The other day driving on the M25 a flying object which looked like a bit of metal flew out of nowhere and hit my windscreen, cracking it.
Anyone got any strange stories of ufo's hitting them while driving?
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I once had a pigeon fly head first into my windscreen, frightened the life out of me.
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There was an item on the local TV news last night about some poor chap who was hit on the nose by a frozen sausage which was thrown through his open side window. Not surprisingly it broke his nose .........
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Yep sadly, the other day my car was hit by what was presumably an airgun pellet. I heard the 'crack' at the time and though it was just my youngest son fiddling around in the back. I only noticed the perfectly formed small round dent in the nearside rear door the following day. I suppose we were lucky really because had it been a few inches higher it would probably have smashed the window and covered my lads with glass! Worse still, due to my initial assumption I can't recall exactly where we were when it happened otherwise I'd have reported it to the police. What sort of moron shoots at cars?
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A long while ago, after a long drive, I was just coming into my own familiar town. (Making excuses here)
I think because of this I was a bit switched off, it was late at night and I was driving on auto-pilot.
Anyway, a gritter came the other way and showered my windscreen with grit. Scared the life out of me, and certainly got me concentrating again!
Oh, the other week a piece of plastic sheeting blew under my car and welded itself to my exhaust. I still get a burning plastic smell now when it's hot.
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Reminds me of a similar problem...
Gave a colleague a lift after he dropped car for service. Got back to car park where we were working and smoke was coming from under bonnet! Phoned RAC and they eventually found a pipe spurting liquid (water as it happens) melted on side of engine and we all assumed steam was the cause of "smoke". Temporary fix (replacement pipe) fitted.
Went to drive home and smoke and bad smell reappears and eventually get taken to garage on low loader. Turns out smoke was from a plastic bag wrapped around exhaust. But without said plastic bag, would not have known a pipe had melted against engine.
Of course pipe had melted because it was serviced days earlier and pipe was no longer clipped in place for some odd reason (Vauxhall dealership)!
Luckily company vehicle and I had to pay nothing... including the hire car whilst the plastic bag was scraped from the exhaust.
Rob
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Oh, the other week a piece of plastic sheeting blew under my car and welded itself to my exhaust. I still get a burning plastic smell now when it's hot.
Happened to me last year. A fertilizer bag blew under the car, and welded itself to the exhaust. It took months for the smell to diminish, and even now, I still get a whiff after any drive that heats the entire exhaust length beyond when the tailpipe can be touch-tolerated.
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Pigeon, broke the mounting on a fiat 131 headlamp which promptly fell out and smashed on the road.
Loose chippings smashed windscreen of my old mans Cortina Mk4 whilst i was driving it (my car had puncture) - He blamed me of course.
Does 5 kilos of Cow merde dumped on bonnet while stuck behind Herd in a Devon lane count?
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I once had some little yobs throw a brick at my car when I was approaching a round about close to my house. Luckily it didn't cause any damage and missed the rear window by about an inch. It frightened the life out of me. I should have reported it to the police but I knew they would have gone by the time the police got there
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I once had an owl hit the windscreen when travelling on the M4.
Frightened the life out of me; fortunately it was deflected up and over the roof, so it didn't come through the glass.
Someone said afterwards that I should have "Hooted". Haaar!!!!!
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I was travelling on the M40 near High Wycombe on inside lane on a quiet Sunday evening at 65 - 70 with SWMBO and Helicopter Jr when a brick appeared from nowhere ( I assume it must have been trapped between a lorry rear wheels) it bounced on the bonnet and hit the screen which lukily was laminated and held.
I saw it about two second before it hit and thought I was a goner. The windscreen wipers were mangled , bonnet scraped and dented and the screen dented and cracked with a pattern like a spiders web.
I sat on the hard shoulder quivering for the next couple of minutes before driving slowly to next exit to get the screen replaced - a three hour wait on a Sunday evening.
A very frightening experience ....
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Shortly after I started driving some 30 years ago I was following a skip lorry and half a brick fell off the uncovered load. It bounced just in front of the car and hit the number plate and cracked it.
On another occassion a little tike dropped a stone off a bridge on the Southend Arterial and cracked the windscreen when I doing about 70mph.
