My kid’s just finished the classroom part of driver education and it prompted a discussion of crazy things we’ve seen other drivers do.
The craziest thing I saw, many years ago now, was I came up behind a guy driving a Ford Ranger pickup and could see through his rear window that he was doing tricep extensions with a dumbbell in his right hand. I was more surprised as I passed to see he was shaving with an electric razor in his left hand. I don’t really know how he was steering.
Kiddo said they were told personal grooming was the fourth leading cause of accidents.
Me and a few other drivers were parked by an unmanned gas station (late night near airport pickup that charged per minute from entry) - anyway, an early '00s renault hatchback swings into the station, pulling a U-turn before three unmarked police vehicles with sirens on surround it.
Officers step out and walk over, having a chat with the driver for a bit. Then, the driver steps out and the other passengers start to come out, one after another. After a little bit, there are twelve adults have exited this little hatchback along with a bunch of luggage. Driver is arrested shortly after.
Never seen anything like it before or after.
Pittsburgh has some of the worst drivers I’ve ever seen. Running red lights and waiting for yield signs to turn green is the norm there. I’ve seen at least 5 accidents caused by a Pittsburgher stopping at the end of an entrance ramp to a highway.
Unfortunately my car was finally sent to the body shop after 7 years dodging people, and 3 months from leaving the city by a lady who decided to make a left turn from the right lane. Luckily I always have a dashcam running, no one was hurt and the police wrote her a ticket. This lady was a high level Karen, and went ballistic when I asked if she was ok after she crashed into me. Best part was when her husband showed up 10mins later and apologized to me for his, “dumbass wife” who just knocked the mirrors off his truck.
I was rear ended while waiting to make a left turn on a rural highway. We got out and look at the car behind us. The windshield is completely splattered in red. It was two guys eating chips and a bowl of salsa.
In the car: lady fully putting on mascara in a rainstorm
With a car: also raining, guy speeding doing 100 in a 65 with no lights on. Wife pulls the car onto the highway and he almost hits us, jerks left and 360s in this long, slow (in my memory it’s slow, probably happened in like 4 seconds) spin and comes to a dead stop facing perfectly forward and in the dirt of the median. Watched him turn on his lights and start to pull forward before we were out of sight
Flip a car while streetracing on a narrow three-lane highway in the middle of the city, in moderate traffic that was moving 70 km/h ish at most. Amazingly they didn’t take anyone else out.
I called 911. They redirected the call to the police station. After I described the incident, I could feel the officer’s eyeroll through the phone. It was odd to realize that something so extreme for me was literally just another day for them.
Edited to add:
personal grooming was the fourth leading cause of accidents.
An old co-worker liked telling the story of how he was rear-ended on a very busy city highway. The other driver was a young woman who stepped out the car all distraught and said “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you, I was putting on my makeup!” My coworker was ready to wave off the incident because there was basically no damage to any car but he changed his mind as soon as he heard that.
