Scariest Experience in your tacoma

Mine would be trying to read this post whilst sitting in the parking lot at in and out. Grammar much?

 

driving in a safeway parking lot in Sun City.....

 

I was merging onto an on ramp from the freeway going to the flow of traffic. I was cut off by a minivan mid merge. Slammed on my brakes and did an emergence swerve. Got the truck on two wheels and almost ran off the highway. Minivan had no idea he made me almost flip.

 

Almost two years ago (on Mother's Day) I was following my buddy down a dirt road from his house and blacked out. Woke up with my truck in a lift station's chain-link-fence. My friends said my truck was airborn after i jumped the curb and almost rolled. Fence post came into the cab and was about 2 feet from my head.


About 3 weeks ago(same road, going the other way) Going a little too fast, hit a washboard section and slung it sideways. Saved it, but scared the shit out of me.

 

2 am in the Vegas mountains, 07 PreRunner, rough homecoming with the wife after my last deployment, decided to ride out and clear my head. Got through a well beaten mountain pass and decided that wasn't remote enough, so I followed a small peak up to the point where is was drop off all around me other than the way I came, great. So my horrible attempt at turning around landed me bottomed out of the peak. I put it in park to get out and asses the situation, as I stepped out of my truck , I learned that "park" only applies to the rear wheels which were barely making contact with the loose rock. So as my truck started to slide down the drop off, I jumped back in and mashed the parking brake to the floor. Now I have some decisions to make, there was no way I was going back the way I came, and after the extra slide after stopping prevent me from turning around at all. my first thought was to release the parking brake, put it in neutral and let it roll down the bluff hoping for the best. Then my stubbornness and pride spoke up, I say to myself, "You drove it up here, you drive it down!" I decided I would not let my truck go at it alone, I get back, strap on the seat belt, release the brake, put that bitch in reverse and floor it, 40-50 foot drop at around a 60-70 degree incline, in reverse, on loose rock. I bounced like you wouldn't believe, cd's and empty monster cans were flying around my cab, and when the dust settled, I was fine. My runner had a few scratches and some broken plastic but nothing major. I was able to pick a good line getting out of there safely, and went back home to apologize to my wife and my Runner, both ladies in my life taught me a lesson that night!

 

nothing too scary in my vehicles- I did come close to drowning once. Had a hopped up '08 jet ski out on the lake that would easily clear 75mph. I should have been wearing a helmet at those speeds but I had it pinned in some decent water when I got out of the rhythm on some cruisers wake from across the lake somewhere. Not sure what happened but I woke up floating face up in the water with a gash on my eye brow and bloody arm. Ski was some 30 yards away. Adrenaline kicked in and I swam too it and climbed on. I was shaken up a bit and two boats pulled up to see if I was ok. Took it easy and cruised back to the docks. Glad I didn't wake up face down in the water. Got knocked out cold. Don't own the 'ski anymore. I do miss the speed, was one fast jet ski.

 

Found out what happens when your truck is full of your band's very large, heavy, expensive PA equipment and you're going down a steep dirt hill and decide, for some stupid reason, to turn. Never had a vehicle go up on two wheels before and I sure don't want to have that happen again. Don't know how I knew what to do but I saved it. Barely.

Had my girlfriend take me out and show me the basics of four-wheeling after that. She'd been doing it since she was a kid. I was too busy playing music to learn the finer points of driving. That's since been corrected.

 

a few days after finishing putting the long travel on the front of my truck a friend and and i went to take it out. We were hittings the whoops, or however you spell it, and the speedo was at 80 mph so im not sure how fast we were actually going, but we were going up a hill with some whoops and didnt see a big bump and the rear end bucked like crazy and flew up as we were going down the hill. I lost control and literally got perpendicular with the road still sliding all over the place and i hit a couple whoops sideways and i was like 100% at that point my truck was going to roll.

 

I sat in the passenger seat and let my gf drive...

