Worst experience whilst driving

Pretty wise advice anyway.

My worst experience was driving down the M3 in the morning rush hour at the speed limit in lane 3 and my bonnet flipping up and covering the entire windscreen. I had to Ace Ventura it onto the hard shoulder. Luckily the guy in the middle lane saw me and let me in while slowing the other cars in the inside lane. I had the windscreen replaced the day before and this was the first time I'd used the car. There was no warning light or alarm and Autoglass had a courtesy car on my drive within 2 hours and repaired the car in a week or 2.

Scariest one for me was heading towards manchester to pick up some friends. Unbeknownst to me, one of my handbrake cables had very slightly seized and was causing the near side rear brake drum to boil the brake fluid. At the end of the M602 is a set of lights, all lanes occupied and of course, the lights are red. I was easing off down to about 60 and just as I hit my braking zone, my foot goes straight to the floor with a "pshhh". F*****g wonderful. The Mk4 Golf ahead of me is about to have its arse rearranged. 2/3 increasingly frantic pumps on the brake pedal later and I'd managed to get some semblance of braking power. Nearly bent the pedal through to the engine bay, cheapy tyres screeching, smoke show like something out of max power and about a foot of space left between my grille and the boot lid of the Golf. Heart was racing like the clappers for the next 15 minutes. Cruised to my friends at the station and called for recovery. Alton Towers has nothing even close to that.

I remember being in the passenger seat with my mum in a Renault Laguna that must've been a Friday afternoon job from them. Hateful thing. That wasn't the bad part though. We were coming past a retail part that forms a T junction. We're coming from the top right of the T straight through. Simultaneously, a car coming from the top left of the T turning down towards the bottom and an MG ZT estate in BRG coming from the bottom of the T to turn right both pulled into our lane, noticed us and slammed on. I knew, categorically, that the gap wasn't big enough to squeeze through. My normally laid back mother exclaimed "S**T!" and we had no chance of stopping. Miracles happened and we came through unscathed, though I have no idea how. I assume my mum channelled her inner Schumacher and managed some sort of chicane like manoeuvre before coming to a halt. We sat in the middle of the lane for a good 30 seconds with hazards on while we composed ourselves. No idea how there wasn't a pretty hefty accident.

Had a couple of moments (albiet one on a bike) that 20+ years on still make me shake my head. The first was with a friend at the time who was driving. To put it into perspective I was an utter loon when I passed my test and bounced of the rev limiter in every gear even when going down the local shops, had a minor accident when didn't stop and went into the back of a car infront on a country lane, but that was quite low speed and just had to pay for a bumper. Learnt my lesson pretty quick and went for low and slow before my first year of driving was up. But a few years later...

1) Mid/late 1990s; Got a lift from a friend when going out for a few drinks with others, Dorking Road, in Surrey, heading south, quite a long straight road with only a couple of roads joining and a few houses.

Friend had a very well sorted modded S2 RS turbo, known RS owners car used for track days, it wasn't crazy power but was well sorted in terms of brakes, suspension and gearbox. We were behind another friend in his mildly modded 325 E30 and went for an overtake just as the road straightened out (corner past Blue Anchor pub), BMW guy responded and we ended up "racing". Last time I looked at the speedo it was nearing 120, neither of us had seat belts on and we were creeping past the BMW, but not quite enough complete the "overtake" and pull in/over, so was still on the wrong side of the road.

It was then we saw some lights coming out of a driveway a little way infront of us (on our side), indicator showing they were turning in our direction.

The car stopped turning out of the driveway before it got onto the road and we flew past them (on their side of the road as we were still next to the BMW). Didn't even have time to finish ".....FUUUUUUUUUUUUU......", from the moment of seeing the lights appear to flying past them, it happened and was over so quick.

Not a chance we would've either slowed down by any amount of speed, or avoided. There's a golf course either side of the road with patches of woodland seperating the holes. No barrier of any kind, we would've ploughed into either the car, trees or both at well over a ton with no belts on if they hadn't of stopped pulling out of their driveway.

By far and away the biggest "got away with it" moment of my life.

