EEK!

[blueeowyn]

Yes, I'm fine. But if you ever want to scare me while driving, repeat what happened last night. I was heading home, having finished dance practice and visiting with some people, when I hear a FWOP FWOP FWOP sound from my left. I'm in the right lane of the beltway and traffic is light. What in the world is going FWOP FWOP FWOP behind me and to my left? Then a semi passes me (not an unusual occurance mind you). The FWOP (not GWOCK, Xpioti, FWOP) gets louder. I notice something 'odd' about the left hind (rear) tire. I glance over and there seems to be movement????!?!?!?! I check where I am and where everyone else is (escape planning is a good thing). I look at the tire again in the thing is throwing SPARKS. Huh???? Muffler?, no, semi's don't have mufflers on the back of the vehicle. Is it really sparks? Take another glance, yup, it is really sparks and only from that one set of tires (I can't tell if it is the front lateral, front medial, rear lateral or rear medial in the quick glances). The semi then decides he wants my lane and I am perfectly willing to give it to him (he is far enough ahead at this point to safely cross). I however start easing off the gas because I don't want to be near a semi going FWOP.

Time to get outta the proverbial Dodge (and I don't mean my car which isn't a Dodge anyway). So, I continue slowing down, check all routes, and move left, then move left again.

I figure that at least one of the tires is so bald that the steel-belts are starting to escape, flop around (FWOPing), and throwing sparks (yes, tires can do that). If my theory is correct, the tire will blow at some point and I've seen that happen. There isn't a lot of time from the smoke to the WHOOP to the chunks of tire going all over the road. Given that, I don't want to be behind OR directly next to him.

He eventually exits and I move back into 'my' lane, exit safely and get home in one piece. WHEW.

Then this morning, I get backed into in my parking lot. Person parks, I pull in and stop a few feet behind. Person backs up, stops, backs up stops, backs up, stops, backs into my car. No, the car wasn't damaged.

Comments

[squire-liz.livejournal.com]

Glad you are ok hon, I would have been shaking in fear at the Semi.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

To be honest, the driver was driving very carefully and sanely. When he switched lanes into 'my' lane the ONLY reason I slowed down was the FWOP. If it hadn't been for that, I would have been perfectly OK to follow him. I generally like following some of the big rigs from a bit back because they are such good drivers (loggers in the mountains, Giant drivers in general). I stay back for visibility but once I have that, I'm cool.

I suspect that they knew they had a problem and were heading to a warehouse or something (based on how they came over and the fact that they got off at the next reasonable exit for such things).

[squire-liz.livejournal.com]

yeah, it would have been the FWOP thing that would have gotten me. I find in general big rig drivers do tend to seem to be better drivers, they have to be since so many 4 wheelers seem to loose what sence they have when rigs are around.

[dacuteturtle.livejournal.com]

Gaaah. That remends me of a double-blowout that happened near me years ago. I was driving near a semi and decided to change lanes. Shortly afterwards, a bang-bang happened, and two tires were gone. I'd've been in a world of hurt if my little Civic had been near those tires.

Ya did a good move all the way around. The "I want to be anywhere but here" philosophy is a good one.

[xpioti.livejournal.com]

I think I'd be more unnerved if the semi went GWOCK, actually. Because then it would be WRONG on many levels. (Say hello to Mr. Hand!)

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

I don't even want to think about a semi-hygene day.

[selkiesiren.livejournal.com]

Did the person who backed into you tell you why they did so? I'm always curious to know the why's on such.

My honey once heard that rear view mirrors are only used in the movies. I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or both.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

The excuse was that s/he needed to back up since s/he had pulled too far forward (pull-through space) and hadn't started doing that when I pulled in because s/he had to put away the gate-card. I suspect that s/he was watching the front of the car to see when s/he was lined up with other cars in the row ... or was assuming (erroneously since my car was OFF) that I would move to make way. *sigh*

I think it is a problem that fewer people go through what I went through when I learned to drive. My Mom took me to a large empty lot, had me move the car, then verbally tell her exactly where the corners were. Then I got out and looked. Lather-rinse-repeat. Granted, I should probably do that again to refresh my memory on the current car, but it was a good exercise for a beginning driver and really drove home the point that you can't necessarily see all of your car (this was a 1972 Ford Wagon ... it went on forever and I couldn't see the bumper). I learned where the bumper was in relation to the hood (or the rear-window).

[selkiesiren.livejournal.com]

That's a good practice to do. I'm always a little tickled when I get out of the car and look to see how well/poorly I've done. Sometimes, I just have to laugh at how far off I am from what I thought.