Crazy prangs you have witnessed

[Calaber]

I was thinking tonight about an incident that my mate and I shared around the mid 1970's, on a trip from Sydney to Jenolan Caves.

In those days, petrol was VERY cheap (about 14 cents per litre) and we all had V8's, except for Peter. Pete drove a Mini van. He was definitely a bit different to the rest of us.

Pete left by himself about two hours ahead of the rest of us to drive to Jenolan. We figured we would all arrive within a half hour or so.

The road into Jenolan from Sydney is very windy and on the day we travelled, it had been raining and the road was very slippery. As we headed slowly and carefully down the road, we found Pete standing by the roadside, with his Mini in the scrub with minor front end damage. However, being a Mini, it couldn't be driven. Fortunately, Pete was OK. He had been forced off the road by a car travelling in the opposite direction taking a corner too fast and swinging out into Peter's path. He took evasive action, but struck a roadside post and ended up off the road.

One mate and I stayed with Peter's car while the other guys drove down to Jenolan to arrange a tow. My car, an HG Monaro, was parked around the corner down a small side track where I figured it was safe.

After about ten minutes, Captain Goombah in an old Mark One Cortina comes double shuffling down the road too fast. He makes it around the right hander where we were, but lost it on the left hander near my parked car. Crunch, another dead car, into a post. We quickly moved my car into a much safer location and pushed the Cortina into the track where I had been parked. Goombah waits for the cops and a towie......

Cops arrive to investigate Peter's prang. While they are there, Goombah Mark 2 in an old Beetle comes down the road, loses it on the right hander and slots the embankment. He then selects reverse and goes to drive back up where he had just come from - PC Plod pulls him over to give him something to read......

Another five minutes, tow truck turns up and stops alongside Pete's car. The car following, a Mazda 929 driven by Goombah 3, slides down the slippery road right in front of us and slots the tow truck dead center. Tow Truck 1, Mazda 0. Goombah 3 then comes up to the cop and says "Umm, I'd like to report an accident...."

Goombah 4 drives down, gets distracted all the action, and suddenly realises he is running out of road. He hits the pick and skids towards the road side, where it drops away suddenly and he will be relying on a big tree to stop.

Cops are by now getting very exasperated. My mate and I have had the best hour of free entertainment we have ever had. None of the drivers could understand why we were laughing so much. Three prangs and one near miss in less than 60 minutes, all within a distance of about 50 metres. My other mates were really pissed off that they had missed all the fun.

Some people just don't have any sense of humour.......

Anybody else witnessed really crazy behaviour leading to prangs? (Not involving yourself)

[danja]

Heh, thats quite a story, but are you sure Pete didn't just ditch his car all on his lonesome?

Personally I haven't seen anything as grand as that, but YouTube sure has
YouTube - Car Crash In Snow - Stupid Funny
...and much, MUCH more.

[digger747]

Heh, thats quite a story, but are you sure Pete didn't just ditch his car all on his lonesome?

Personally I haven't seen anything as grand as that, but YouTube sure has
YouTube - Car Crash In Snow - Stupid Funny
...and much, MUCH more.

HAHAHA that has to be the funist thing i have seen in like 2weeks lol i cant stop laughing (poor buggers thou)

[pow3rslave]

Heh, thats quite a story, but are you sure Pete didn't just ditch his car all on his lonesome?

Personally I haven't seen anything as grand as that, but YouTube sure has
YouTube - Car Crash In Snow - Stupid Funny
...and much, MUCH more.

new meaning to the term 'snowdrift' /dadjoke

[acarmody]

Heh, thats quite a story, but are you sure Pete didn't just ditch his car all on his lonesome?

Personally I haven't seen anything as grand as that, but YouTube sure has
YouTube - Car Crash In Snow - Stupid Funny
...and much, MUCH more.

I can't work out wat the hell was happening. 1- All driving stupidly in bad weather. 2- Destruction Derby. 3- Ice skating. 4- Combo of all others. I'm betting number 4.

[Morton]

I was thinking tonight about an incident that my mate and I shared around the mid 1970's, on a trip from Sydney to Jenolan Caves.

In those days, petrol was VERY cheap (about 14 cents per litre) and we all had V8's, except for Peter. Pete drove a Mini van. He was definitely a bit different to the rest of us.

Pete left by himself about two hours ahead of the rest of us to drive to Jenolan. We figured we would all arrive within a half hour or so.

The road into Jenolan from Sydney is very windy and on the day we travelled, it had been raining and the road was very slippery. As we headed slowly and carefully down the road, we found Pete standing by the roadside, with his Mini in the scrub with minor front end damage. However, being a Mini, it couldn't be driven. Fortunately, Pete was OK. He had been forced off the road by a car travelling in the opposite direction taking a corner too fast and swinging out into Peter's path. He took evasive action, but struck a roadside post and ended up off the road.

