So many stories... so little talent in writing about them
Let's skip over the time I ran into the back of my boss's car as he stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let someone cross.

And we'll gloss over the time I thought that it would be a good idea to use a kettle-full of hot water to free up the central locking mechanism on one cold night, only to find in the morning that my paintwork was several shades lighter where the water had run down it.

Similarly, the time I discovered that 265/35x18 tyres and rear-wheel drive cause embarrassment in icy conditions is not worth recounting.

So how about the time I was in the outside lane of the M42 (luckily in a hire car), doing 50 through some roadworks, when a lorry in the middle lane kicked up some debris off the road right in front of me.

I barely had time to register what was happening before there came a loud 'thud' from the front of the car, followed by an ongoing grinding noise. The steering had become ridiculously heavy and I had to limp along for about 1/2 a mile until I could negotiate my way through the other lanes and there was a hard shoulder I could safely pull on to.

Expecting major frontal damage given the noise, I inspected the front of the car and found only a 3cm round hole in the rubber air dam under the bumper. Or, I should say, that's what I found when I pulled out the 6ft length of steel re-bar that was lodged in it and being pushed along the road as I drove.

The bar had hit the power steering pump, hence the difficulty in driving the car, but I was lucky on 2 counts:
1. It wasn't my car and
2. If the bar had bounced a foot higher, allowing it to slide up the bonnet, I'd have been wearing it as a new form of extreme facial piercing.

Length - 6ft less what got ground off on the carriageway
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Fri 23 Apr 2010, 17:21, 1 reply)

Brother?
Are you my UK based doppelganger? Your steel bar incident does sound worse than mine though.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Fri 23 Apr 2010, 17:25, closed)