Have you had a near death experience on the highway?

Teenagers are dangerous creatures.
Glad to hear both of you are okay.

Thanks. I should mention that she has her permit and will be going for her license in February. So, she is still learning. To her credit, she didn’t overcorrect, which would have been really bad….

When I was in high school, my girlfriend and I were returning home from a trip to California and I fell asleep at the wheel while driving. It was about 2 a.m. and there was no traffic on the interstate, thank god.

I don’t know how long I was out but when the car finally came to rest, we were in the middle of the dirt median separating the interstate and we were facing oncoming traffic. It happened very fast and all I could determine is that the car had completely spun 180 degrees and come to rest where it did.

To this day, this is one of the most frightening experiences I have ever had in my life. My girlfriend and I were lucky not to be seriously injured and/or killed in that incident. Needless to say, I’ve never let myself fall asleep behind the wheel of a car again.

(By the way, I’m very glad that you and your daughter are okay, autumn.)

I was cut off while riding my motorcycle and went down at about 35 – 45 mph. That was the only time I had that feeling, mostly because I was not sure if there was anyone behind me waiting to run me over. I was wearing full gear and my only injury was scrapes and bruises, but still not a good feeling.

Some teenager almost made me kill him yesterday.
5:30AM, highway, making an illegal left hand turn at a red light. The little fucker was close enough that I saw his look of shock that I would DARE go when I had the green light. I missed his car by about 5 inches by swerving. Do me a favor, keep your kid in residential areas until everything is second nature. :)
it could be you though, I’ve been driving for seven years on and off, and have never had even a parking ticket, but when my mom gets in the car with me, she has a meltdown.

She’s learning, she will get better.

Well, with a permit you are allowed to drive on the highways. You have to learn sometime. And there was nothing illegal about her driving. It’s inexperience and the only way to get experience is to practice. And then it becomes second nature.

Blue – that’s so scary. I’m glad things worked out for you!

@battlemarz – I can’t imagine. You must have been wearing a helmet too, right? Lucky just scrapes and bruises!

Right, I agree with you, but I didn’t even want to think about a highway until I was super secure with my abilities in the 45mph zone. To be fair, both my brother and sister have been involved in or responsible for multiple car pile-ups so it made me overly cautious and very aware that I ws not only handling a very large machine but was potentially electing to drive my own coffin if I didn’t act appropriately. Getting in that mindset will do wonders for your driving.

And remembering that it’s just an exit, if I miss it, I need not jeopardize those around me because I’m too impatient to wait for the next one.

Yes. When I was 6 years old, my brother was driving me to the store for some ice cream and we ran head on into a Greyhound bus. I didn’t wake up for almost a week, and when I did I had stitches in my upper lip where they sewed half of it back on. Yuck!!

Two years ago on the forth of july. It was pouring and i owned a jeep wrangler at the time that was lifted on 34s. I was going up the entrance ramp onto the highway and my jeep started hydroplaning and i was headed right for the gaurd rail, so i cut the wheel to the left to avoid hitting it and my jeep did a 180(i thought i was going to flip it) and i came out of it facing oncoming traffic. Luckily it was late at night so there werent many cars and i was fine, but if it happened earlier in the day, it definitely wouldn’t have turned out well.

When I was 15, I was hit by a car as I was walking across a 6 lane divided highway. Not a 65 MPH kind of road, but a 45/50 MPH kind…still sucked! All I got was a sprained knee, but the cop on the scene said if I’d been a half step further across the road, I’d have been killed.

About 20 years back, I was driving on Interstate 88, outside of Chicago, on my way to work. Ahead of me was a tractor-trailer rig carrying an amusement ride, one of those things they set up at county fairs and such. As I passed the truck, a gondola from the ride fell off the back and slid into the left lane, tumbling and skidding, making sparks on the concrete, before sliding of onto the median strip. If my car had been 30 feet back of where it was, it would have hit me.

The truck driver didn’t notice anything wrong, and continued on his way. I wonder what he must have thought when he got to his destination.

HOW DO YOU NOT NOTICE THAT.

