What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done in a car?
For many of us, cars are more than just basic transportation. If they weren’t, there wouldn’t be websites like this one. For we the car geeks, the motorheads, the gearheads, who get seriously twisted for speed and danger, who long for the smell of rich exhaust and burnt rubber, who yearn for the sounds of rumbling engines and squealing tires, we who burn with the need to be cool, but who will settle for a cool ride, our car is our statement. It is our escape, our freedom, our chosen persona unhampered by genetics, appearance, IQ, or whether or not we can think of the right thing to say to the hot girl at the party. Our cars are us, as we choose to see ourselves, and as we would have others see us. To those who have cars for A-to-B, it makes little sense. For us, nothing could be more logical.
Because we put this importance on our personal conveyances, we tend to feel at home in them. We get comfy. We become bold. And when we are young, comfortable and emboldened, we sometimes do immeasurably stupid stuff. We will try amazingly moronic feats: Speeding, reckless driving, high-speed chases, burn-outs, power slides, e-brake turns, trying to get the car airborne, succeeding in getting the car airborne, changing drivers whilst moving, having sex whilst moving, off-roading, driving while impaired, driving while (acting) dead, intentionally driving into oncoming traffic, attempting to drive with more than ten people in the car, driving while naked (kinda goes with the sex thing), etc. For the record, I am guilty of having done all this crap and more. In fact, every time I get together with old friends from school, someone will remind me of something I had forgotten we tried. It usually begins with, “Remember that time we were in your Camaro….” For all of this, I have friends who did FAR worse crap, and sometimes paid the price for it. This article isn’t about being heavy or dark, or about preaching about all the safety warnings concerning sobriety, seat belts, and speed. If you have made it this far, you have heard all of these things ad nauseam. This is a light-hearted look at the stupidity we managed to survive, and talk about years later with old friends.
So, all my gasoline-blooded brethren, here is your chance to see you own stories in print. I want to read all about all the craziest, wildest, fastest, dumbest, and most reckless stuff you have done and lived to tell the tale. Please, don’t send me stories about how wasted you get and drive home-we will delete them. Tell us about the time your brother came home in a Buick full of chickens, or how your girlfriend managed to drive her car into a lake, or how your dad’s fraternity once ‘borrowed’ a firetruck. Give us your best, give us a laugh, show us you are the King of the Dumb Car Story. GO!