Late one night, zooming home on my motorcycle on a toll road in California after working late on the job, sun had fully set.
There was a 15ft ladder diagonal on the road across one and a half lanes. I was in the half lane it wasn’t, simply zoomed past. I later called CHP about it, guess it got taken care of, but i doubt I was fast enough to prevent an accident.
I never forget that when it’s dark and the urge to crank it kicks in.
Not on the highway, but on a backroad a few weeks back…
I drove on a small back road in the rural parts between Stockholm and Norrtälje in Sweden, one of the many twisty turny roads going through forrests and between farms all across Uppland. (If you are ever in Stockholm during summer, with access to a car and have time to spare, I can absolutely recommend an evening drive on the backroads)
Anyway, as I drove through the bright summer evening, I approached a field where a older man and a dog was watching out intently toward the field, my car was in electric mode so it was quiet, as I drove past I looked out on the sunset lit field, and saw a cat, it was a big cat, but a cat…
I didn’t think much about it but 15 sec later it hit me…
There is only one kind of cat that big in Sweden, a Lynx!
The cat I saw had the same color and everything!
Sadly there was no place to stop and turn around or park, and I didn’t have my camera with my awesome super telezoom (100-400mm) with me so I could only keep driving.
Lynx’s are very shy but they still live in the area, they are my favourite big cat animal, despite have a stupid looking tail.
Then two fridays ago, I was driving very late on another back road, I took it extra slow and careful since I had recently got a (deserved) speeding ticket, but still only saw a blur of the badger that decided to cross the road just infront of my car, busted my bumper but little else…
That’s very cool!
Lots of road head. Feel like that was more common 30 years ago. Probably too risky with cell phones and dash cams getting your license plate.
In Thailand I saw a moped with a family of about 7 (not even uncommon), and a bus making a three point turn in the middle of majorly busy roads in Bangkok.
i was followed by what i assume was a police helicopter coming out of las vegas. it was the middle of the night, i was driving straight from ca to il in a very shitty 70s toyota. they had their giant spotlight on me but i never stopped, and no squad made any attempt to contact me. eventually they just peeled away and disappeared.
I’ve been in Florida where some old dude was just driving down the street right on his rim like it was normal.
I’ve seen giant monster truck wheels on everything from pickup trucks to Ford mustangs.
Semi truck lost an entire wheel and tire in front of me at night on the 405 freeway ~2006 driving in the Alameda area south of LA. The wheel and tire managed to ramp up and over the center K-rail divider and into an oncoming car at full speed. I was in the fast lane. I thought I was far enough away as I saw the entire thing unfolding from the moment the wheel came loose. The car that hit the wheel was like something out of Hollywood special effects. The wheel smashed the front in with tremendous force and sent the car airborne with the truck coming up over the hood in an end over flip. It did this as it ran up the K-rail from the opposing side and was timed so that it was almost entirely above the height of the K-rail with the brightest beam of headlights illuminating through my side window like someone briefly shining a flashlight directly inside. It felt like slow motion and surreal with stuff flying everywhere. The only thing that registered during and immediately after was that the car was coming over that rail and into me. I was super shaken up for a minute or two. Enough to pull off the road and contemplate life for a minute. It wasn’t until the next day that I saw something had hit the hood of my car and left a small dent and a few scratches, but I painted cars at the time, so no big deal.
The guy that disabled me in 2014 made a u-turn on a hill, in a blind turn from an illegally double parked perspective, directly into a passing SUV with a bicycle just behind them. The passing SUV never reacted and with the turn of the road and SUV in front of me that I had just dropped behind in order to pass this double parked king-of-clowns too important for laws, I had no warning. I never imagined that “king-of-clowns” was an intellectual mastermind level in comparison to this Ace of Spades dumb enough to drive directly into a passing vehicle in a place where it is not even legal to make a left turn from a driveway. He got a DUI two days later, while I was in the ICU under critical watch, while driving his wife’s car.
Rouge tires are super scary, they can just come out of no where and send you flying.
That seriously sucks, I know no amount of money will get you back to whole, but I hope you were able to at least get some kind of compensation from that human wrecking ball.
A guy laying on top of a mattress that was on top of a tricycle
@grasshopper_mouse @asklemmy road rage bumper cars
I was driving, my friend was in the passenger seat. It was night, and to my left the terrain was kind of generally sloping downward and away - so a fair view if there was anything to see, but it was night and not a populous location so nothing to see. Except, what must have been a low - and I mean low - meteor flew into the atmosphere in the same direction we were driving (on my left), lighting up the tops of the trees as it flew by in a giant fireball and it quickly became a smaller point of light and fizzled away. The streak in the sky must have lasted a good 2 full seconds and we were dumbstruck looking at each other after like Did that just really happen? .
One of the coolest things I’ve seen to date.
About half the cab of a big rig hanging over the lane I was driving in.
880 North in California, early 2000’s around 2AM. South of Oakland driving in the fast lane, it was foggy and I was going a bit to fast. Then I started noticing a whole bunch of weird stuff all at once; 20+ cars pulled over on the shoulder with a cop car in front of them, small rocks? all over the road that rapidly became chunks of concrete a few inches in on a side, a whole ass sideways car — at this point I’m slowing and pulling out of the fast lane, as I finish the lane change I look back ahead just in time to see the cab of the big rig dangling over the fast lane from the other side of the freeway. It just appears out of the fog, I’m not sure my car would have cleared it if I had still been in the left lane. It had punched right through the concrete median (the rocks all over the freeway were debris from the collision). The southbound side of 880 is higher there, so it was at least 4-6 feet above the ground on my side.
Bonus: A different big rig with a 25 foot aluminum ladder stuck on one of the trailers feet. It was shooting a roster tail of white sparks another 15 feet, skipping around and making quite a bit of noise. Got a good look as I passed and it had clearly been hooked for a while, it was ground down a few inches where it was making contact.
We passed a semi that had gas spraying out of the gas tank. He forgot to put the cap back on.
Not sure how far he got before he figured it out.
Where I live it’s common to see dead deer on the side of the highway. One time though a large carcass was missing it’s head, just a bloody stump. I pictured folks commuting on their way to work and seeing a crazed hillbilly sawing of the head of this beast. Of course I don’t know how that’s how it played out but I like to think so.
Just remembered another. A truck directly in front of me was hauling a very large, very full dumpster. The kind where the door is on the end for easy access. The door was chained but swayed a tiny bit when it hit a bump and a rat dropped out and skidded along the highway. Poor guy
One time I got stuck behind a huge semi-truck full of dead cows for 45 minutes. It smelled atrocious. The stench was so strong that it gave me a headache and changed my mood. The smell of death and decay is quite overwhelming when it is that powerful.
Years ago my friend and I were driving in NE Mississippi at about 2 am to visit another friend. Out of nowhere this kid - maybe 12, but doubtful if that - with no shirt on just sprinted across the road.
We both looked at each other and said, “Did you see that?”
We both had. No idea why he was there at that time but I hope he was okay.
