I've only had to "reverse" once and it was the only option. I was in the middle of a caravan in an area I wasn't familar with when the car in front turned so did I. Before I finished making the turn I knew something wasn't right. He was takin us down a on ramp the wrong way. He spun his car around quick and I had a friend behind me, my only option was to quickly back up on the shoulder and turn around. Thank God it was fairly late at night and there was no traffic on the ramp.

Anyways I went to the tire shop this morning and got the tires balanced and confirmed my suspicions that the left front wheel was bent "on the inside". They put the bent wheel on the right rear and all is well for right now. I think I'm gonna put my steelies back on her until I can get a set of 15s or 16s.


Kevin

[Tleg93]

I wasn't happy about it but I've backed up to make an exit I missed once and I'm not too concerned what someone else might think of it. I'm not going to drive a half hour out of my way to avoid being embarassed. I've also crossed the median to get around a wreck. I say do what you have to and screw what's proper or legal in those cases, just don't get caught doing it. Still, if you must do something outside of the norm I'd still be careful about it but why feel bad, you do what you have to sometimes and sometimes it isn't what others may have done.

[petridish38]

I think its more of a safety issue though..... highways weren't designed for stopping and reversing....

I have been in the middle lane of the highway before and seen an exit at the last second. Even though I might have had plenty of time to make it, I didnt want to risk it when I don't absolutely have to... I would drive by while my friends stared at the exit and asked "why didn't you get off?"

To me, its the chance that I might not see the lady in the car next to me with her kids in the back seat when I hurriedly try to change lanes to make the exit and maybe overlook checking my blind spot thoroughly. Thats what happened to my mom, my brother, and I a long time ago. We spun on the interstate and were lucky that we didn't flip.

People just have to be more careful.... although you can take chances and 99% of the time you will come out OK, its the other percent of the time is when something that people are totally not expecting happens (which is why they are so confident that nothing will happen)

Sure they can tell me that nothing will happen to them... They will probably be right..... They never think about how something can, and hopefully never will, go wrong....

Andrew

[Tleg93]

Yeah, I'm with you there. It is a safety issue. I still did it (reversing) anyway because it was on a road where the next exit was miles and miles up the road so I just swallowed my pride and did what I had to do. One shouldn't take unnecessary chances but sometimes it's ok to do so if you know you can. Ripping off at the last second to make an off ramp is the worst thing to do because you can't always see if someone has sped up into your blind spot while you weren't looking.

I get sick of all the safety crap they try to force upon people. What ever happened to being responsible for your own actions. In Pennsylvania you don't have to wear a helmet on a freaking motorcycle but you'll get pulled over and fined for not buckling up. Sometimes the safety rules are extreme in my opinion. You can't protect people from every little thing that may or may not happen. If the politicians and bureaucrats are really that concerned about safety then why don't they just make it illegal to own a motorcycle, after all, if you get in even a low speed crash with one of those odds are you're going to get hurt badly or killed.

[NuwanD]

I don't know about how things work where you are but i'm pretty convinced that they don't give a rats ass about my safety over here, more so they are worried about the burden i'd put on our healthcare system if i was hurt while driving without a seatbelt... also for insurance costs

It all comes down to $$$ > Lives

[Tleg93]

It looks like you're from Canada and I don't know how things work up there but I agree it's all tied to money. Down here it's like the government wants to control every little aspect of our lives so that everyone will warm, safe, and good little citizens. That's not to say that it's not needed on some level but it gets ridiculous sometimes. The whole seatbelt law has me pissed. I don't need big mother telling me when to wear a seatbelt because the insurance companies want to keep costs down in order to rape us more effectively.

Drinking and driving is another thing, it's a bad idea to drink and drive and it should be enforced but dropping it to .08 is extreme. I could drink one beer and according to them I'm impaired but I feel no different than before I drank. If I take a Tylenol cold tab I'm a little drowsy but I'm still aware enough to drive a car. It's not like at every moment when you drive down the highway you're gripping the wheel in fear and sweating bullets because it's so chaotic to drive that you have to be constantly vigilant. There's people on the roads that could are 100% sober and still scare the heck out of me by the way they drive.

Geez, I'm sorry if I'm ranting and raving about this but it just seems like such hypocrisy to me.

[evolutionmovement]

I 100% disagree with drunk driving, but my father was an alcoholic for 20 years and he would drink one of those Captain Morgans jugs a day and he would drive better (and safer) than most sober people, so it's not necessarily the drinking that gets you pulled over, but how you're driving. He even got pulled for speeding and didn't get suspected of drunk driving, though his BA must've been rediculous. He's a hairdresser and would drink between customers, yet he'd operate perfectly fine.

Steve

[Tleg93]

Hmmm, well I'm not condoning drunk driving but getting popped for one and half beers is pretty extreme. Like you were saying, I don't think that laws stop the hardcore alchoholics from doing it anyway. I have a friend that drinks and drives all the time and it pisses me off but he never gets popped. I also have friends that weren't even drunk and they paid a heavy price for one or two beers. I just think that the laws aren't just. You can't stop a drunk from driving unless you're there to take his/her keys.