Gapers Block published from April 22, 2003 to Jan. 1, 2016. The site will remain up in archive form. Please visit Third Coast Review, a new site by several GB alumni.
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Sunday, October 13
Dumbest thing I've ever seen? I have a picture of once such instance; some dork driving with one hand on the wheel and a besocked foot hanging out the window. I'm all for looking cool but this is just plain dangerous and stupid.
Last weekend as I was pulling out of the Home Depot on Touhy, I saw some nu-metaler in his car laying back and getting homage from his date. Must be something to do with the smell of lumber.
snort coke and wave at me.
Eat something, talk on a hand held phone, and write something in a date book (which was propped up on the steering wheel) all while going 45mph in the left lane. I nearly ran him off the road on principle.
While I've never seen it with my own two eyes, a certain manager at work constantly brags about how he cheats death composing emails on his blackberry while driving.
I once pulled up next to a SUV full of young girls stopped at a green light because they were too busy passing a joint around. They just giggled when they noticed me laughing at them. I couldn't tell if the were laughing because they just didn't give a shit, or if they just had the giggles from smoking.
I saw a man shaving his face.
I saw a woman painting her nails on the Edens once, many years ago. she had both hands propped on the wheel, one holding the nail polish brush, the other holding the bottle and being painted.
Once a dude nearly ran me over. Stupidly, I slapped the ass of his car as it passed, so the moron stopped his car in the middle of traffic to get out to pick a fight with me. I walked away. Stupidly, I will also slap your car if it gets to close to me.
I once wrote my personal statement for law school applications while driving home from college. That was many years ago, though, and now I'm a much more responsible driver. Promise.
Drive a Hummer. Period.
I made eye contact with a woman sitting in the passenger seat of a car driven by her apparent boyfriend as they passed me on the highway (I-94 in Milwaukee). Once they got in front of me, she turned around, looked back at me, then started kissing her boyfriend and pawing at his face. He didn't seem to respond at all to the affection. dumb.
I saw someone talking on their cell phone once, putting all of us at risk.
I often see the same woman knitting in traffic. I envision her eventually being skewered by those knitting needles in a rear-end collision.
I've seen someone reading a book. Pretty ridiculous. But I think Steve's pretty much has everything else topped.
Dumbest thing I've ever done was run into one of those car-deflecting barrier at the gas station. Some prep-school jackasses had parked their mercedes in a place that made it pretty much impossible to get out, but I tried to squeeze on through anyway.
I hope they kill themselves over money.
I do the same thing as misty above. If someone nearly hits me while driving I slap the back of their car. While I haven't done it in Chicago yet, I ran into 2 people in Champaign that got quite pissed.
The first time was on the U of I campus. I was in the crosswalk and the guy floored his car so he'd get in front of me. So I slapped his trunk. He stopped, got out, then yelled a nice death threat at me.
The second time I was crossing a fairly busy street and I had the green light. The guy was making a right hand turn in his company van. Again, he almost hit me, so I slapped the car. The guy got out and started running at me and yelling. Luckily there were some people behind him wanting to get places, so he had to get back in his van.
Oh, hands down:
While I was gassing up at a station in Gurnee a few winters ago, the chick (and I mean that pejoratively) on the other side of the island was smoking, on her cell phone with the car running while starting the pump. Then, she got back into her car while the pump (and her car) was still running. At first, I thought I should say something, but I figured I should just get the hell out of there as fast as possible before the place blew up instead.
I’ve gotta tell ya the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in a car: side-swiped a police wagon. It happened while I was driving home from a loooong day of school and work. The damn thing was like a rolling building but I swear, I didn’t even see it. The impact lasted a just a second. It all happened in slow motion, just like in the movies. It sheared off my side mirror, then I watched it flip over and over through the air. My itsy car crumbled like it was made out of tinfoil. I saw the officer’s stunned face before we both stopped moving. The wagon had a few scratches and two very pissed-off officers. The report took hours and nearly a dozen cops as they decided it needed a superior officer, then one from a different station to take the report. I think some cops just showed up to laugh at me and their colleagues. I got hours worth of stares of stunned disbelief from passing motorists and a handful of tickets to prove my immense stupidity. It was more than 10 years ago and I still shun that stretch of Halsted.