One mate and I stayed with Peter's car while the other guys drove down to Jenolan to arrange a tow. My car, an HG Monaro, was parked around the corner down a small side track where I figured it was safe.

After about ten minutes, Captain Goombah in an old Mark One Cortina comes double shuffling down the road too fast. He makes it around the right hander where we were, but lost it on the left hander near my parked car. Crunch, another dead car, into a post. We quickly moved my car into a much safer location and pushed the Cortina into the track where I had been parked. Goombah waits for the cops and a towie......

Cops arrive to investigate Peter's prang. While they are there, Goombah Mark 2 in an old Beetle comes down the road, loses it on the right hander and slots the embankment. He then selects reverse and goes to drive back up where he had just come from - PC Plod pulls him over to give him something to read......

Another five minutes, tow truck turns up and stops alongside Pete's car. The car following, a Mazda 929 driven by Goombah 3, slides down the slippery road right in front of us and slots the tow truck dead center. Tow Truck 1, Mazda 0. Goombah 3 then comes up to the cop and says "Umm, I'd like to report an accident...."

Goombah 4 drives down, gets distracted all the action, and suddenly realises he is running out of road. He hits the pick and skids towards the road side, where it drops away suddenly and he will be relying on a big tree to stop.

Cops are by now getting very exasperated. My mate and I have had the best hour of free entertainment we have ever had. None of the drivers could understand why we were laughing so much. Three prangs and one near miss in less than 60 minutes, all within a distance of about 50 metres. My other mates were really pissed off that they had missed all the fun.

Some people just don't have any sense of humour.......

Anybody else witnessed really crazy behaviour leading to prangs? (Not involving yourself)

That's bloody epic mate, what a day

Craziest I've ever seen was a blue/grey Commodore on the Eastern Freeway doing a half pirouette and barrel roll off the embankment on the oncoming side. Dust and smoke went bloody everywhere, but I was gone past before it finished pinballing off nearby objects.

According to reports, it was the third/fourth rollover on the Eastern in past months I think wtf!!

[Pub247]

Anybody else witnessed really crazy behaviour leading to prangs? (Not involving yourself)

I witnessed many good accidents but well all of them involved me dont think I've ever actually witnessed a crash besides minor bingles....

Heh, thats quite a story, but are you sure Pete didn't just ditch his car all on his lonesome?

Wow i was wondering if someone would say that +1 for getting it in the 2nd post

[Calaber]

When we first arrived on the scene, we suspected he might have had a lose, but after seeing these dim-bulbs losing it one after the other, we weren't so sure. His car was facing the wrong way before the bend, not after trying to go around it. You could see where his car had gone off the road to the left and struck the post, then spun around to end up facing back uphill.

If he'd spun out, the damage wouldn't have been the front of the car and he wouldn't have ended up the way he did.

Nah, we gave him the benefit of the doubt.

[nemesis_adrasteia]

i turned up at the scene of an accident(im in the CFA), car full of indians had rolled this is it was a dead straight road middle of the day wasnt even windy nice spring day. as far as i could tell the bloke wasnt paying attention veered off the left hand side on to the gravel shit himself, ripped it right then realised hes over corrected ripped it back left, and with all the swerving the back end slewed out left hit the bank on the side of the road and flipped. so it we pull up theres seven of em all gather around the car getting there shit out smoking ciggs were ****ing screamming at them to put em out LPG tank in the boot no dramas after that had me a bit worried though

[Keepleft]

Hmmm, OP lot needed a warning triangle or two, or three.

70's - Up to July 1978 NSW still had (//).

[Hunter SS]

this one was crazy in the fact that if the car had gone only a foot or two either way, the guy would have missed tyhe pole and gone into a paddock. The second crazy thing was,,, that the car ended up going tail first into the pole. Not one of the nicest incidents i have ever had to attend.

[jules]

was driving up Burke Road in Hawthorn one night and some clown drives straight through a red light, across my path (luckily i was slowing to turn right) and cleans up the car in the lane next to me.

this idiot then insists we all went through the red light and that he was in the right. you wouldn't meet a bigger ****wit, the way he (and his wife too, with kids in the back no less) was carrying on. i made sure the cops got the right story, then the insurance company, so he got pinged for it.

[_R_J_K_]

I was on the bus one day, coming up to an intersection, I see this police car about 150 meters down the road, lights going and everything. So I see this police car, and I tell all of my mates around me to look over to where the cop car is.

Anyway, the police car needs to get where it's going, fast, so he descides to run the red light that he's coming up to without looking or slowing down. The bus driver sees him at the last minute and slows down just missing him. Instead he takes out the Tiida that was next to the bus, and sends it into a full 180.