 

I've had the rear end of the truck kick out on me a couple times in the rain, but I always manage to stay in control. Maybe it helps that I "practice" in the church parking lot across the street from my house.

Neither of these were in the Taco, but I've had a couple bad experiences on the road. Back when I was still on my permit, I went (foolishly, by myself,) to go pick up some scrap metal from down the street in our 94 Dodge Grand Caravan, nicknamed the Big Rolling Turd. I pick up the metal, and I'm on my way back when all of the sudden, the van starts jumping like crazy, throwing all the stuff around and making me smash my head on the steering wheel- the driver side ball joint and cv went at the exact same time, and I was doing nothing wrong. (We had known that they were on their way out.) Limped the van the last block home, jumping and bucking the whole way. Got home and the van's wheels were pointing opposite ways. I was freaking out, hyperventilating with my hands and feet going numb. (I used to have really bad panic attacks.)
Once, when I was fresh on my license, I had to go with my sister to get her car from the dealership. (she's dumb and got them to do the clutch when me and Dad could have done it.) She drove the Big Rolling Turd there, and I drove it on the way back home while she drove her car. On the way back, a blue Chevy truck pulls up beside me at the light. I recognize it as being a car from the back of my neighborhood. He's staring at me, open-mouthed, and I start getting annoyed. When the light changed, he jumped into the lane behind me, cutting several cars off, and followed me all the way home. I got out of the van and he got out of his truck, and he started yelling at me and pushing me against the side of the van. Said I was too young to be driving, that I was a kid, and he was going to beat my ass and then my father's ass for letting me drive. I pushed him back, because he was still pushing me against the van, and I'm pretty sure he was rearing up to hit me when my neighbor Mike (who is also my former boss) ran from across the street and started threatening the guy for messing with me. Mike told me to go ahead and pull out my license, and the guy was like "I don't care, I don't care!" but at the same time, snatched my license from me and read it, then threw it in the grass, screaming and swearing at us, calling us f*ggots, p*ssies, etc. At that time, my parents and siblings all rushed out of the house, hearing the commotion. Mom told him to stop cussing in front of her children like that, and he again said that he didn't care, and that he would talk how he wanted, because he was an adult, and a United States Marine. My dad demanded to know what was going on, and the guy was pointing at me, and invented stories of me cutting him off, bouncing over medians, running lights, etc, and then told my dad that I had a fake license. Dad, not believing his crap, told him to leave, and when he didn't leave, but kept yelling, Mike got in his face and forced him to retreat from the yard. He got in his truck, still swearing, name calling, and saying stuff like "I'm a Marine! I'm not scared of you!" He sped off and flicked us off as he went.
I later found out from one of that guy's roommates that I'm friends with (I had no idea for the longest time that they lived together) that the guy had just been really drunk, and sent his sincerest apologies.

 

Toyota's VSC interfering with snowy twisty mountain drive.

 

I was driving down the a mountain emergency fire trail and was doing fine, was mostly on the brakes not the gas but i was going way too fast around the corners. (30-35 on dry dirt) and came to a sharp corner i couldnt see until about 15 feet from it, slammed the brakes, did nothing for me. jerked the wheel and counter steered and just barely kept the back wheels from going off a 100 foot cliff. I was ready for falling off a cliff. i was literally thinking "fuck i just totaled my first truck" then after saving it thought of the fact i could have died... 18 year olds........

 

Driving a '99 PreRunner TRD quite fast on a country road lined with trees and a hard curve crept up on me. It was in the middle of the night so no other drivers were around. The truck shifted off the road into the bank, and I naturally tried to swerve back onto the road. As I did, the front tires caught asphalt and spun me completely 180 degrees before I skidded to a halt in the opposite lane, facing the other way. Dust was everywhere and the truck had shutoff. I was completely in shock and it took me some time to gather my senses. I was amazed I didn't hit one tree - despite that they all lined the road. I was terrified of driving fast for about 2 weeks... but it wore off