i burned out of a metro parking garage yesterday.

bite me.

i cant condone crazy driving in traffic, but when there are no other cars around. why not have fun? but let me give that dude the benefit of the doubt, its possible he is the not the best driver and he simply exceeded his driving abilities. he goofed. sucks for him. my advice would be to take a high speed drivers education course. thats always tons of fun.

 

First week I had my 8 I was driving home along a state park, in the distance I see a bunch of little reflectors where they shuoldn't be on the side of the road. As I get closer I see it is three deer standing about 5 feet from the highway. I swerved towards the breakdown lane and luckily they bolted in the opposite direction, I would have probably ripped an injured deer to pieces with my bare hands had it screwed up my car that soon after the purchase.

 

Actually, all this talk of deer reminds me that every time I drive down the Saw Mill River Parkway at night—at this time of year—I pass a total of maybe a dozen deer, in groups of two or three, quietly grazing just feet from the side of the road. I've never seen one bolt across the highway, but I know they do. Only defense I have is to drive slower than normal (45-50 instead of 55-60mph) and keep scanning the right side of the road. And I'll drive in the passing lane if no one's behind me. Pretty scary when you spot them, though.

 

Dam, lots of deer stories.. That used to be a huge problem when I lived in west Texas. Luckily I never hit one, but I had to hit the brakes a few times to watch them lazily cross the road..

In Houston the obstacles are different. I've avoided tires, a queen sized mattress, a wooden chair, a roll of carpet, bricks, and an aluminum ladder..

 

I have very close calls everyday just about. My city is the record holder for the worst drivers, true story.

We also carry the title for highest teen pregnancy rate, and STD's aswell.

I'm pretty proud of my city

 

The other day on a sort of windy road, there was a straight away and I was following a gravel truck, and I start to pass him, and all of a sudden he comes into my lane a little bit, scared the crap out of me. He was probably less than a foot from me and I was less than a foot from him. Nooo more passing big trucks on little roads for me.

 

When I had about 5000 miles on the the RX8 (now she's 15000), I entered a familiar roundabout with wet pavement (DSC on, 2 lanes, no traffic, night but well lit, armco). I am used to do that -same conditions- with my FWD Alfa 159 saloon, drifting oh-so-smoothly and neutral. The RX8 instead snapped suddenly the front end, and the DSC recovered my error 1 yrd from the armco. Now I am smoother, but knowing the actual recovery distance the DSC gives on the wet is priceless!

 

what i do if someone is tailgating me while im going the speed limit or faster is slow down to about 5mph under the limit to make them mad and then speed up if they try to pass me. it pisses me of when they tailgate me when im goin fast.

 

Hmm.........when i first got my car, took this back road i'm familar with, with my previous cars. I guess i took the curve too fast and the DSC kicked in, if it wasn't for DSC, might of hit some bushes.

This other time, i'm driving on freshly packed snow and there a downhill right turn, suddenly i feel my back end slide out and i'm like thinkin oh crap.....and i see the front end, wantin to run into the curb....DSC kicked in again when i hit the brakes...first encounter with driving RWD in snow.....

Also had a deer incident on this backroad, luckily i saw it just in time and then stayed stop there for another few seconds, cause if there one, there always another one trailing it and then sure enough, another one comes running.....

Another time was when i was on a 2 lane road, one for each direction, this mid 90s chevy blazerr in cross traffic has its blinker to make a left into the shopping plaza. The car in front of me makes a right turn into the plaza but i'm going straight...this freakin blazer decides they want to make that left at the very second that i'm about to pass the entrance for the shoppin plaza....i'm in 6th gear, no time to react to downshift, i hit the brakes hard swerve into the plaza then swerve back left into the lane i was in....freakin blazer stopped in its tracks....it was weird because somehow it was like a dance move....cause that could of been easily a T-bone there.....but i turned in the direction of where the blazer was heading. The cars behind the blazer i think saw a show....but the funny thing was my heart wasn't pounding.....but after a while, i was like wow that was an accident waiting to happen......

 

In a 350 entering a freeway on a 300 degree on ramp. ( almost full circle because the direction was about 270 degrees. Pickup truck with furniture in the back loses some furniture. This was a two lane onramp and i was in the right lane as was he. i swerve to the left one at say... 35-40 mph and as i turn back to the right the car keeps getting pulled out. Rubbed the guard rail.

Had two girls in backseat too. x_x Driving reputation ruined

If it was an 8 then i'm pretty sure i would have been ok. 350s just love to let their tail get out. fatty jdm stangs

 

Well, sorry if you feel it is hating, but to hear your story that you are going double the posted speedlimit in a spot where there is a parking lot at the end of your fun curve, and people are noted to pull out of there, and then your story about saving your *** is when someone actually does do that, hey, in my book that's just plain stupidass behavior.

And your DSC story was the same issue.

If you were driving responsibly and you had a close call, hey no hating. Instead a "glad you're ok. Or even driving a bit irresponsibly, but in an area where you're not going to hurt anyone but yourself (such as a race track), then again, it's "wow, you're lucky to get out of that one!".