It was even more interesting, because this bus was packed with people, and there was this almighty gasp. Then you could hear a pin drop.

Kinda gotta wonder what would happen to a cop that's done something like that.

[Full Spectrum]

I have only seen one,Head on. Gold VL - Red Camry.
The lady in the camry seen green and she went. But the arrow was red and the guy on my left didn't see her coming, I backed off he missed her no awareness at all. And they crashed at about 40kph each. Violent crash the rear of the VL lifted off the ground, And the camry shifted sideways a good 5 meters. Lucky noone was hurt in the accident.
Guy in the VL told me he had just got the car out of the spray shop 2 days ago.

[Calaber]

I was on the bus one day, coming up to an intersection, I see this police car about 150 meters down the road, lights going and everything. So I see this police car, and I tell all of my mates around me to look over to where the cop car is.

Anyway, the police car needs to get where it's going, fast, so he descides to run the red light that he's coming up to without looking or slowing down. The bus driver sees him at the last minute and slows down just missing him. Instead he takes out the Tiida that was next to the bus, and sends it into a full 180.

It was even more interesting, because this bus was packed with people, and there was this almighty gasp. Then you could hear a pin drop.

Kinda gotta wonder what would happen to a cop that's done something like that.

He would be treated the same as any other idiot who did the same thing. Police operating under warning lights and sirens are still subject to the road rules and it doesn't excuse them from taking all care. Probably cost him his job

[hingo1983]

Fantastic story Caliber. I don't really have anything to compare to that for road driving but one year I went to the Bathurst 1000 with my dad and a couple of mates. It was either 2001 or 2002. Skaifey won (woohoo!).

Anyway, this was one of the weirdest days of weather I have ever experienced. I originally lived in Orange which is only about 30-40 minutes from Mt Panorama so I am used to cold weather. This weekend it was freezing and windy as all hell where we were up the top of the mountain but nice and sunny down on pit straight. We make our way to forrest elbow which is the last corner on the mountain before heading down conrod.

It starts bloody sleeting and snowing and there is a thin layer of ice starting to lay down on the track while most of the cars are down on pit and mountain straights where it is nice and sunny. Lowndes is the first to arrive (from memory) and approaches the corner as he did the lap before when it was dry. He skates in on his slicks straight into the tyre wall. Instantly a nearby bogan yells out "ahahahaha Lowndsey you ********!". Was funny at the time but really poor Craig never stood a chance. As he tries to reverse out, another three or so cars also skate down the hill and render Craigs race over. As a Holden fan I was delighted.

Was such a crazy moment in the race. I have never been so entertained while being so bloody cold in my whole life.

[cxcxcxvcvcvc]

Was waiting @ a cross section in the road one day (nice quiet suburban area with local forestry around ect) The lights went green for the people on the opposite side from me to go, and as this lady gets about 1/4 off a car length out she gets cleaned up by a R33 skyline~!. Dude tried to make it through the lights and was going pretty hard when he hit. I jumped out of the car and carefully ran over to render aid, the poor woman in the festiva had to keep her eyes shut as glass fragments/shards from her shattered windscreen was all over her face and in her mouth but other than that she was physically ok!. The bloke in the skyline was fine but his skyline & the lady's festiva which he had just wrecked where both a writeoff! Luckily though both drivers suffered no serious injuries!

[hingo1983]

Actually now that I think about it, when I was a school kid I was on a bus that was involved in a bizarre accident.

I was on this bus heading to school and the bus driver was just pulling over to pick up a kid at one of the stops. This bus stop is just after an intersection. Anyway, as the bus opens its door and the kid was just about to step aboard, a mini dump truck loaded with building supplies, cement mixer etc takes a mega Nigel Mansell apex at speed while turning onto the same street as the bus. As he tries to go around the outside of the bus, he cuts it too fine and the back lifter tray clips the back of the bus.

I remember my head hitting those stupid bars that you have on the back of the seat in those old school busses. I then look out the right hand window to see a cement mixer travelling like a missile down the road. If it hit anyone, they would be in a world of trouble.

The tray of the truck was literally torn off with its load spewing out down the road. The bus copped a big dent right where the engine was. The bus was vibrating like a mofo. Nobody was injured. The kid who was about to step on the bus didn't manage to get on the bus before the impact. I remember the camera crew from a local TV station arriving before the cops or ambulance.

[alien]

He would be treated the same as any other idiot who did the same thing. Police operating under warning lights and sirens are still subject to the road rules and it doesn't excuse them from taking all care. Probably cost him his job

Stupid thing is... well.. down here in victoria anyways. That's not the way it goes. Hits the media for a few days and isn't heard of again, police member at worst goes back to police driving school.

