Worst. Drive. Ever.

So,�travelers of FHDC, please describe your worst ever experience driving, excluding accidents.� Could be driving through a nasty thunderstorm, snowstorm, getting stuck in traffic for weeks, getting lost and ending up in Albequerque, stuff like that.

For me:� Driving home from a Rams Head show in the dark and pouring rain, in which the rain just would not let up.� I was going maybe 40-45 MPH the whole way and still would hydroplane occasionally.� Scary ride back when you can't see the road.�

I took my little sister to the mall one day. On the way home, snow was falling like the stock market in the late twenties. The roads were covered in a solid layer of ice. I was going 20 MPH on US 27 (Speed limit 60) and still spun out. I had only gotten my license a month or so earlier, so I completely freaked out. I came to a stop right at my exit, conveniently enough. Another car finished a long slide right next to me. I was so certain they would hit me, but they narrowly missed.

Anyway, I was about a minute from my house at that point, but I went no faster than 5 MPH the rest of the way. My street has two decently-sized hills just before my house, so even at that speed I ended up sliding again and this time hitting some concrete someone had put up to prevent cars from driving in their lawn. My hub cap was bent, but there was no other damage, so I don't really consider it an accident. When I got home I threw my keys onto the dining room table and yelled out, "I'm not picking her up, I'm inexperienced and value my life!"

Hands down, when I moved from Baltimore to Chicago. Neal and I drove a Penske truck with an attached trailer carrying my car from Baltimore to Rochester to Chicago over Thanksgiving weekend. Everything that could go wrong, did: including snowstorms so bad we had to stop for a night in Cleveland, and a truck with no windshield wiper fluid -- and windshield wipers that would become so frozen with snow and ice so quickly that they were useless anyway. Never again.

That Rams Head drive was pretty bad, too -- and I was only going from Annapolis to Baltimore. Shelly and I braved a hellishly rainy drive once to see Robbie Schaefer at Jammin' Java, and Ellen R. and I once hit the Worst Traffic Jam Ever on our way to a DVN show on the Eastern Shore. Then there was the time the three of us tried to go to the Birchmere by way of National Airport and ended up driving in circles around D.C., Baltimore, and northern VA for hours. And FRFF '01, when my car broke down on the Jersey turnpike, and as soon as Neal and I pulled over, some dumbass driving too close to the shoulder took my driver's side mirror off. And the time Gordon and I went from New York to Annapolis for a DVN show and I ended up throwing up at the Molly Pitcher rest stop.

Wow. OK, shutting up now.

It was a couple of winters ago, when I still had my Eclipse with absolutely no power. I was living in my old house that was on a hill/mountain. My driveway was actually at the top of a very steep piece of hill. It was very snowy that day and my car (light, no power, bad tires) was slipping all over the place the whole way home. But it really got bad once I got to the hilly areas near my house. The roads were curvy AND steep so you couldn't just try to use your momentum from the flat parts to power yourself up the hills, because you had to curve as well and do that slowly enough to avoid skidding off the road. I took the "alternate route" to get to my driveway which is two other roads that make a triangle and intersect the steep road...less of a grade to go that way. I got ALMOST all the way to where I could coast down into my driveway but then my car wouldn't make it up the little hill I had to crest to get there. After all that progress I had to turn around and go back down to where I veered off onto the alternate route. I had to go the "hard way" to my place.

At the steepest hill right before my driveway I was trying to coax the car up...it was one of those times when you're spinning your tires like crazy just to gain an inch at a time. The engine was already bad and it was definitely not liking this workout. Eventually I gained enough inches to crest the hill (the only reason the "hard way" worked out better than the easy way is it was a straight "up" rather than a triangle where I had to turn and lost momentum) and got into my driveway. I was crying and shaking. And to top it off I got stuck in the driveway and couldn't get into my little site spot. So I just turned off the car, left it parked in the middle of the driveway blocking everything, slammed the door, and walked into the house and started sobbing and someone else handled parking my car for me.

I. Hate. Snow.

Oh man.
Has to be one time driving from VT back to MA... probably back in.... 95 or 96. It was a snow/freezing rain storm, alternately.

This resulted in the highways being covered in about 6 to 8 inches of slush with a coating of ice.

I was driving a 1980 toyota celica with completely bald tires.

I did not get out of 2nd gear the entire way.... and was barely making it up hills on the highway.... had to stop about 5 or 6 times to clear the 3-inch buildup of ice over the headlights. Oh, did I mention this was at night? Well, it was.

It was hellish.
I can't remember exactly, but I think it was around 6 hours, for what would normally be a 2 hour drive.

Well. I wasn't driving. BUT.

it would have to be last september. on the back of Chris' bike.

Coming through the Fraser Canyon we hit rain. pouring, drenching, pounding rain. and the temperature dropped.

it had been hot the few days before, and so the road was slick.

Chris was shivering so much I could feel it through his gear.

He couldn't see farther than tailights ahead of him.

Thankfully we were traveling with friends of his who were in an SUV, they were ahead of him and made sure they stayed close enough that he could follow the taillights. we were going maybe 50-60 km/h. it was too wet to aeven think of going faster than that. we pulled over at the first possible place and I rode in the SUV after that.

