Ooooh $--t

[Tony Cipponeri]

I hope everyone had a nice day yesterday. Mine started off great as I got the correct lightbulbs (1176) thanks to Chesterx. I took the coupe over to a friend of mine to have him put in the fire wall, While he was doing that I was putting in my new bulbs. Well Paul accidently knocked the coupe out of park, and it started rolling backward, I tried to stop it but it was pushing me backwards, Paul reached for the brake with his hand, but it was to late. The coupe hit our Durango in the backdoor, and dragged the welder down the driveway banging into the right front fender. I wonder how many people can say that they wrecked two cars of their own at one time, Boy am I talented. Tony C

[John Burke]

Tony, sorry to hear aout the double whammy....When I first got my 49 Plymouth Bizzy, it ran great but no brakes. As I was trying to jockey it into place at my house, I foregot about the absence of the brakes and was heading down a hill tword the garage when i realized I was in deep dodo. In my panic I had to choose between the crick or the garage so I stuck the front end into the side of the garage. Lucky I had'nt developed much speed so there was minimal damage to the car or me....The garage? well thats another story best foregotten....John Burke

[windsor8]

That sucks and hope you are ok, but........you didn't happen to have a video camera rolling did you?

[Tony Cipponeri]

Oh No video of course, I could have made money with a video. That is against the rules for dummies. Tony C

[Niel Hoback]

I can say I have wrecked two of my cars at once in my own driveway. Not something to be proud of, but, hey, it happens. At least we can say that we're good at something. That won't be funny to you for a couple of weeks yet.

[Norm's Coupe]

Tony,

Thats a bummer, but I do know other people that hit each other in their own driveways.

A few years ago my mother who had a new Dodge only a couple of months old and her friend who had a one year old Lincoln, ran into each other in my mothers driveway.

To go one better, how many people do you know who hits their house? In the early 80's my daughter clipped the rear corner of our house with her 80 Olds, as she was backing out of the driveway.

[blueskies]

Oh Man, Tony... what a drag!

I've had my share of "moments"... but only a couple minor ones with my plymouth. I backed the car into my engine stand the first time it moved under it's own power and ripped a big gouge in the brand new paint.

That, and when I brought the car home from the paint shop, I didn't have anyone to help me get it off of the u-haul trailer. My driveway was steep, so the car was nearly level rolling off the trailer into the garage. The car didn't have any brakes as the rear line had gotten torn off by the body shop. I thought I could roll the car down off of the trailer slowly, and into the garage, by myself.

I put a come-a-long on the front of the car to the trailer, thinking I could back it down with the cable, but it wouldn't go. So, I put a bunch of slack in the cable, and gave it a push. When it let loose, it took off for the garage bay at a pretty good clip, miss-aligned with the door. I panicked and thought for sure I was going to take out the rear corner of the car on the garage. Just before it hit, the cable took hold and stopped it. I just sat there for a while and stared at the whole thing. Had to wait till my neighbor got home to move it from there.

At least you didn't get pinned between the cars, it could have been much worse. Seems my first inclination is to jump behind a rolling car to stop it, only then to realize that the car is much heavier than I am...

You know, you are going to have to post the gory pictures here for all to see... LOL

Glad you found the bulbs-

Pete

[40phil41]

Tony,

In my case my daughter had just received her beginners permit and we were going for a practice run in our brand new 1995 Windstar van. Our driveway slopes down towards the garage door. I was in the passengers seat when she inadvertently put it into drive instead of reverse. Yup, straight into the garage door which caved inwards hitting my '40 Dodge (fortunately before restoration) which jumped forward into my work bench. I didn't have to say a single word to my very startled daughter. My looks took care of the conversation . The final tally; new garage door, minor repairs to the Windstar, a dented front nose on the '40 and a family story which can't help being told over, and over, and over......

Phil

[Merle Coggins]

Not a car story, but similar circumstance.

1 week after getting my brand new Honda Gold Wing I'm installing a trailer hitch. I managed to push it forward off of it's center stand and it tipped over onto my snow blower cracking the faring. I felt like a heal having to go back to the dealer to order up a new $375 faring panel. Although I did get to know my bike quite well as I disassembled it to replace the panel.

