Our Volvo V40 saved our butt once on the highway. Late at night, cars piling up all of a sudden in front of us. The car slammed the brakes and stopped us a few meters away from the car in front :-)
My father was gifted a 1972 Buick Regal. I was asked to drive it on I-85 (interstate) During acceleration on the onramp, the cable controlling the throttle got stuck and the gas was flowing into the carb and UA continued to occur. I was reaching speeds in excess of 100 MPH (160 Kmph). The brakes did nothing to slow me me down. My wife, driving adjacent to me in another vehicle, thought I was showboating or just being wreckless. I had to kill the engine with the key, slow down, and then crank the car, begin accelerating, then kill the engine to 'manage' the vehicle until I could get off the interstate. Terrifying ordeal.
I crashed my girlfriend's VW back in the mid 90s. I hit a parked car that had stopped on a blind corner to observe a previous accident that happened minutes before. It was raining. I came around the corner and applied the brakes. 1975 VW's don't stop too well on wet roads.
The 'funny' part was that the damage was confined to the front headlight and panel. Not too bad. But the quoted cost of repair was more than the car was worth.
Not directly related to your comment, but I was driving downhill a few months back when some halfwit came the other way in a car that clearly wasn't roadworthy. Must have been leaking a huge amount of coolant into the oil, because the cloud of steam (or smoke) behind it was so thick that half a dozen cars ended up just parked in the middle of the road, waiting for it to clear before moving off.
Turned my lights on to avoid being hit, seemed to work - or maybe I was just surrounded by cautious drivers that day.
Id gotten rear ended in a compact car when my newborn daughter was discharged from the hospital. Nothing happened, but I didn't like being the smallest participant in a crash with my little girl.
So I bought the biggest, heaviest car I could afford at the time.
Mechanically the car has been alright. Not great, but nothing big. But the electrical... what a shit show.
I left my first car parked on my sloped drive for 2 weeks while on holiday. When trying to drive it for the first time I found the handbrake seized on. My dad was all “give it more gas” to try and free it while reversing down the drive. Suddenly there was a bang and jolt and the sound of escaping air. The front spring had been pulled until snapped and punctured the tyre...
There was an episode of Top Gear where they dropped a Saab and BMW on their roof from 8 feet in the air. IIRC, the Saab survived, and was able to even open it's doors. The BMW was basically flattened.
Our Honda Fit was totaled by a Bigass Truck. Driver didn't see it over the hood and A-pillar as we were approaching from a point downhill and right of their vantage. An entire car they didn't see. I'm glad I was not on my bicycle or motorcycle.
It could be worse, you know. The car colliding with the modern day Chevy could be European car of that era. Here, see Citroen 2CV (the first car in that queue to be hit) to disappear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR0LRSLCN2I It is like magic, but scary.
After seeing that clip I've been somewhat scared to drive my 2CV around..
And it's scary as hell. Had it happen to me twice in a 600-mile highway roundtrip this summer. Was very happy nobody was following me closely, because the combination of regen breaks and disc breaks really stops the car quickly.
I drove into a dust storm in Central Washington in a rental Volvo several years back and autobraking saved me from rear ending a car. I made it out, but a huge pileup ended up happening just behind me. https://www.kiro7.com/news/massive-crash-closes-eastbound-i-...
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