I think the temp. was about 6 or 7 but when you're soaked through (to the skivvies--even through the gear) and open to the wind as you are on a motorcycle.

When we stopped I figure chris was in the first stage of hypothermia.

That was scary.

When I helped my older sister move to Utah we started out in Aberdeen driving my grandma's old VW beetle,� we got to Idaho, and it died,� then we rented a U-Haul which died about 30 miles from where we rented it, we called the road assistance for the U-haul company and they brought us another truck and helped move stuff from the dead one to the running one,� not more then 20 minutes later the back tire blew,� so we had to call again,� instead of changing the tire on that truck they brought us another truck to use, that one made it to Utah, but when I rented it, I wasn't thinking about how I was going to get back and only rented it as a one-way.� So I ended up being stuck in super-mormonville for 8 days before I could get ahold of my older brother who sent me money to catch a greyhound back home.� The Greyhound ran beautifully, all the way back to Olympia.� :)

1 of 2 choices.

The wost drive ever was the drive home from Falcon Ridge 2000. I was coming back 90 Westbound. A pickup truck pulling a poorly designed homemade trailer lost control and came across the grassy median. It slammed head-on into a car on my side of the thruway. The two idiots who were riding in the bed of the pickup truck were tossed and died. The idiot in the passenger seat in the bed of the truck wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was tossed from the vehicle and died. Only the driver survived in that vehicle.

Luckily, the people on my side of the thruway were able to walk away with very minor injuries.

I was stuck in the ensuing stoppage for over 2 hours.

The worst driving experience I had came just a couple of weeks ago on my way to Beacon, NY to meet a friend and go to the Weird Al show there. I was getting on to 84, a tractor trailer darted across my nose to reach an exit from the leftmost lane. A blue minivan which had been entering the highway from the entry/exit lane on my right swerved right to avoid the truck, ending up on the shoulder of the exit lane.

Instead of staying on the exit lane and looping around again, the blue minivan decided it was going to make a bolt to get on the highway. It pulled out from the shoulder, across the exit lane and right into the space where I had been just a moment before I noted the minivan careening toward me. I floored the pedal and was straddling the white line for some time trying to get back into my lane.

Thankfully the lady driving the SUV in the lane on my left saw what was going on and had slowed down enough to leave me some room to get back on the roads. But, man, it was scary there for a while.

The two idiots who were riding in the bed of the pickup truck were tossed and died. The idiot in the passenger seat in the bed of the truck wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was tossed from the vehicle and died.

ahhh, natural selection at work.

Only heard of one situation where a person was alive only because they DIDN'T wear a seatbelt. My mother's friend's neice was driving home (in Maine) and hit a moose. She jumped over to the passenger side and was able to get away. Cops said if she didn't she would have been decapitated.

I think it had to be the one for my old nvidia graphics card. nothing worked right...

oh, drive. I thought you said driver.

nevermind. :)

the worst drive I had was definitely on February 16 this year. I had been in Boston seeing two excellent Kris Delmhorst shows the day before, and unfortunately, a gigantic blizzard was working its way northeast. I had originally intended to stop somewhere in New Jersey on Sunday (the 16th) then go home the next day. well, leaving Boston around 8 after visiting with friends, I realised that I'd be lucky to get to New York.

So I called Gordon to see if he could put me up for the night, assuming I could make it. he said it wouldn't be a problem, and that it wasn't yet snowing in Queens. excellent. so I sped through Massachusetts and Connecticut, and as I approached the New York border, it started to snow lightly. no problem, I can drive in a little snow.

well, it got progressively heavier as I headed southwest, and as I approached the exit for US 1, I skidded enough (but regained control) to convince me that I wasn't going to make it all the way to Queens.

I exited and drove south on route 1, thinking that would take me closer, since South was where i needed to go. it turns out I ended up in the Bronx, at a very questionable motel.

the drive was quite scary, as people were skidding a lot, and at 11:30 at night, there was increasingly less traffic (increasingly less? neat) the ironic thing was that the next morning I was able to make the drive to Gordon's without any trouble, even though it was still snowing heavily. light makes a huge difference. (actually, had I thought about it, low gear would have also made a huge difference, and I probably would have made it to Queens that night. oh well.)

the runner up was when my parents and I were driving from VA to Buffalo and there was a 16 car accident (all caused by one careless truck driver) that delayed us for 2 hours. it was the day of the penultimate Fruvous show before the hiatus, and I was going to drive to Rochester once we got to Buffalo. fortunately, I still made it to the show in plenty of time. (or unfortunately, perhaps, as Martina Sorbara was the opener)

I understand, four miles hardlly qualifies as worst-drive material. But this was a very woolly four miles in frozen fog. Frozen fog, for anyone who hasn't had the pleasure, combines the best features of freezing rain (icy streets, people slipping all over the place, impossible to get up hills) with those of fog (inability to see bloody three feet in front of you). I was driving (skating, really) across the Old Lawe Street bridge; I didn't know what lane I was in or whether I was going to make it up the hill or whether I was going to plow into what I thought might be a car. It was a great relief to get out of that muck.