I once saw three guys sitting in the front seat of an old monte carlo in Hazel Crest carrying a couch across the top of the car. The couch was across the roof with the ends hanging off. The driver had his left hand out the window holding one end and the guy on the passenger side had his right hand out holding the other end. The guy in the middle just sat there with nothing to do.
Other people: a parent/guardian steering with their knees while turned fully toward the backseat to deal with a kid who didn't have their seatbelt on. On the highway.
Me: along the same lines as Hal's post - except I was sitting in the car (with 5 other people, in the middle of Senegal) while the engine was running and the driver was refueling. I remember sitting there thinking that something was a bit off. I was looking at another car at a different pump, noticing that there was a (presumably empty) coffin strapped to the roof when it finally hit me that our engine was running. The stupid part is that it didn't occur to me to get out of the car.
In High School, my friend Rob was, well, special. He bought a van at a police auction, immediately tore all the seats out of the back, and replaced them all with inflatable furniture. Then he got a little TV and a Super Nintendo, hooked them up to the cigarette lighter, and started regularly playing Mario Kart... while driving. We thought it was pretty much the funniest thing ever.
Luckily (for both us and the denizens of Morton Grove), the whole thing fell apart less than a month later.
Hal and Lisamay - sure you're not recalling something from Zoolander?
Oh, I love that scene in Zoolander. Sadly, no. That girl is. still. out. there. Beware!
Any one of those things was bad (cell phone, car running, smoking, walking away from the nozzle), but every once in a while, I try to imagine what ELSE she could have done that's right there on the sign as a thing Not To Do. I imagine it involves an unauthorized container.
My dad once started driving while only the front half of me was in the backseat of the car, while I was wearing a skirt, in front of a funeral home. Hilarity ensued.
Anything involving me and a car seems very stupid, since I've gone through 25 years of life without getting a license.
I lived in an apartment building where the back half of the building was on stilts, under which I parked. One evening while setting out for a show with a friend, I rammed my car accidentally into one of the stilts. She laughed her ass off at me (as she does every time it gets mentioned). I'm pretty sure I shook some dishes off shelves on the third floor of that place.
I slapped a taxi once and the same thing happened as related above by Misty. I slapped the trunk so hard my hand stung, BOOM! He'd nearly run me over making a left while I was in the crosswalk. He stopped his car and yelled profanities at me and we screamed back and forth at each other over who has the right of way. I asked him why a guy who is in such a hurry he's willing to run me down has all the time in the world to stop in the middle of LaSalle Street and scream at me. He gave me the finger and shouted "faakyooo" and when I began yelling "get out of the car! Either get out of the car or shut up!" he took off.
It amazes me how people who get all angry when their car is slapped don't understand why a pedestrian shouldn't get all angry when he or she is nearly killed.
This type of aggression is even worse when you're on a bike. The mere sight of a bicycle sends some motorists into a rage.
I lit my hair on fire. I was bending over, all sneaky like, trying to light a bowl, and *woosh*. The burning hair did mask the pot smell though.
Have I already mentioned the guy showing the porno magazine on a different topic? Because that guy wins here, too.
Stupidest thing I've done? Gotten three moving violations in one year. That earns you a suspended license.
Why is it that when you come close enough to me in your car, that I touch it, it's YOU who gets all pissed off and yells threats to my life? Happens to me at least once ever couple of months. (Safety tip: when someone gets out of their car to beat you up, get in their car and drive away.)
I've seen people do some dumb things like try to drive over railroad tracks, drive with broken tie rods on expressways, drive with smoking hot oil spewing out from them, drive directly behind cars that have smoking oil spewing out from them, and an assortment of tragically dumb things involving high speeds and some sort of impairment.
The dumbest thing I've ever done in a car is drive for several years without a license or insurance. Fortunately I didn't do anything else dumb in a car during that time.