@asmonet, that stretch of I-88 is cursed. A few years after my incident, a guy in a gravel truck was hauling ass there – with the bed of his truck in the full up position. Several motorists were honking their horns, and one even tried to cut him off before the open bed hit an overpass. The idiot in the truck lived, but the overpass was severely damaged, and it took around 3 months before it was repaired.

Wow. Some people will always surprise me.

One time I was in a car with other Sea Scouts coming back from the National Regatta, one of the Scouts was driving, and a front tire blew when we were on the highway. The driver slammed on the brakes and we spun completely around six times, crossed three lanes of traffic, the median, and then three more lanes of traffic before we stopped. Fortunately no one hit us (amazing because there was considerable traffic on the road) and the only injury was when the Scout Leader slammed the door on his finger when he got out.

Another time, when I was about 6, we were on a cross-country trip in the old family station wagon (a 1954 Ford). All three of us kids were in the “way back” where we liked to watch the trucks behind us. One time we were going down a long, long incline and the truck behind us kept getting closer and closer…and faster and faster until…Ack! It ran us off the road and then suddenly swerved back on the highway and kept going. My dad stopped the car for everyone to get their hearts back in their chests so we could continue on our way. We figured the driver must have fallen asleep.

And then most recently was my daughter’s discovery that “slow down before you turn” means really slow down. She ran our big four-door pick up truck into the barriers surrounding the lights at a train crossing and neatly removed the front wheel. Her biggest problem was that she stuck her foot on the gas and put her hands in the air when she would have done better to do the opposite – take her foot off the gas and keep her hands on the wheel. I will never forget the look of horror on her face as the accident happened.

What impressed me most about all three accidents was how time seemed to s..t..r…e..t..c..h….... so the accident felt as if it took minutes to happen instead of seconds, and how helpless I felt.

@Darwin – yikes! And as far as time passing – exactly – that is how I felt with my daughter. Maybe it was 10 seconds, but it felt much longer. But it did take a whole lot longer for my heart to start beating normally again and to get the color back in my face. We haven’t been back on that highway again yet.

My daughter pulled another vaguely driving-related stunt this morning. Usually she drives to school with me in the passenger seat (since she still only has a permit). This morning she wasn’t downstairs as early as usual so I checked with her. She said she was up and everything was fine, and then she came down the stairs, grabbed the car key and went out the door. I stopped to put on my sweater and grab my purse and followed a bit more slowly.

However, when I got outside there was no sign of her. The car door was open and unlocked, her purse, keys and backpack were missing, and there were tire marks of a U-turn in front of our driveway. I called her phone to check on her but she didn’t answer. I called her usual going-to-school buddies and they hadn’t seen her. The neighbor across the street offered to check and see if she had gone to the bus stop for some unknown reason while I got my son ready for his bus, but he couldn’t find her either.

By this time it had been 30 minutes since I had seen her and, being a typical mom, I started to panic. I double-checked her room and both bathrooms, hollered her name a few times and called all the neighbors who might have given her a ride, but no joy.

Last year a nurse in our town went off shift, went out to her car in the hospital parking lot and was abducted and killed, so I did the natural thing: I called 911 and reported her missing. And then I sat down in the front yard and freaked out.

But all’s well that end’s well – just as the police officer arrived one of her friends called and said my daughter was at school at tennis practice and that yet another friend had picked her up. Then my daughter called and said she told me her friend was taking her before she left – maybe she did but I sure didn’t hear it! So I told the police officer where she was and why I had called so he could get back to real problems.

And then I called her back and read her the riot act.

Aaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!!! Parenthood is not for sissies!

Next time you get the chance, briefly glimpse at the guardrails and youll notice a bunch of skid marks from cars hitting them :P It happens A LOT. So long as youre alive and well, thats all that matters!! D:

Oh God. So many times. More than once coming around a blind curve, to come face to face with some idiot trying to pass several a cars all at once. I whipped my van over to the shoulder. Just glad there was a shoulder because a good portion of that 2 lane doesn’t have a shoulder.
Another time, on that same highway, there was a semi behind me. There was a flat bed truck approaching that was carrying one of those huge rolls of hay. To my horror I could see he was going to lose his load at any moment….in my lane. All I could do was brace and hang on…..just as we passed he lost it and the semi hit it. It exploded like a bomb! I shudder to think what it would have done to me and my little Grand Am.