Hit a wood pigeon when I was doing about 90mph in Scotland about 20 years ago. The pigeon lost, but the windscreen did not break although there was a horrible greasy streak on the passenger side.
The worst was when some object broke the flat toughen glass windscreen when I was doing about 40mph. The whole thing exploded and covered the inside of the car.
Not quite hit, but one driving down a narrow country lane I found a large pig in the road. I could not pass it so I stopped. The pig then wanders over to the drivers door and tried to eat the door handle! A toot on the horn made it jump back and I drove off.
Another strange incident was again some 25 years ago. My brother and I had dropped my parents off at Heathrow early one Sunday morning. My brother was driving my Father's Alfa back through central London (before the M25 was built). We were sitting in the middle lane waiting at an empty set of traffic lights. Another car approaches and instead of pulling to the left or right of us, ran straight into the back of us. Remember this was about 9 am on a Sunday morning and there were no other cars around.
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Not quite hit, but one driving down a narrow country lane I found a large pig in the road. I could not pass it so I stopped. ....
Is that what they call "Hog'in the middle lane"?
Ok, Ok, - I'll get my coat....
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Managed to hit a Pheasant on the A12 a few years ago - no damage to the Ford Ka I was driving as it bounced off oversized bumpers these things have. Also ran over stray dog in Stockport about 11 or 12 years ago.
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Yes those bumpers are quite tough you know sir hiss!
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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A strange tale:
My father was sitting in his car outside his bank.
He felt a BANG underneath the car.
Looking around, there was nobody in sight,
Curious, he opened the door and there, underneath the driver's seat, lay a multicoloured rock.
No appartment windows for miles, no traffic, no drain covers (I quizzed him on this) no passers by, (Could the stone have been left on top a tyre - falling off and bouncing onto the underside of the car - no, he had been sitting studying his bank statement for at least five minutes)
No scratches on the stone.
Uses it as a paperweighr.
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Had a near miss on the M25. Following a Mondeo when the chrome end of his exhaust fell off at 70mph. Bounced very high (6ft-ish), and I swerved violently into the empty outside lane to avoid it going through the windscreen.
Lucky not to lose control, and am continually mindful of leaving plenty of space!
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Near miss many years ago... I was in the outside lane of the M4, morning rush hour, 3 lanes doing 55-60 mph, when the driver in a Vanden Plas Metro directly in front of me managed to unlatch her (already open) sunroof panel! Luckily it sailed up, barrel rolling, in the air, so that everyone saw it and braked/swerved/scattered before it landed, in a huge shower of bits of safety glass, hinges, etc on the lane markings between the middle and outside lanes...
Also, back in 1970/71, there was a chap at the Honda Owners Club who had one of the first Bell Star full face helmets, complete with a custom paint job. Very impressive, and expensive. He turned up one meeting in a new white helmet - he explained that a brick had bounced up and hit him on the chin. It could have been that it was an excuse to hide an embarrassing tumble - but from his manner, I thought it was true. Made me go out and get a full face as soon as affordable versions became available...
Also I remember that when the Rover SD1 was launched, it had a new, improved, kind of Triplex laminated windscreen. A few months later, there was a picture of one which had been hit , corner on, by a milk crate - the screen had a large dent in it, but had kept the crate out.
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Well, not exactly a UFO, but I?ve been hit by a 306! Nah, that wont count cos I wasn't in the car at the time.
But, whilst learning to drive, I was out with my Dad in my humble little Polo. Driving on an exposed piece of single carriageway/national speed limit road, there was a bird (unsure what kind) which I could see approaching from the left. But, the stupid thing forgot to move out of the way, and continued to fly on its low altitude course. Big mistake, because me and an approaching Clio 172 ended up playing ping pong with it. It flew at 90 degrees into the Clio?s windscreen, which saw it being promptly batted onto my side. With nowhere to go, I ploughed on and struck it with the drivers side headlight which sent it somersaulting rather ungracefully over the roof of the car, spraying various bodily fluids over the windscreen.
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Got a Kestrel (or similar) in Cyprus about two weeks ago.
I was driving a hire car Corsa on the only motorway Cyprus has, going about 80mph, when this thing comes from the left and turns to fly along in front of me....
