Brown trouser moments in your shiting career

[warren t claim]

On 3/24/2021 at 7:29 PM, alcyonecorporation said:

Scuffing along the ground at 20 odd-mph with an a pillar in your face will do that (and also scrape the rest of your body and parts of your clothes off). 
I have no nerves in that corner of my forehead now; it's weird getting a hair cut as I can hear the scissors but not feel them doing anything. 

There's also one randomly different shade of skin on my cheek that came back without any hair, so even if I grow a beard that bit is clean shaven. The scar tissue also tans at different rates to the rest of me in the sun.  

I'm surprised it knew what to do given how wrecked it was, but I guess that's what 36 stitches in one's head  (and a talented surgeon are for).
The scabs later fell off in one massive lump when I was asleep; until that point, my left eye had been closed.  

The weirdest thing was that I 'met the team' in the lift going down to theatre. It was oddly formal and I shook hands with all of them. Reminded me of the firing squad scene in Blackadder Goes Forth. One of them laughed. 

Hull Royal Infirmary does a good chicken curry. I ended up there owing to the ambulance rider having a massive, animated row with the dispatcher as to where to send me - Scarborough was closer, but he wanted me sent to HRI because it had a maxilio-facial team. My eyes were bandaged the whole way, so if he walked down the street, I wouldn't recognise him. We got stuck on the A63, which I used to talk about on BBC Radio Humberside's travel news. They all went 'full shout' with the sirens when I asked if they were 'on blaze' (they already were). 

I go back to that stretch of road fairly often to keep my eye in; the garage that lent me the car (a 1973 MG Midget) still lets me take its stuff out from time to time. 
And no, while I've been a passenger in a Midget 1500 since then, apart from one very brief run in a '62 A-H Sprite, I've not driven one since. 

Weirdly, it was the shape, or the smell, or the texture of anything in the cabin, it was that weird 'Knees Up Mother Brown' action you have to perform to sit under the compound curve of the windscreen/A pillar in a Midget, that made me feel the weirdest, nothing else. 

You  thrashing my E36 around your favourite road even with a nail in the front tyre was pretty scary.

[Marina door handles]

This thread has been a interesting diversion for me this evening and boy does it bring back some memories of my own code brown moments...

Here is a particularly silly one. Back in about 95/96 I was running a W reg (1980) mini 1000, it was my first car and had run okay but after subjecting it to a few months of commuting it started to play up. It would start okay  but after a mile or two it would start to miss then die. Fortunately I was on an early morning start, no bugger around to see my misadventure. The car conked out at the traffic lights one morning,  Just after the junction the road went downhill ideal for a jump start. 

The lights went green so I jumped out and pushed it across the junction, as the road steepened the mini picked up speed and I caught my foot on something, stumbled and lost grip of the car.......... Shit..... 

Not really known for my sprinting ability I some how managed to channel my inner Linford Christie and ran as fast as I could (which in reality wasn't very fast but just fast enough to catch the little bastard mini), I  jumped in and managed to get it in gear and fired up and didn't crash.

I dont like push starting cars especially down hill......

 

[High Jetter]

Only once? 

[Spiny Norman]

Remembered another incident from years ago. I'd helped a mate do the timing chain on his Renault 5 (a story in itself...) and between us we managed to completely fuck it up and the engine just wouldn't run. My mate decided the best course of action would be for me to tow him to a local garage which we did under cover of darkness one night.

I'd never towed anything before and was just starting to get the hang of it when there was a loud bang and the rope snapped. A second after that I saw a wheel that looked suspiciously like that fitted to a R5 bouncing past me along the road and off into the shrubbery. Turned out matey had only put the wheel nuts on finger tight for whatever reason and forgot. More of a brown trouser moment for him than me when the  car suddenly lurched over and bit the tarmac with the brake disc and he lost control at maybe 20-25mph.

The deep gouge in the road was there for years....

[MikeR]

 

I suppose the 240 we had for some 10 years collected a few incidents ...

one winter whilst driving to work in the 240 , I was trundling down the slope throu Kenny , when myself and the group of cars around me hit the black ice .

the 240 just went crazy , as did the other cars including a taxi ....

when we had all eventually stopped sliding I was surprised to find I was all on my own , and all the other vehicles clustered together on the other side of the road ...??

another time heading down Edge Lane , this group of lads was arsing around in a car , and then just swung across the lane in front of me and planted it into a tree ..

the front end just exploded , the car spun and just missed the front of the 240 ( I had been braking like fuck ) . one lad really wacked his head and then they all bailed out ..

my mates who left work later on all commented about the car , the mark is still on the tree ..

which brings me on to the next 240 incident , I hit a diesal patch in remote part of Skem , I was just booting it after joing a roundabout ( one of those massif ones they have

) when it went sideways , corrected , and it went the other way , it fishtailed some 6 times , resulting in me having the most aching arms ever the next day ..

but the classic is when the 240 nearly took out a ring piece in a BMW , had been sat in traffic for ages when we could go  , so we did , and this impatient BMW driver

pulled out in front of us , and the brakes did not work , fully loaded for a holiday and no brakes and just missed the BMW , I can still see the white of his eyes ,

I learnt later the vacum hose to the servo had collapsed in the heat ...

then the lamppost one  ,

had to go and pick up some plants , so I reversed up this rear alley onto a grass patch , which contained a green lamp post , u guessed it ... bang

car stopped , hands got torn off the steering wheel , the radio exited the dash and landed in my lap , every orifice on the dash including the glove box emptied its trash

out , head slammed against the head rest .... 

the lamp post still wobbles and the car went to its grave with a slight ding on its rear bumper ..

and the least said about the wheelie bin that blew into the road the better , it was no more ......