No joke, at the intersection of North Ave and Lasalle, this girl was southbound, stopped in the center lane to turn LEFT, changed her mind and made a right hand turn, ACROSS TWO LANES OF MOVING TRAFFIC. About eight of us standing on the sidewalk yelled HOLY S***! Not to mention the ten odd cars she made slam on their brakes. And all the while, singing along with the radio. I still shake my head in amazement when I think about it......
While I don't drive much now, I declare a tie for dumbest thing I've seen drivers do amongst all of the self-obsessed scumbags that think it's just fine to:
- Talk on your cell phone while driving in city traffic
- Round a corner while not actually LOOKING in the direction of travel
- When turning at an intersection, you don't slow down but you do cut through the opposite turn lane of the street you're turning on to.
- Not come to a full stop at a corner, instead continuing to roll into me, despite the fact that I have the signal and the legal right to walk unimpeded.
- Carelessly run red lights with pedestrians entering the intersection.
- Drive and/or stop in the bike lane. (Opening your door without looking earns you a guaranteed cinderblock through your windshield.)
- Tearing down a residential street without ANY regard for the people that live there, including kids and seniors.
- Backing up without looking behind you
- Stopping inside the crosswalk, causing everyone who's trying to cross the street to have to either suck your exhaust or actually walk into traffic to go around the front of your vehicle.
If you don't do any of these things, excellent, carry on.
However, if you do, you earn added enmity points for acting like an arrogant prick when YOU trangress and someone calls you on your stupidity. Do you morons realize that you are risking people's lives? What dioes it take to get through to the inert tissue inside your skull that driving is not only a privelege but a resposibility?
I've seen three pedestrian/biker accidents this summer alone that were the fault of the driver. (And one more that was the fault of an equally stupid pedestrian.)
Just yesterday some jag-off rounded the corner at Clark & Belmont while jabbering to his friend in the backseat. His body was turned towards the backseat while he proceeded around the corner! He missed hitting my wife by about a foot, and only because one of his passengers and another pedestrian screamed for him to stop. When I gave him a stern look while removing my hand from his hood (He got close enough that I could touch it without stepping forward...), he shoots me this 'whatever' look in reply.
"Pedestrian versus motor vehicle accidents are common in urban areas and are associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. The impact imparts substantial force to the victim, which can be debilitating. Although pedestrians were involved in only 2% of all traffic injuries, they accounted for 13% of all traffic-related deaths. Most victims were previously functional individuals. A large proportion are children. The health care costs are considerable, as are lost years of life and forfeited earnings...In the present study, the majority of patients had residual disability at discharge. A total of 4% had a permanent handicap and 78% had temporary disability. Most hospital payments were from a state or federal source, and less than one-fifth were from a private group carrier."
- American College of Surgeons study
beat their kids
Actually I have taken pictures while driving.
But that's cause I am so freaken talented.
Until we got our Prius I rarely drove for about 7 years and usually only on road trips. Our Prius is dead silent, even when you're in it with the radio off most of the time. So I stopped to get gas, turned off the radio, dug in my bag for my wallet, got out of the car, fueled it up, and went to start it when I realized that the engine had been running the entire time. Grateful that I didn't end up a winner of the Darwin Awards, I drove off shaking.
Otherwise in college I had a car with the wrong headlights in it which meant that they were about 25% as strong as they should be and my windshield wiper motor quit working. I drove that way, in the rain quite frequently, for about a year.
That should have been:
"However, if you do, you earn added enmity points for acting like an arrogant prick when YOU trangress and someone calls you on your stupidity. Do you morons realize that you are risking people's lives? What does it take to get through to the inert tissue inside your skull that driving is not only a privilege but a responsibility?
I've seen three pedestrian/biker versus auto accidents this summer alone that were the fault of the driver. (And one more that was the fault of an equally stupid pedestrian.)"
-------------------------------------
At least online I can rush and not injure anyone when I make an error...
