Worst/scariest moment on 2/4 wheels

[dale1uk]

Was going through some old photos and came across a picture of my scariest motoring moment. About 10years ago I stupidly thought it would be a great idea to do a pillion lap of the Nurburgring on the back of my mates Aprilia RSV millie!

It was the craziest/worst/scariest 8 and a half minutes of my life. There were points where I was genuinely thinking of how to tuck and roll when I came off the back

I don't ride but I'd done quite a few road miles as a pillion on that and his previous bike, a CBR 600, but nothing could prepare for that lap. It's definitely not something I'd recommend!

Anyone else had any instant regret/**** your pants moments on 2/4 wheels?

 

[Dis86]

2nd car crash. Through a wall, down a bank and in to a tree. If I hadn't hit the tree it was down a ravine in to a river 60ft below. Thanks tree.

 

[Frozennova]

Couple of weeks into MX5 ownership, looped it an ended up facing the wrong way on the opposite side of the road, luckily it was a quiet sunday afternoon so there was no traffic coming towards me

Ironically with twice the power I've never come close to repeating said incident

 

[Delta3D]

Guy trying to overtake me in a 1 Series over a blind hill with solid white line in the middle of the road.

He hit someone head on doing ~140mph combined, had I been a second further back he would have hit my rear quarter harder (still hit it) and I'd have dug into the verge and rolled, most likely causing serious injury/death.

 

[encephalopathy]

Tank slapper on an off camber bend in the wet that finished with me doing a 180 and facing the way I came. 16v Clio with a penchant to try and swap ends.....

 

[Phil99]

When the driver parked in a lay-by next to the 50mph road I was driving along decided to do a spontaneous U-turn across the road, hitting me in the process. Seeing a tree getting rapidly closer as the car was sent in to a ditch is not something I ever want to repeat. Fortunately my car hit a tree stump on its b-pillar resulting in no injury to me, but a total write off for the car. Basically sounds like a tame version of Dis86's crash

 

[Slam62]

A squirrel ran in front of me just as I exited a roundabout, I slammed on the brakes but kept moving, didn't feel a bump or anything, do you think the little blighter was ok?

 

[Lopéz]

Literally too many to count.

Wall of death in a 205 GTI

Jumped a blind crest at about 90mph in same 205 GTI only to find that over the brow was a left-right-left switchback, still no idea how I recovered that.

150mph as a pillion on a ZXR750 through a small Welsh village

120mph through the lanes, broad daylight in a highly tuned S12 when I encountered an oncoming Pajero

Etc
Etc
Etc

I'd be here all night.

 

[shauncr91]

Spinning off at Oulton Park onto the grass on a very wet day, felt the car dig in and do a kind of 'hop' across the grass. Was certain I was going to roll but thankfully got away with it.

 

[rallyslag]

Worst i remember(i have lost to many freinds on 2 wheels) thankfully none reasontly! 1988 i think ? I was with some mates all riding lc's or ypvs's . going up the A243 past chessington zoo as it was called then .. Somebdy decined to hit his brakes and to turn in to the zoo entrance .. I would have been doing 120+ i hit my brakes,brobably hit hin at about 70 i am guesing . bike and car written off . I had a smashed knee and some foul words ... I used to race and broke a few bones then but this sticks in my mind that the gods were looking over me . i still consider this the luckiest escape... YET!!!!

 

[Rilot]

The day I crashed my Hayabusa on the M4.
I was riding to work in London and a guy in a pickup joined at junction 8/9 and proceeded to go from the sliproad to lane three, via lane 2 and me. I bounced down the road at 70mph and watched cars miss my head by inches. Guy just drove off.

Or, every time I ever rode my RD350LC. I used to come back white after some rides.

 

[wesimmo]

I was 18, driving with 2 mates in my H reg Escort down a country lane.

Acting like a total tool and being egged on I tried to take an S bend too quickly, understeer into the grass verge, that spun the car and we started going sideways down the road.

We then hit the grass verge on the exit of the corner with the rear driver side wheel, flipped the car, barrel rolled and hit a telegraph pole a few foot up snapping it.

That spun the car around again and we ended passenger side down, facing back down the road wedged in the ditch between the road and hedge.

I tried to climb out my window by standing on the gear stick and slipped off kicking my mate in the passenger seat in the face, which was the worst injury anybody sustained.

When we got out we were 200 yards from a farm house but the phone didn't work, I'd taken the telegraph pole out after all..

I sat there swearing at myself for nearly killing my friends by being an idiot, the couple who lived there kept asking me to stop swearing but I was in such shock I just kept repeating myself.

