(I might be shot for posting in this because I don't have a car or anything, although my brother made me drive his little Nissan before when I was younger. I'm a pretty good driver, actually. Scary...)
Well, I have had my own experiences driving with my parents and sister.
-My dad and I were going along the road when we came upon a person going EXTREMELY slow. He started moving over to the shoulder to let us past so we we proceeded to pass him. A guy in a big diesel then tries to pass us while we're passing the other guy! He was very close to my dad's truck and I was mashing my finger on the button to engage the train horns that we installe don his truck. (Located under the hood, sitting on the tire well. Two sets of horns!) Then the idiot saw a car in the oncoming lane and just suddenly slammed on the brakes. We just had to laugh at him.
-My sister was driving me to school (she has to take me tomorrow, actually. *shudders*) and she happens to be in La-La Land messing with her make-up while a curb is coming up. I was expecting her to turn, but when she kept going straight and I tried to yell, it was to late. I yelled right as she hit the curb, scraping her rims, then she swerved back on the road. Then the dumb thing was was that she place 120% of the blame on me. She kept saying:
-"Why didn't you tell me there was turn coing up?!"
-Well, you moron, you should've been paying attention and not messing with your make-up!"
We argued forever until she dropped me off. She told me to get out and take a look, but the rims weren't that badly messed up.
-My sister knows nothing about cars. I must answer all of her questions...
Q: "Is 20,000+ miles bad on my car?"
A: "Yes, considering that you have had less than a year, you run the tires off the dang thing, and you put 80 miles on it THE FIRST DAY YOU HAD IT."
Q: "Why are my brakes crappy?"
A: "Because you have beaten the crap out of this car."
Q: "My car doesn't turn good enough. What's wrong?"
A: "You've jerked the crap out of the steering wheel and possibly screwed your rack & pinion up."
A series of dumb questions she has, like "What if my car were to go in water?" "Your car would hydrolock."
-I was living in a Troy, about 20 miles north of where I live... my mom was taking me back to Take-1 Video to return some games when I saw the railroad crossing lights go on. We pulled up into the volunteer fire department right next to the tracks and saw a car that was crushed and over-turned. I walked up closer to the trakcs to see down the tracks and there were two lonely engines sitting on the tracks. I saw the engineer get out and run up to the car to see if they were ok and get help. Ambulences and everything were there. I found out that it was my assistant PE teacher. What had happened was she was turning around in the car to tell her 3 sons to stop horsing around making it impossible to see the crossing lights go on and the gates to go down. Two helper engines returning from a trip were going past the crossing and my teacher actually struck the train. Right when she turned around, she was only a few feet away from it. For some odd reason, she never heard the horns. She is gaining the abilitiy to walk, but sadly, her 3 sons died...
Another thing at that same crossing was VERY scary because we were having a parade for the Troy Trojans team. They were crossing the tracks when I heard a train's horns from the distance. I then saw the strobes activate on the train and then that's when everyone started to panic. I was right there at the crossing, too. Most of the people were clearing out to get out of the way, but some people were unaware of the train because they were obviously just plain deaf. The train was about a mile away when the brakes went to screeching. The train stopped JUST a few yars in front of the parade. *whew* No one was hurt.
-Anyone ever heard of the kids who were killed by a train on a bus? The driver had stalled on the old corssing and couldn't get it started while the kids were just going about their business. The train was coming and struck the bus killing everyone. This is in San Antonio, about a 3 hour drive south of where I live. The myth is if you put talcom powder on the back of your car and kick it into neutral, your car will begin rolling, although there is a slight incline. You will stop rolling when you get across the tracks. It's said that you see the fingerprints of the kids who were killed by the train in the talcom powder, etc. as a sign to you that they don't want you to get killed or even hit, for that matter. Sound crazy?
"Oh, I''m such and idiot." "I don''t wanna live to see the day the Earth screws up." ~Trainman