--------

I had another "that was lucky" encounter three weeks ago - there's a road nearby me that has two left-right 90 degree curves in it. The road is an east-west road, and this chicane, of sorts, moves the road 100 yards to the south. Approaching from the east, you make a hard 90 degree left, and then a hard 90-degree right - both turns are marked 15 mph, and they are a hoot to rocket through at 45 or so - you can see across the corner prior to making your corner entry, so you're not likely to get a big surprise shooting through one.

Or so I thought ...

Out for a drive one Saturday morning, I drove my approach to the first corner - a quick left, then there is a 100-yard straightaway and a quick right (presumably, they built the road to follow the land they could acquire for it) - as I approach the corner, i do a quick scan across the corner to the upcoming straight and out to the following corner - no other cars, bikes, deer, etc.

I drop down to 2nd gear for the corner, rev match, taking the corner at about 8/10s when directly in my apex path (just to the left of the centerline) is a goddamned Canada Goose, sitting in the road, sunning itself on the pavement - how the hell did I miss seeing that?

I quickly gave the brakes a really hard poke, tightened my line through the corner to cross the centerline and pass him down the right side of the car, when the damn thing sees me, panics and hops up to his left by about 3 feet, putting him right in the center of my new path. Committed at this point to my line, I'm completely fucked. I jam hard on the brakes, and steered, the DSC, antilocks and the hand of god all doing their things - and the car stopped right where the sumbitch was standing - and just instants before I would hit him with the last 1 mph of velocity, he takes a wing flapping step backwards - sort of rises up and hops backwards three feet, thus preventing the impact.

The car screeches to a stop and that sumbitch is standing there right in front of the car, about 3 feet from the front license plate, looking up the hood at me. We stare at each other a good 10 seconds or so, and then he calmly turns to his right and walks down off the left shoulder of the road and into the ditch and the meadow to the left of the road.

I just sat there for a few more seconds collecting my thoughts, then motored home slowly to have a big *** martini!

Now when I go to shoot those corners, I first drive it one direction at the posted limits, then back the otherway - scanning for potential trouble, and then and only then do I run it hard through there.

 

So imagine this.....

I'm driving over to my buddy's house and decide to park in his lower driveway. I decide that I'll be cool and back up the driveway so that I won't have to back down the driveway in the dark.

The driveway slopes up and then levels off near the top. This creates a bit of a blind spot when you back up the driveway with the butt end of your car taking up most of the view.

So I back up....turn off the car......walk around the car to get my stuff out of the trunk and I see this...........
.
.


I felt the craziest mix of sadness and relief ever.
I was blown away by what I -ALMOST- did.

That trailler could've raped the side of my car. I felt like vomiting haha. I had to snap a pic just to remind myself of how bad things could've been.

 

wow, that would have really sucked! That rusty trailer would have done some damage

 

Heading into Orlando via US-192. Two lane road. One eastbound and one westbound. It's all woods and fields for miles. Not many houses, but there is several small roads that intersect the highway with stop signs. Doing 70-75ish.

An old Pontiac Bonneville is stopped at one of the stop signs. Evidently forgetting the speed limit is 70 on a freakin highway, decides he/she will pull out right in front of me. And I mean RIGHT in front of me. Instincts obviously. No brakes at all. Hard pull of the wheel to the right, putting more than half the car off the road into the grass. Hard pull to the left to throw in back on the road ahead of that SOB. Literally, 2 seconds worth of total movement. Over as soon as I saw it. I'm quite certain had I jammed on the brakes, I would have lost some control in the grass atleast. ABS or not.

Both myself and a friend I had with me just sat there in silence for about 5 seconds. (pooing ourselves) Then, and I quote, he says "Holy **** man! ..... ... That was perfect."

 

i said when im goin the speed limit or faster. and i didnt mean fast by 95 in a 45 mph zone i ment fast by 5-10 over or just the speed limit if someone goes 35 in 45 i would get pissed too or if some one is in the fastlane goin slow i get pissed too.

 

One time, I was driving home, and I almost ran out of gas. Drove 15 miles with the fuel light on.

Does that count as a close call?

 

Maybe...I know my low fuel light comes on when I have a little less than 2 gallons of gas left and I've driven for probably 20miles with it on. I admit it is unnerving, but I don't think driving 15 miles with the low fuel light on will be a problem unless you're FI or redlining a lot for those 15 miles.

I assume that I have about 25-40 miles (highway) left once the light turns on before I am SOL.

 

fuel light comes on, you have 30 miles left. it only happened to me once. and by the time i got to the gas station i had .4 gallions of gas left.

heading into balitmore the other day, i was about to merge into the middle lane, from the left lane. blinker, check, move. etc. when i was about 1/3 the way in the lane, this pickup swerves into the lane doing about 75 (i was doing about 60ish). the guy was looking at a map. doing 75. if you are lost, you need to pull over, not run other people off the road... ridiculous. thanks to the 8s great handling, and some decent reaction time, i was able to quickly and safely pull the 8 back into the left lane.

the crazy thing is, about 2 or 3 miles we caught up to him, due to traffic. and he did the same thing to a beige subaru. .... some people should not be allowed to drive.