By the way, anyone who's proud of their recklessness I hope finds themselves on the losing end of a one car dance with a lightpole and that the torch runs out of fuel just as CFD is about to cut your foolish ass out...
This is the stupidest and yet the most satisfying traffic thing I have ever witnessed. I was coming home down Harlem from the Harlem -Irving plaza many years ago when I was in high school.
It was a Friday night around March and it had just snowed about an inch and a half the day before and then warmed up to about 40 degrees the next day so it was wet and slushy still.
I was coming home from a long day of school and work.
As I was sitting at a light about five guys in a Mustang 5.0 pull up next to me. I glance over and then looked straight ahead. This, apparently, is the universal sign of "LET'S RACE".
Now this was 1987. They were driving a late model Mustang with all kinds of horsepower and I was driving a 1983 Buick Skyhawk station wagon that had the equivalent of three squirrels running on hamster wheels under the hood. It used to lose power when I dared turn on the heat.
The light changed and they peeled out. Suprise!! They blew me away. At the next light they did the same but this time the driver loses control on the wet pavement and they ended up on someones lawn. That cracked me up for hours.
In High School my friends spent a whole winter night throwing each other off the top of an old Escort into recently plowed snow banks. Think surfing on to an Escort then slamming the breaks.
basically retarded.
This one was somebody doing a dumb thing that saved my a** (literally).
About 15 years ago, 4th of July. I'm driving back from the south suburbs on the Dan Ryan. All of the sudden, all four lanes of traffic come to one of those mysterious complete stops. I'm just barely able to stop in time without rear-ending the car in front of me and I immediately look in my rear-view to see if I'm going to get smacked. Much to my horror, there is a car doing about 70 an eighth of a mile behind me that I can see isn't going to stop at all. I'm trapped between traffic on either side, so I'm just bracing myself for impact when this other car suddenly veers into my lane about 3 lengths back (they had switched lanes without looking in order to get that extra 30 feet forward)and SMACK! The car hits them instead of me.
The extra irony was that traffic started moving again 5 seconds later, and Mr. "I've got to get that extra 3 car lengths no matter what" and the psycho who smacked him are sitting in the center lane about to have a big old dispute as I breath I sigh of relief , thank the Goddess of Traffic (Concretia), and continue on.
I once saw a man with an eyepatch try to make a left turn across a four lane highway while talking on a cell phone.
I saw this on the freeway in Mpls, so I'm not sure if it counts, but it is by far the dumbest thing I have seen a driver do. i was trying to merge onto the freeway and was frustrated that the guy in the lane next to me wasn't helping me out by speeding up, slowing down, or changing lanes. I finally had to brake hard to merge behind him and as I passed him on the left I realized that he was playing his trumpet while driving. Not sure if he was reading sheet music or just jamming but he sure wasn't paying much attention to the road.
Easy. The stupidest thing anybody ever did in a car in the history of the world was cut me off when my sister was in the car.
Imagine a 110 pound girl with half her body hanging out of the car, screaming the most vile obscenities you can imagine, obscene digits flailing, and offering to fight a terrified 60 year old man in a BMW. This at the always-crowded North and Clybourn.
Man, that was awesome.
I have a number of times seen here in chicago someone come from behind me (stopped at a light behind a few cars) driving down the wrong side of the road to then pull in front of the car at the front and proceed to go through the red light.
I once saw an incredibly drunk soccer mom give her husband a blowjob in their minivan after a Harry Connick Jr concert. My date and I made a song out of the situation, "Bloooow job in a miniiii vaaan!" It still cracks me up.
I once changed my pants while driving up the highway on my way home for summer break. My diet coke spilled all over my crotch, and all of my belongings were packed behind me. I didn't feel like stopping so I reached behind me and grabbed the first pair of pants I could find, and carefully changed my clothes while driving 70 mph. I received a few honks from happy truckers along the way.
Someone cut my brother off while I was in his car. My 110 pound body went flying out the window, and I let loose a string of obscenities aimed at a terrified old man driving a BMW who I then challenged to a fist fight right there on the corner of North and Clybourn.