When my mum finally turned up to fetch us (I can't remember if the farm had some sort of mobile, this was 1994, or they went to tell her) she brought my dad and brother and a rope expecting to be able to just pull the car out the ditch.

Not happening, the seat behind me, the only empty one, was destroyed by the telegraph pole, the boot was caved in, the roof dented and there was a fence post through the bonnet.

If I ever believed in guardian angels, it was that night.

 

[Begbie]

Ridiculous speed over a canal bridge, cracked the sump and went into someones hedge. Lucky the hedge was there really.

 

[MagicBoy]

About 8 years ago on the M5, couple of miles before it merges with the M6 on the elevated section. Typical 7pm traffic, I'm doing 70mph in the outside lane. The Lotus Elise in front suddenly jinks left. I then see something in the road, try to do the same and clip a large chuck of metal with the drivers side wheels. Bad noise, lots of vibration. Somehow keep it out of the guardrail and get the car across three lanes and onto the hard shoulder. Get out, both drivers side tyres are completely flat. Walk around the other side of the car and notice a smell of fuel and a large pool forming... Hurriedly turn it off.

I'd run over the rear hub from a luton Transit that was incapacitated further down the hard shoulder. Something had failed, dumped parts in the road and the dual rear wheels bounced down the motorway. The impact with the hub split the front alloy clean in two, ripped the fuel cooler and lines on the underside apart then buckled the rear wheel on the way out. At which point I fired it through the radiator of the Passat behind me.

Veritable party on the hard shoulder. 4 cars, plus the Transit. The liberated rear wheel unit had bounced off the bonnet of a Fiat with an old couple in ... it looked like an elephant had sat on it but was still drivable. Miraculously no physical injuries, so the Police ignored it and farmed it off to the Highways Agency. Who closed off two lanes to clear up the contents of my diesel tank.

Lucky escape. A colleague from an old job had an alloy wheel fail a few years earlier. He hit the barriers on both sides, wrote the car off and ended up in hospital for a week.

 

[Nasher]

Coming off a steep slip-road fully sideways on to a dual carriageway in heavy snow.

Luckily it was a RWD car so I could use power to rotate the back end round and straighten it up. Like a pro. Could have been a pileup though

 

[Cleisthenes]

Literally too many to count.

Wall of death in a 205 GTI

Jumped a blind crest at about 90mph in same 205 GTI only to find that over the brow was a left-right-left switchback, still no idea how I recovered that.

150mph as a pillion on a ZXR750 through a small Welsh village

120mph through the lanes, broad daylight in a highly tuned S12 when I encountered an oncoming Pajero

Etc
Etc
Etc

I'd be here all night.

Sounds like you should be dead

 

[SpeedFreak]

Waiting to turn right in a dedicated lane and a driver behind wasn't paying attention (on his phone) and drifted out of his lane. Got rear ended at about 30mph and shunted into oncoming traffic. The car coming at us head on managed to swerve around us thankfully. Big squeaky bum moment!

 

[Rroff]

do a pillion lap of the Nurburgring

Personally don't think they should allow bikes on there with mixed traffic and/or pillion - seems far too dangerous to me and seen many a biker go off track trying to avoid cars due to the different lines and/or nearly get hit.

Not really had anything too scary - had an instance when learning to drive going downhill around a corner when a lorry the other way was coming up in the middle of the road and as I pulled to the side to avoid the lorry with two wheels on the tarmac and two in deep wet mud on the side of the road and the sudden change in direction meant I ended up drifting around the lorry/curve sideways unintended but fortunately mostly in control and wasn't really that dangerous.

Did have a bit of a worrying one with my first car the first time I drove it properly - the brakes that worked fine at 30-40mph just didn't want to know at a good 70mph and I ended up taking a rather fast line around a roundabout off a downhill dual carriageway into the right hand exit under the eyes of a cop car that happened to pull up just as I found the brakes weren't doing anything (they didn't so much as blink) - I then headed straight to a nearby ATS service centre. (No idea how the car had passed an MOT only a few weeks earlier before I bought it).

 

[Tek81]

Two occasions come to mind. A post van coming straight out of a junction and almost hitting me. The driver just stopped in the middle of the road and looked straight at me as if he was accepting his fate. I remember the look on his face. Thankfully I managed to swerve around him despite going 60+. And the time I rolled my 3 series into a lake.

 

[Participant]

When I did this to my leg on my motorbike two years ago, almost losing it in the process.



The sewn-on bits are from my right thigh!