 

[Llessur]

On 7/9/2022 at 9:28 PM, New POD said:

Someone mention lamp posts ? 

Is that the new Morgan Aero?

[GMcD]

Winter 2017 - Citroen C4 cacked-arse. 

A Snowy A82.  Roundabout at the Crianlarich bypass. Me and a colleague heading for the Mull ferry at Oban. 

In front of me a van on the roundabout is across my path spinning it's wheels struggling to get around. So I'm stopped waiting.

I look in my rearview mirror. Behind me there appears to be an 18ton rigid doing it's best Bambi on ice impression. It was all-over the shop clearly making an effort to brake but not being entirely successful .

I'm trapped, I'm at a standstill. No momentum. I've no time to get out of the situation. I screamed at my colleague who was in the passenger seat to brace himself (more like "fucking hell mate, that cunt behind is goan tae slam intae us!!")

In what seemed like slow motion it managed to straighten up and dive right to end up going down the wrong way around the roundabout.  Close escape.

The rear seats were folded down and the back of the car was overflowing with equipment and tools including a UPS, laptops, network switches, telescopic ladders and my toolbox. I shiver at the thought of it being catapulted towards us.  

Another one:

Spring-ish 2014 - Renault Laguna 2. 

A83 just past Tarbert. I'm doing 60mph when an idiot in a CRV (?)  turns right, out from a driveway on the left hand side, crossing my path. 

They would have barely just about had time to make it, if not for the fact they panicked and stopped blocking most of the road. I slammed on the brakes and dived right. Left wheels on the road. Right wheels on the grassy verge. How I didn't become a cropper I don't know. Not talent or skill (I have neither) but sheer luck the verge had no dips or boulders to bounce  me straight into the trees. I had to pull over at the next field entrance to compose myself for 10 minutes as my teeth were chattering from the adrenaline. 

 

[maxxo]

On 7/11/2022 at 2:14 AM, Lankytim said:

A few years back I bought a Citroen XM for spares. It was running but had no brakes at all, not even the parking brake. The inlaws drive where it was getting stored was at the top of a hill in a cul de sac and due to space constraints I had to unload the car from the trailer rat the bottom of the hill. No problem I thought, I'll drive the XM off the trailer and up the hill to the driveway. Obviously I stalled it as I was pulling onto the driveway and rolled off backwards down the hill. I just managed to miss some parked cars as I careered into oblivion but as I approached the road at the bottom of the hill I could see busy traffic passing in both directions. By sheer blind luck I missed  the other vehicles and came to rest on a grass verge. After my heartrate had returned to normal I reconnected the slave battery , fired the old XM up and finally powered it up the hill onto the drive.  It was at that point that I thought that my "taking the piss" lives had been expended and I decided not to take any more chances in the future!

XMs love to give brown trouser moments I’ve found!

mine particularly likes to catch fire

[maxxo]

Minor in comparison to some but here goes

when the XM first arrived it wouldn’t run without a bodged cable on the battery to the fuel solenoid 

I wanted it out the garage to work on it, couldn’t be arsed getting it started to I decided to push it

fully sank, no hydraulic pressure 

parking brake didn’t work…….you can see where this is going

now I’d just been talking to a neighbour who was showing me his lovely brand new Range Rover……parked across the road 

the driveway is sloped, no severe but it’s sloped

you guessed it, I lost grip of the XM 

cue me then sprinting and managing to jump in

hit the brakes, nothing 

parking brake, nothing

it was now out the driveway at I’d say around 6-7mph

i did the only thing I could think of and ram the gear stick into park

cue lots of chattering and then thump 

it caught, stopping the car with much rocking 

about a foot or so from the 22 plate super expensive Range Rover 

sat there for a minute, then decided to start it up and put it back on the driveway

not one of my finest monents

[New POD]

8 hours ago, Llessur said:

Is that the new Morgan Aero?

Which one would you rather crash? 

[Lankytim]

7 hours ago, maxxo said:

XMs love to give brown trouser moments I’ve found!

mine particularly likes to catch fire

They seem to be quite a bit of aggro in various ways but I absolutely loved mine. My roll-away wasn't even the first case of a driversless out of control XM I'd experienced. . After a spirited drive I parked on the road outside my inlaws house and sat in the living room chair so I could admire my XM through the window. After a minute or so it rolled off down the hill, by the time I'd dashed outside it had already escaped. It crossed the cul-de-sac and ended up in a neighbours front garden, knocking down their for sale sign. Luckily there was no damage and the neighbours had recently gone out, otherwise the XM would've T boned their parked car. 

I can only think the front discs were hot and contracted as they cooled, allowing the parking brake to release. 

[bunglebus]

2 hours ago, Lankytim said:

I can only think the front discs were hot and contracted as they cooled, allowing the parking brake to release. 

I belive that was a known and common problem for exactly the reason you suggest

[Ghosty]

Driving my 740 on the A49 coming back from Chumley (2017 that must have been), after a light rain shower. Went over a crest and the steering wheel frantically started spinning - tyres were useless it turned out, car lost the nose and tried to chuck me at a dry stone wall. Managed to avoid hitting the wall but ended up on the wrong side of a double white and had to frantically get back to the right side of the road. It got a set of new Avons very shortly after.