I doubt he ever f&$*%ing cut anyone off again.
To this day I am not sure if this really happened or it was something I dreamed had happen as a kid, but I remember my dad driving us to school with the car in reverse almost the whole way. This was is in the subburbs, so its not like he was jumping on the expressway or trying to drive down city streets like this. I still get terrified when I think about it.
Has anyone else ever seen someone do this for an extended distance?
just last week - i saw a 70-old man pick his nose and eat his booger. i guess he didn't learn his lesson in kindergarten.
Bri: "I hope they kill themselves over money."
jared: "By the way, anyone who's proud of their recklessness I hope finds themselves on the losing end of a one car dance with a lightpole and that the torch runs out of fuel just as CFD is about to cut your foolish ass out..."
Do you hear that thumping? It's the Devil's heart -- he's falling in love again!
You've just taken the off-ramp towards fascism.
So I'm in a bus, and listening to music, and still I hear the ambulance siren. The bus stops, and so does all traffic, except for the guy in the BMW convertible who tries to cut through the intersection.
The ambulance, which is doing 40 at least, beats him through as he slams on the brakes.
His reaction: he gives it the finger.
Justin -
Excuse me? I thought the subject at hand was people who fail to not only observe the stated traffic laws of the land, you know the ones you agree to abide by when you accept your driver's license, but who exhibit no regard for the safety of innocent people around them.
Please enlighten me. In what way does my contempt for someone's reckless amusement constitute a budding fascist mindset? Mysanthropic would seem to be better used to describe the selfish bastards that this thread focuses on. Being an apologist for them would seem to cast you as their kin...
By the way, if you're going to link to an article, the sensible thing to do would be to first determine whether it's freely accessible.
My sister was almost run down by a guy who was going to turn right on a red without even slowing down. He had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting her in the crosswalk. He screeched to a halt, his bumper a couple feet from her far more fragile body. Frozen in shock with her heart pounding, she looks up at the guy, her eyes wide with horror. He mouths the words "fuck you."
I'd invite Justin (above) to experience something like that and see how quickly he feels like forgiving and befriending the sociopathic driver.
I was crossing Dearborn near the Daley Center, along with about 8 other people. A guy in a Hummer suddenly decided that had pulled too far into traffic at the stop light, and started to BACK UP into the crosswalk. Everyone was yelling and screaming at him to stop, and some quick thinkin' guy picked up his cane and smacked the back window a few times. He stopped. I lived.
Mike, in the two years since losing my only sister to a reckless driver, I've had a lot of time to reflect on traffic, justice, and interpersonal relationships. Dig through my retired weblog if you care to follow the development of my thinking, or my recent comment to Andrew's "Don't drive stoned." She was in the crosswalk on her way to work. He was high.
Jared, as a recovering misanthrope I recognize the tendency to write off whole sections of the population ("those people"). It is one thing to disapprove and another to wish them harm. Choose the latter and you drive a road of hatred. I couldn't find a fulltext copy of the article online; I tried. Try a library: Harper's Magazine; 8/1/2002. Really, read it.
Forgiveness does not come quick and is not constant. I've stood in the same room with the kid responsible for my sister's death; I still think he's a dipshit and I hope prison changes his behavior. By no means do I hate him or wish him dead.
Never hope for anyone's death.
Justin -
You may be a 'recovering' misanthrope, but apparently you've done nothing about your presumptive tendencies. Go diagnose yourself, instead of attempting to characterize someone based on a couple of paragraphs in a forum. Sanctimony riles me, especially when it's misplaced. Until I've allowed you to audit all of my beliefs, I think you're presuming quite a bit based on the narrow focus of the topic at hand.
Where did I 'write off whole sections of the population'? At the end of my rant which SPECIFICALLY condemned people whose desire to gratify themselves recklessly endangers innocent people, was a single, admittedly exaggerated, statement. Perhaps I should have added a disclaimer that the sentence about a maniac running into a lightpole was a flippant, one-off statement. Sometimes my anger condenses into a slippery puddle waiting for someone to go flying. If you're concerned about my moral and spiritual well being or somesuch, that's fine, just don't tell me about it.