Another story that comes to mind...

I was working at a customer's gravel pit one day. The girl that worked in the scale house had just picked up her car from the body shop. Apparently she had just been in a fender bender. She had her car parked behind the company pickup next to the scale house. Around mid morning she was asked to make a parts run, so she jumped into the pickup and backed directly into her car. She caught a lot of ribbing over that one.

[BobT-47P15]

A couple of these cheap parking brakes can save headaches.

[/img]

Sorry about the mishap Tony......some pretty unbelievable things can happen

in a split second. My 1960 Pontiac convertible I had back in the 70's was

sitting in the back yard which sloped gently toward the house. I had not

gotten it into park. Had gone into the house. It sat there for a

while, then began slowly rolling toward the covered patio.....

ultimately taking out two posts and the gas yard light

with the rear bumper. All I could do was watch out the

kitchen window. Fortinately there were enough other support

posts that the patio roof didn't collapse.

[Dennis Hemingway]

Tony, Sorry to hear that, Hope the damage not too bad.

Dennis

[JerseyHarold]

Tony,

Sorry to hear about your accident. At least you're okay....cars can always be fixed or replaced.

Since others have been posting 'runaway car' stories, I'll add one that happened to my friend's grandfather. They lived on a farm where the farmhouse was on top of a small hill. One day in the sixties, Grandpa had a 'rush call', drove up to the house in his '51 Cranbrook, and jumped out to run for the bathroom. He didn't leave the car in gear or set the emergency brake. The Cranbrook rolled backwards down the hill into one of their farm trucks. The car was totalled....they pulled the engine and towed it to the field for the farm hands to sit in if it rained.

[Tony Cipponeri]

All and all, I got out of it pretty good, it could have been a lot worse, the welder got the front fender but it did bend the tank where the gauges are, that would have great to see an Oxygen tank soaring around the yard. Yeah nobody got hurt and I can Laugh about it now. The worse part is that I broke both blue dot lenses, the left one broke on the Durango and I dropped the right one, as I tried to hold the car back and it was sliding me down the driveway . Tony C

[Norm's Coupe]

I forgot two other car stories myself. One is my daughter again and the other my son.

After my daughter hit the house I wouldn't let her park her car in that spot anymore. She had to park on the other side of the driveway on the hill behind my sons car. I had instructed her to always put her E-brake on and put the car in low gear when parking. One night when she came home she evidently forgot to put the E-brake on. Next morning we found her car in the neighbors front yard across the street. She had put the car in reverse when she parked it, not low gear, and of course it rolled down the hill across the street before stopping on its own.

My sons episode. To make sure we could get my wifes and my car out we had the kids park as close to the side of the driveway as possible because the wife wasn't too good at backing up. Because of that my son would always go off the driveway into the yard next to the driveway when coming in and out. Of course, that made ruts in the yard. No amount of talking to him would solve the problem. But...............I had this big rock that weighs a ton, so I finally put it right where he would make the ruts. The rock is too heavy to pick up, or roll easily, it took four of us (my neighbor and both our sons) just to get it out of the ground originally. He didn't like that solution so he decided the next day he could hit the rock with his wheel as he was backing out and that would move the rock. Well.........the rock didn't move but it put a dent in his lower fender. After that all was ok, he never tried to move that rock with his car again and we didn't have ruts in the yard anymore.

[Don Coatney]

Flash back to 1964. I was driving my high school honey home after a date and I was driving my mothers 1956 Cadillac. This Caddy had an automatic transmission and I was not used to driving an automatic transmission. I slowly crept into the girlfriends driveway and stopped in front of her garage doing my best to not wake her parents so we could engage in a little necking before she went in just under the appointed curfew time. So I stopped in front of the garage and did not put the transmission in park.

Her dad did not like me much but after I ran into his garage door he really did not like me.

[Tony Cipponeri]

Hi All, It turns out the damage to the Plymouth coupe wasn't as bad as we thought, it is all smoothed out right now and will get painted today. Tony C

[Dennis Hemingway]

Tony, Good to hear that. Hope everything goes well.

Dennis