[Hunter SS]

Stupid thing is... well.. down here in victoria anyways. That's not the way it goes. Hits the media for a few days and isn't heard of again, police member at worst goes back to police driving school.

they would cop (excuse the pun) the same traffic fine as the general public. The only time there "might" be a job loss issue was if there was a fatality resulting from the carelessness. Emergency services are not exempt from the road rules when attending an incident (in NSW anyway) but a blind eye is turned to their breaking the law. Even then, Police are limited by their own S.O.Ps to around 130kph when responding to an incident.... although, they often go faster. We can be charged even if we (firies) don't have an accident if we are deemed to be driving dangerously, and it does happen!

[sircruisealotVS]

lol, thats a cool story calaber - i can remeber the road to Jenolan caves from when i was a kid. was pretty sketchy going down in a bus on such a narrow twisty road.

one of the craziest crashes i can remember was when i was a teenager and the thing to do on a thursday night was go hang out at terrigal beach carpark (im sure anyone from the central coast can relate). so we were all 16/17 and some of us had our P's and we'd hang out there for a few hours on a thursday night till the cops ran us off.
this one night we were down there it was quite busy with alot of people doing laps around the shops and carpark with all the usual crap going on, ie, skids and stuff.

anyway, one of my mates had just got a new car, a nice new-ish liberty wagon and he was showing off in it driving past the carpark at one point heading out of terrigal. anyone familiar with the road would know its straight for a small section infront of the shops then heads up hill with a bend then a sharper bend at the top.
well he has planted it past the shops and taken the first bend at some decent speed, but not slowed down one bit - so he's a little shaky continuing up to the second bend and totally looses it overcorrecting into the retaining wall.
the liberty wasn't that badly done by, it had a fairly screwed bonnet, front bumper and guards but the rest of it was like new still.
we could only just see it from were we were down at the carpark so we start trekking up to him to help out when this dude in a rotory comes hoofing round up the hill, boosting likeing crazy - and with only a fraction of reaction time (cos he was going too damn fast!) to realise there was a car 90 degrees into a wall in the lane he tries to swerve and cleans up the tail end of my mates liberty and continues past to go head-on into a 4x4 driving in the other lane.

it was a freaking mess after that, funny thing was it took ages to clean it all up and get the three cars out of the way and there was chaos on the roads because the section where the crash was is pretty much the only way out of terrigal.
good thing was that no one got seriously injured, the dude in the rotory left in an ambo but it didn't look too serious. my mate learnt a important lesson that night, he was left paying off a huge car loan (insurance didn't cover all of it) with no car to show for it and had to buy a crappy old laser to get around in till he could afford something better.

[Calaber]

H i Atari

Yep, I know Terrigal very well and could imagine the site as you described the incident. Nolthing has changed there, the road is still narrow and has blind spots at crucial bends.

After reading your post, I recalled another incident involving another mate during the 70's (the '70's were very good for silly accidents, because most of the cars we drove were shitboxes).

Two mates owned the Ampol petrol station opposite Dalwood Homes at Seaforth in Sydney. The station was located on a sweeping corner, nicely cambered and always good for posing as you went through at stupid speeds with tyres screaming.

Graeme had an EH sedan, basically dead stock. This meant slippery vinyl bench seats and no seat belts.

Graeme decides one day to do a huge show off in front of us all at the garage, where we spent all our spare time. He took the corner from the Seaforth direction, meaning he was making a right hander. As he rounded the corner, he slid across the seat and lost his grip on the wheel. The EH continued in it's cornering, even though the road had straightened out. He travelled across the opposite lane (thankfully, no oncoming cars) through the front fence of the house next door to lthe garage and slotted a tree in the front yard.

And all of this happened right in front of all his mates.....duhhhhh!

[elemeNtz]

A mate had a falcon; first car. One day he left my friend's house which is on a windey road and tries to do a skid, overcorrects straight into the neighbours yard, writing off his car and destroying they poor guys front garden.
We haven't stopped giving him shit for it and it always seams to come up every couple of weeks; there was a "hoon" page in a local paper where readers would write it and the man who my mate went through his garden wrote in

[Mattimus]

Saw a pretty epic 'prang' today. Driving down the main street, pretty hard rain at the time. It was right after an intersection so I'm willing to bet this guy thought he could easily drop a nice fat skid when the lights went green, which he did, but managed to put his whole car through a concrete wall in the process. Car was absolutely totaled, so was the wall haha.

[TVR-190]

years and years ago when i was quite young we were heading down the coat and there had been a bad accident where a school bus had rolled and a few kids had died, i didnt witness it happen but saw the aftermath. i saw the bus and just got terrible cold shivers from seeing it.