....except it's going about 20mph, so it very rapidly meets my windscreen, somersaulting over the roof. Put a 3 spoke crack in the windscreen, but as i looked in the rear view mirror, it was recovering and flying off out of harms way! Didn't even hit the ground!
Luckily i'd fallen for the hire car guys additional windscreen, tyre and oil sump insurance, but he still wasn't happy!
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Rand over a large 6" deep layer of broken milk bottles on a roundabout, and didn't burst any tyres!
Hit a pigeon while going round a bend at 60mph. it hit the side windows and left feathers and bony sticks poking out of the weatherstrip.
There there was an E reg Renault Espace, it simply turned into a pile of fibres and dust.
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Someone threw an egg, made a sort of spiders web pattern in the paintwork, and baked itself onto the wing in the sunshine. Took some shifting.
Pheasants - I think they actually like being run over, as if it were a rite of passage.
There's a place near Beaulieu where you invariably end up chasing partridges down the middle of the road, suppose it's too much effort for them to fly.
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Oh yes, that happened to me on my current car. It too left a stranfe mark the size of an egg. Sort of hundreds of chips that look like an explosion. If anyone sees people throwing eggs at cars, get away, it does more damage than you'd imagine!
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I was hit on the head by a horse chestnut(with spikes!)falling from a tree, when driving a 'Frogeye' Sprite many years ago-impact at about 60 m.p.h.. Luckily I was wearing a leather helmet, so no damage apart from a bruise. Also more recently a golf ball hitting the windscreen, luckily at an oblique angle,-no damage, but scary.
Near miss some years ago, lorry carrying a load of alloy airline catering containers shed the lot in front of me on the M4-some hairy moments as cars swerved to avoid the debris, and one container missed the car by about six inches.
P.
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Various cars have been struck by various objects. Most recent was about a year ago - well documented on here - I overtook a skip lorry at about 60 - 70mph as the wind lifted a huge piece of heavy steel out of it hitting my motor where the bonnet meets the windscreen. It was deflected onwards up and over my roof. Scared the life out of me.
Drove into a riot some years ago and a gas cylinder was deliberately thrown through the rear windscreen of our car. Belfast in the early 90's - was more worried that it was going to go bang than about the damage to the car at the time!
Also live right beside a golf course, had more than my fair share of dents from the odd hooked tee shot!
Leon
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I have to admit to thining my second shot on one hole at Redill Golf club, across the main road and scattering a bus queue. As it was Thursday they were all olds out to get the pension. Fastest some of them have moved in centuries.
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Not sure how this got on to golf however I played at La Quinta (nr Valderama, Spain) managed to get one shot in the swimming pool, plop, of a private house about 100 yards back from the fairway, the guys I was playing with would'nt let me ask for my ball back.
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I was once hit by a tin of Fry's Cocoa while driving the Metro. Of course it wasn't from the outside, it was just Mrs bax having a tantrum because she couldn't get the lid off.
However, I do remember a rather frightening incident with a copy of the Picture Post, or was it Woman's Realm.
Keep up the good and fascinating work Chaps. bax
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I was hit by myself once!
Driving along a busy but fast main road and there was an almighty bang to my right side and the drivers door window shattered all over me.
I looked in the door mirror to see what had hit me but it wasn't there! I think my mirror had been hit by another car going in the opposite direction and over the line and the mirror smashed against the side glass.
Was I scared! - yes but not as scared as when I was almost carjacked last January and a sldgehammer hit the side window.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Pheasant a few weeks ago broke my windscreen. Remember many years ago as I approached a right hand bend on the A5 a truck coming the other way shedding its load of ceramic land drain pipes in front of me - scared the life out me but they shattered to dust on the road in front of me - no damage!
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This one didn't happen to me but to the two vehicles in front:
A car had pulled out of an antiques fair with a lovely old chest of drawers on the roof-rack. As it accelerated an unsecured drawer dropped out and was crushed to matchwood by the following car.
Like an earlier poster, I also hit a pheasant on the A12 many years ago. I was driving an original type Transit V4 van that was really clapped out and the impact split the rusty seam between the wing and grille panel!
Cheers, SS
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Whilst I was in my motorcycling youth I had a discarded fag end thrown out of a lorry in front land on my crotch. I was unaware of this until my delicate bitshad been singed with a hole clearly bunt in my jeans. I must have looked a sight when I felt the burning and was dancing arround on the pegs trying to put out the fire!