That said, if SOMEONE is going to die in a traffic accident, I would rather it be the one who cannot fathom that they have a responsibility to the people they share the streets with. It's one thing to damn people for being abused, impoverished, black or gay. These aren't actions, they are states of being that shouldn't qualify for judgement. People who exhibit a callous disregard for the safety of everyone around them on the other hand deserve only the disdain that their self-indulgent behavior brings.
What galls me is that out of a thread full of accounts of willful, dangerous behavior, you take me to task for condemning it harshly. I wasn't condemning PEOPLE mind you, just BEHAVIOR. If their behavior gets the best of them, too bad. They go, and so does their destructive behavior. What should bother you and everyone else is when their behavior dooms someone who didn't buy a ticket. Your rationale would makes villains out of victims and a hero out of perpetrators. It's like a moral mobius strip.
Jared,
If we're addressing presumptions let me refute one of yours. I do not condone the "willful, dangerous behavior" that killed my sister, nor do I absolve the young man responsible. Because the result of his wanton negligence is a dead girl, regardless of my relationship to her, I find his imprisonment just. Make no mistake about my sympathies. In fact I share your position, minus two points.
First, remove time from the equation and reckless ideas are as deadly as reckless actions. To my mind, the smug drunk driver and the radical cleric pose equal threats. Likewise, the "moral and spiritual well being" of one whose "anger condenses into a slippery puddle waiting for someone to go flying" is my concern, and the community's concern. Any one of us could step into your puddle. The slope from disapproval to contempt to mob action is indeed slippery. Your statement bothered me enough to react before the liquid spread. I hope I overestimated.
Second, take away the keys, puncture the tires, block the moving vehicle with your own. I've seen enough unnatural death. I won't wish it on anyone.
I once saw a taxi driver hold a cell phone to his right ear with a cigarette between his fingers, and his left hand holding a newspaper over his steering wheel. Frankly, he should lose his job and driver's license!
The stupidest thing I ever done while driving...is drive off with the gas nozzle still in my car...HAH I did that today...thats how I found this!
The stupidest thing I ever saw ANOTHER PERSON do is this guy was filling his car up...and he let it overflow and gas was squirting everywhere!
A guy hit and killed my girlfriend(16 years) and daughter(1.5 years). My girlfriend lived for about 5 hours until I got to the hospital and got to hold her for one last time. All because the guy was drunk had 5 prior DUIs, no license, stolen car and 4 seperate warrents and wanted to get home so he wouldnt get caught.
When he hit them my girlfriend went up over the car and my daughter was pulled under the car and dragged the 75 feet until the guy hit a light post and stopped.
Dumb enough?
i drove off with the gas nozzle in my car the other day after a 22 hour flight, not eating and no sleep. i flet dumb until the station owner claimed i owed him 200 for a nozzle that pops on and off. hes the dumber one
i drove off with the gas nozzle in my car the other day after a 22 hour flight, not eating and no sleep. i flet dumb until the station owner claimed i owed him 200 for a nozzle that pops on and off. hes the dumber one
drove into the wrong lane in a divided highway today, which is how i found this. oops. you guys make me feel better :)
i was on my way to school (i commute to my college) and I-94 was really slick. So i saw the inevitable accident. i pulled out my cell phone, dialed 911 to report it, then, while talking to the operator lost control of my car and spun out across 3 lanes of highway and a very big, very scary semi. the whole time i'm screaming "oh my god, i'm going to die" into the phone and what does the 911 operator do? she puts me on hold.
Urban Ethos [26]
What is Chicago's "urban ethos"?
Cool Glass of... [16]
What're you drinking?
Supreme Decision [22]
What's your reaction to the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act?
Taking it to the Streets [20]
Chicago Street Fairs: Revolting or Awesome?
I Can Be Cruel [9]
Be real: what is the meanest thing you've ever done?
Andrew / August 8, 2005 11:33 AM
Bonus question: What's the dumbest thing you have done in a car?