2) Ok, this one technically doesn't count as it was on my mountain bike, but it left me with a similiar feeling of helplessness (not being able to do anything to avoid the situation) as well as "howdafuqamIstillhere" feeling. It also felt a bit of "karma" after what happened with the RS Turbo.

Coming down past bottom of boxhill approaching the bend just before Rykars cafe, chilling as was going up the hill on opposite side of A24, had one hand on handlebars, no cars behind so was freewheeling around 15-20mph and slightlly in middle of my lane (the exit from Box Hill is a bit blind, so I'd moved out into more middle of lane so anyone coming out could see me better)..

No cars behind or pulling out, so stayed roughly in middle of my lane, as I got to the blind bend and turned into it a motorhome (one of the American type bus things) with foreign plates, came round the corner completely on my side of the road.

Absolutely nothing I could do, but I got lucky as the driver of the RV pulled off an evasive manoeuvre something akin to the rebel fleet coming out of light speed and finding out the Death Star was fully operational. He missed me but managed to stay on the road (having to throw an RV the size of a bus left whilst already going round a right hand bend, then back right again to stay on the road).

Fair play to him and a bit of karma for me....

Oh well, c'est la vie...

M6 southbound, returning empty in a 7.5 tonne. Savage crosswords hitting from the right.
Put me onto 2 wheels and it swerved into lane 2, managed to halt the swerve... More luck than skill.
Could not stop on the hard shoulder it would have flipped me over, slowed down and it happened again.
A kind 40 footer, saw my issue and sheltered me to the next junction.
Thought I would try back roads down to Kendal, not my greatest idea, back end was lifting, other trucks up to 18 tonnes had been flipped.
Eventually got home, utterly shell shocked.
I had received a call from work... Would I come in at 5am tomorrow and take the same vehicle to Hull from Liverpool, oh yeah right, high level motorways and bridges, not a bloody chance.
I still get nervous in high winds now.

My god like reactions when I was younger saved a dogs life, it was like something from the matrix where everything slowed down, and I saw everything in complete clarity, managing to bring the car to a stop (very much with the aid of ABS) inches from killing the dog who'd managed to break loose from his owner walking him. It felt like I was actually alongside them as the dog broke free, I didn't think it was possible for a car to stop so fast.

A badger I encountered was not so lucky, and yeah the noise was horrendous and I can still hear/feel it, probably 20 years on now. It got wedged under the car for a good few yards, so the scraping of skull on tarmac still haunts me.

Yep, those crosswords are a bh for van drivers.

I really hate this fire tablet

Not whilst driving, but road related...

Walking down the pavement in our village, my then 4 yr old daughter on her little bike pedalling slowly in front of me. She suddenly veered off the pavement, off the kerb and fell off onto the road as a car approached from behind. Thank goodness the driver was going slowly, and was able to stop. Still gives me the heebeejeebies thinking about it 17 yrs later.

For my part, overconfidence and a really badly judged overtake on an A road, where I'd failed to see a blind summit. A driver appears coming the opposite way, how we all managed to avoid each other I'll never know, all kudos to the other drivers. Made me feel sick that my stupidity could have cost lives.

I did this on the M4 driving home to Oxford from my then girlfriend's house near Bath back in the early 90s. I had work the following morning, so instead of leaving at a sensible time and going home and sleeping, I decided to stay, and leave early. It was about 4:30 AM, and without wishing to be crude, I'd not exactly had a great deal of sleep...

I was woken by the clattering of debris on the underside of the car, and the steering wheel snatching out of my hands as the front wheels hit the ramped kerbstone on the inside edge of the hard shoulder. I remember grabbing the wheel and yanking it to the right, followed by a rather underwear soiling tankslapper which to this day I have absolutely no idea how I recovered (pure luck!)

Scared the absolute crap out of me. Had to pull over and compose myself before I was able to drive on.

An eight hour drive to Aberdeen. About 5 miles to go and roadworks reduced the dual carriageway to one lane. About a mile into the roadwords the wagon half a dozen vehicles in front of me ground to a halt. I was trapped there for 7 hours before they managed to recover the wagon and get the traffic moving again.