Car Psycho
Arguably the scariest one on the list, from Jalopnik:
“One night, I’m out getting gas, and after I leave I pull up to a red light behind a beater car and we are both turning right onto a two-lane highway. We both make the right, his car doesn’t go very fast so I head for the left lane. He blocks me. I head for the right lane. He immediately kills his signal and cuts me off again. This continues for a little while before I get annoyed, gun it and go to pass him.
Again, while in the process of passing, this guy takes a dive at my car which slows me down. He’s yelling at me out his window, “YOU AREN’T PASSING ME MOTHERFUCKER!!!!” and laughing manically. We get caught at another light and he starts chucking stuff at my car, I check the traffic and gun it through the red, I’m sufficiently creeped out now.
His car seems to be faster than I initially thought and he is keeping up with me through traffic. In desperation I start turning off side-streets, and he is following me. We get to another light and I ask what his problem is and he screams, literally, screams “YOU ARE GOING TO DIE TONIGHT.” Holy fuck.
Time To Escape…
So I chuck an old coffee into his car, turn off my lights and take the fuck off as fast as I can go. At this point stop lights aren’t a concern anymore, I WANT to be pulled over. I’m ripping through little towns at 100MPH (in 25 and 30 zones) and starting to lose him, finally duck into another side street, somehow find a driveway that goes next to a garage, pull up next to the garage, lights off (car on), and wait…1 minute….3 minutes. 10 minutes.
I finally get home about 45 minutes later, white as a ghost, call the police (didn’t have my cell at the time) and report him in. I never found out what happened, I never saw him again. Literally thought I was going to be murdered…for nothing.”
Deer Car
I was at a buddie’s house hanging out with a few well-known friends for the day. His dad had just bought a few weeks before a C6 Gransport with all the bells and whistles. It was top of the line with extremely low miles, it was beautiful. Being the car lover I was I was absolutely inclined to go shotgun in a joyride with his dad to see what this beast had to offer. So he was more than glad to put it through its paces for a little spin.
We pull out onto one of the service roads nearby about thirty seconds after pulling out of their driveway and he slams the throttle and I have my head be put firmly into the headrest. I was thrilled/terrified never being in something this powerful.
So we do this twice more on a couple other service roads with him doing launch control bursts which were FUCKING AWESOME. The amount of torque from the tires were having the back-end give out a tiny bit and I felt like I would at least die with a smile on my face. Low and behold two minutes after the shakedowns I was about to find out.
So we pull back onto the highway and then take a right leading back into town, all seemed fine as he popped the gear into either third or fourth and was giving about 3/4 to 5/6 throttle when the one thing I least expected to see (even though I lived in the NW suburbs of Chicago) less than five hundred feet in front of us appeared: an unsuspecting deer in the middle of the road.
Crash in 3..2..1…
I my eyes locked contact with it and had an absolute freeze of all motor functions as I was trying to warn my buddy’s dad of imminent danger since he was looking off in another direction as he as applying throttle.
So the worst of all worst occurred as I only let out a “A-” when his dad had his eyes swing back to the road and let out an “OH SHIT,” as the deer was about ten feet away when we were going around 50mph. A loud “WPHAM” happened and a blur of brown and red LUCKILY flew straight over our heads and behind us. We immediately slowed down and pulled over with his dad using every curse word in the book. It took us a good ten seconds to process what just occurred.
To this day I’ll remember the best line I ever heard anyone say after hitting a deer in a potentially life-threatening situation of where we could have had our torsos be taken clean off: “So do we call the house or 911 first?” We both immediately busted out in laughter in the face of death and a possibly wrecked car since we didn’t get out yet. One of the most memorable experiences that I’ll probably never forget.
Damage? Nah
As for the car, I had thought we for sure were going to witness absolute horror to the front fascia…the only thing that had happened from a two-hundred plus bound doe hitting the car at 50mph WAS A POPPED RIGHT HEADLIGHT, NOT EVEN BROKEN, THE BOTTOM FRONT FENDER POPPED, NOT EVEN BROKEN OR BENT, AND THE RIGHT INSIDE WHEEL WELL POPPED WITH ONLY RUBBING THE TIRE MILDLY WITH A TUFT OF FUR AND A SMALL SCRATCH AND DING ON THE HOOD AND WINDSHIELD.
I was beyond astounded ANY car could hold up that good to a collision of any kind, even though the level of the car being so low probably contributed most to it. The level of craftsmanship of that corvette or any other now has my utmost respect for safety.
As for the doe, it got fucked over. We both had to backtrack a quarter mile to find the deer off to the side of the road, in a marsh more than fifteen feet of where it had been in our lane, with its legs doubled over and blood pouring out of its nose and mouth, just to see it give one last twitch of life before it was dead.
All in all, it took me a few weeks before I realized just how damn close my buddie’s dad and I was to being a possibly road statistic with no upper body if the deer had decided to come straight through the windshield. Made me realize my mortality pretty damn well, along with laughing at death right in its face.