It isn't so much was has hit me but what I have hit. A fox in my Fiat 127 - slight dent on bumper, a pigeon hitting the windscreen on the Motorway at 80 in the Mondeo, 2 Pheasants run over with the same car and another Pigeon clipped the top of the windscreen on the A34 also with the Mondeo. Killed a Volvo estate with an Astra (less emotionall upsetting than one of the Pheasants to be honest but I had not long since moved from Motorbikes and at the time all bikers hated Volvos).
My wife hit a Deer full on in her Lada Estate a number of years ago. It was a full grown beast on a road near Cheddar Gorge. Scared the hell out of her as it was hit by the front of the carrolled up the bonnet and went right over roof. Only damage to car was a chipped headlight lens. Amazingly tough car that was.
An interesting point I was taught when doing my motorcycle test, and to a lesser extent it applies to cars as well:- If you know you are going to hit an animal or other object in the road and trying to avoid it is more likely to cause and accident, you need to accelerate hard.
If you brake hard you use up most of the suspension travel at the front of the vehicle meaning when the impact occurs you are less likely to maintain control of the vehicle as there is little suspension travel left to absorb the impact. On a bike this is very important as the percentage of suspension travel used up under hard braking is very high.
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Not actually me myself, but a tale that cost him many shouts round the bar and a great deal of ribbing. When I worked for Goodyear in West Perth, our sales manager Johnny Carlton was driving his company Holden back to his hotel up country after a long day's work. In the cool of the evening he had wound all the windows down.
It's at that time of day when one frequently encounters herds of kangaroos bounding alongside and across the highway. Johnny sees one and slows down to let the 'roos cross (hitting one can write off your vehicle). From (he said) out of nowhere a joey (that's a baby kangaroo) leapt in through the passenger side window and proceeded to thrash around in panic. Johnny stopped the car and fled, leaving the driver's door open. The joey found its way out and Johnny returned, shaken, to the car.
I wasn't there when it happened and didn't see it, but the destruction of the Holden's interior and the scratches on Johnny's face and arms made his story as likely an explanation as any.
If he was making it up I sure would have liked to meet that lady.
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"trying to avoid it is more likely to cause and accident, you need to accelerate hard."
In my youth when I used to race various 4 wheeled things round tracks, I was told "If you see an accident happening - head for the middle of it because it bound to have moved elsewhere by the time you get there"
Fine - worked well until the Armco bounced the accident back to its original location!
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Driving slowly along Aberystwyth seafront one evening in a Ford Anglia when a jogger ran into the side of the car and bounced off unhurt, so he really hit our car rather than the other way round.
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Not a lot of people know this!
I had my rear window smashed by a roof rack...my roof rack...off my car roof! With a resulting very red face and lots of smiles from the councils boys.
I went off, on my own, to a council tip near my inlaws with a loaded roof rack and did not take enough notice of the height restricting bar. After the bang of the rear screen going, I got a good view in my rear view mirror of the rack and its load all present on the boot.
A draughty 60 mile trip home ensued.
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A bolt from the blue.
1984.
M4.
Near Severn crossing.
East bound.
No other traffic in either direction.
BANG
Investigation later showed that although the windscreen wasn't cracked, it had perfect fresh impressions made by the thread of a bolt.
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Back in the mid 80s my brother used to ride competitively, doing time trials at Crystal Palace bike track amongst others. Dad would load the bike on the roof and set off with half a dozen wheels racked up alongside it, each held in place by it's own quick-release.
Cracking along up the A3 a crow decided to play, er, chicken and lost. In the ensuing carnage one of the quick-releases was undone and my dad and my brother watched in horror as a wheel hurtled off the roof, down the bonnet and proceeded to bounce up the A3 at about 60 miles an hour. Luckily it didn't hit anyone. My dad got past it, my brother hops out and grabs it as it trundles past, still travelling at a brisk walking pace.
No, he didn't win that day. The smell of crow kind of put him off.
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One of our delivery lorries got delayed for about 3 hours, apparently he was going up the M3 near the Basingstoke junction when suddenly a pheasent of all birds decided to dive into the windscreen! it bounced off over the top, but the driver had to wait about an hour or so before the windscreen men came round & had to replace the whole screen!
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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I have had my fair share of UFO's, Had various pidgeons and other birds, Have had a fuel cap hit the widscreen at 70. I have also had a near miss with a car radiator on the M4, car in fast lane going in other direction hits central res and the rad is ripped out and comes hurtilng towards me, just managed to avoid it and had to stop for a change of trousers!!!!!!! Have also run over various animals and objects, It is a bit hard to avoid somethings in 44t of artic!!!!
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1) 73 year old cyclist on £3500 mountain bike cuddled the front of my stationar car.
2) My bike and my roof bars when I went under a low bridge (ahem!)
3) The fibreglass roof of a lorry cab. In the fast lane of M74 in a hurricane. Ouch.
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Brick on the M62. Buried itself in the headlamp of my Citroen XM but no bodywork damage.
Cyclist in Nottingham going hell for leather across a Pelican crossing against the red. Collected him on the bonnet of the company Astra Belmont then dropped him on the remains of his bike as I stopped. No injuries but the bike was scrap.
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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A greyhound tied to a bin with its lead, outside a shop near to where I used to live, panicked, ran into my drive and caved the passenger rear door in on my new Fiat Tipo with the bin.
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Half an house brick through the windscreen of the fire engine I was driving to an emergencey call, luckily it came through the middle of the screen and missed myself and the officer in charge, needless to say we never made it to the emergencey and another vehicle was sent delaying the attendance.
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On Autobahn between Munich & Salzburg a few years ago, in busy fast-moving traffic, an unknown object (possibly a wing-mirror) bounced on road in front of me and hit the front of my Fiesta, knocking out headlight,and making an impressive dent, and then went right over car. (No idea what it hit next!) Would have been pretty nasty if it had been a couple of inches higher, because it would have gone straight into windscreen. A Ford garage in Austria was able to put in a new headlight very quickly, and I resumed my journey.
A year or so later, the car went for its first MOT, and there was considerable bafflement at the garage that one of the headlights was for a left hand drive car. I suppose I must have been dazzling oncoming vehicles at night for some time. Whoops.
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This isn't something that hit me but is kinda relevant to the comment about the pig earlier on.
This happened to my Uncle in America. He was driving from Phoenix, Arizona to his holiday home north of the Grand Canyon along a road called the Kaibab. It was late at night that he was driving along this road, which he has done many times. Well basically he managed to drive straight into the side of an adult bull. It was huge, and caused massive damage to my Uncle's pickup. The bull managed to roll onto the bonnet and onto the windscreen, pushing the whole of the front end of the pickup into the cab. My uncle was lucky to get out of the cab. The funny thing is that the bull then walked away from the accident. It was found the next day by its owners in a field, unfortunately it appears the shock of the accident took its toll and it was dead.
We couldn't believe it when we saw the pictures of the pickup afterwards, you could even see where the legs of the bull hit the bumpers as there were massive dints.
Like I said, it was amazing that my uncle wasn't injured. It wasn't a small bull thats for sure
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Have to ask, did your Uncle's pickup have bull bars fitted? If so they did not seem very effective!
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Artful dodger - I can't remember if it did or not. I think it probably didn't. The one he has now does though, he made sure of that!
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Following a skip lorry, I thought "shall I overtake?". Naah, didn't bother. Bad call, that one.
We got to a hump-back bridge and 2' length of metal flew out of the skip and bounced off the driver's door. I was about 6" away from a nasty and painful death.
I reported it to the skip company within 30 minutes. They ignored me for 6 weeks and then said it was too late to see from their records whether they had a lorry there at the time, and that I was probably lying anyway. Nice touch, that.
If anyone wants the name of the Oxfordshire skip company that I give the bird every time that I see them, then I be glad to send it by email. The more the better, so far as I'm concerned.
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On a minor road in Spain, an oncoming lorry picked up a cricketball sized stone which I could see coming towards me at 100mph combined.
Swerved to the right and ducked. The stone smashed the spark plug on my Guzzi. On the way home through France a sack of cement fell off the back of a lorry. Complete white-out, panic braking - it took about 10 minutes for the dust to settle!
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My nan when I drove her home too fast.
And a pheasant in my l-reg Fiesta when I had it. The only damage it did though was to one of the bars on the grill and that clicked back in place.
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