Scariest moment on a highway

[ftballfan]

Spinning around on eastbound I-96 just west of the Fruitport exit while I was going back to college on an icy day. Luckily, there was no traffic parallel to me so I didn't hit anything until I ended up facing forwards in a snowbank

[plain]

I remember my pops picking me up in the late 1980's from my mom's house in Hampton, VA to take me to his house in the Richmond area. We were on I-64 approaching US 17 in Newport News (still only 2 lanes each way then) when a police chase ended right in front of us... the suspect(s) passed us in the left lane and the cop passed us on the right shoulder. They collided right in front of my pop's pickup!! The cop went into the woods and the suspect went into the opposite set of lanes hitting several cars.

The closest I've experienced anything scary as an adult would be driving on I-70 west of Baltimore and having to drive on the shoulder to avoid a wrong way driver (they were probably drunk, this occurred about 1AM).

[Flint1979]

There are deer in all 83 Michigan counties including Monroe County. I just took one's life on US-23 NB at MM 12. Smashed my car up but I'm fine and sitting at a picnic table behind the Speedway in Dundee waiting for a ride back to Saginaw. I was in the left lane and couldn't get over and this stupid deer was just standing on the highway.

[interstate73]

Driving on I-287 south of Morristown shortly after getting my license when suddenly I realized my steering wheel wasn't turning anymore... the power steering band had snapped Was quite the herculean effort to pull myself off the highway at the next exit, which of course was a loop ramp  Thankfully I got to a church parking lot safely and was able to call my parents, but boy what a rush

[Henry]

My aversion to left exits and entrances stems from the first time I used the Rapid-Fire ramps on the Kennedy Expressway; it was after high school graduation, and I had Cubs tickets that day. The moment I realized that I was immediately in the fast lane with no time to merge, I begin to think "oh shit, I hope I don't die!" Luckily, I made it without a scratch, but those ramps were terrifying! In fact, my father never used them at all, preferring instead to go through the Circle Interchange to connect to/from the Eisenhower.

[kphoger]

Shortly after I moved to the Chicago area for college, I decided to drive Lake Street from Harlem and just explore my way from there to downtown, turning as necessary to continue making progress east.  At one point, I crossed Michigan Avenue without noticing that I had a red light.  Crossed right in front of a CTA bus.

[NWI_Irish96]

Shortly after I moved to the Chicago area for college, I decided to drive Lake Street from Harlem and just explore my way from there to downtown, turning as necessary to continue making progress east.  At one point, I crossed Michigan Avenue without noticing that I had a red light.  Crossed right in front of a CTA bus.

I lived just a couple blocks from Lake/Harlem for 4 years.

[kphoger]

Shortly after I moved to the Chicago area for college, I decided to drive Lake Street from Harlem and just explore my way from there to downtown, turning as necessary to continue making progress east.  At one point, I crossed Michigan Avenue without noticing that I had a red light.  Crossed right in front of a CTA bus.

I lived just a couple blocks from Lake/Harlem for 4 years.

I was enrolled in college at Harlem/Augusta for one year.  From there, I moved farther west into the suburbs but maintained periodic contact with the university–such as playing with one of its symphonic bands a few years later, for example.

That's the area I moved to immediately after high school.  Before that, I lived in a county of less than 3000 population and zero stoplights.  The "city driving" part of my driver's ed class took us out of state to a town of 8000.  I had traveled extensively while growing up, but I had hardly ever done proper city driving by myself.  The closest thing to solo urban driving I had done before moving to Chicago was going to Denver International Airport by myself during senior year.

[Flint1979]

One time many years ago I believe it was August 2001. I was driving home from the Twin Cities and stopped in Milwaukee to watch the Braves-Brewers game, mainly to check out the Brewers new ballpark. I encountered a traffic jam on I-94 between Milwaukee and Chicago and decided to start taking some north-south arteries that ran near I-94. I traveled down the lakeshore mainly along Sheridan and Green Bay Road after I split from US-41. So I'm thinking I'm doing good dodging some traffic on I-94 and I get through the north side of Chicago fine, get through downtown I took LSD (John Lennon's favorite drug lol) down the lakeshore.

After I got through downtown Chicago I knew I was heading into some rougher neighborhoods from about South Shore on down and decided to try to skip the Dan Ryan and go into Indiana along Chicago's surface streets. I was stopped at a traffic light around 95th and Ewing and a person was laying in the middle of the street like he was dead, all of the sudden he basically shoots up in the air and collapses again with a bunch of people standing around watching on a hot summer night on Chicago's South Side. You can imagine how that felt.

About a mile later I saw a sign that said Welcome to Indiana and directions to the toll road and got the hell outta there. I always love crossing a state line.

[ctkatz]

the scariest moment I had on an interstate has to be last year in july. it was sunset time and I'm transitioning from the will rogers turnpike to free I 44.  and at that time of the day and that time of year driving westbound you will get a face full of orange sun directly in your face.  unlike on most other sections of road that run 180° and 0/360° there is a short section that is not only twisty but there's an interchange thrown in as well. imagine being a traveler not familiar with that road and you're getting all that sun at an angle where a sun visor does nothing trying to figure out where the lane markers are.

[thspfc]

This wasn't scary, but it was certainly dangerous. Around 4:30 PM yesterday, I was on CTH-K north of Middleton, driving westbound. At Pheasant Branch Rd, there was a single cop car sitting just out of view from the beginning of the second 90-degree curve, and a single person waving people to turn left onto Pheasant Branch (right here: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.1425503,-89.4917147,3a,75y,192.15h,86.3t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sY8OPX0ALAuZXY-K5d3Bwog!2e0!7i16384!8i8192). He was wearing a high-vis jacket, but it was the time of day where it's not adequately light out, yet it's also not dark. The sky in the west was heavily orange and pink. So the guy was basically indistinguishable from the sky behind him, and he was around a shielded curve, with cars going 50-55 MPH approaching. There was no advance warning to slow down or anything. It seemed really dangerous for both the cop and for drivers.

[NWI_Irish96]

My scariest moment on a highway was Spring Break of 1993, my freshman year of college. Two friends and I went to south Florida for the week. We were pretty oblivious to news/weather reports that week, so if there was any advance warning of the massive "Storm of the Century", we weren't aware of it. We left Ft. Lauderdale at 9am on March 12. By the time we got to Atlanta, it was raining incredibly heavily. After a brief stop at a McDonald's just north of Atlanta, we got back on the road as the rain was changing to snow. I knew this was pretty unusual for Georgia. By the time we got to Chattanooga, it was blizzard-like conditions, and somewhere in Chattanooga the driver's side windshield wiper snapped right off. Not just the blade but the entire arm. We found a service station that was open, and they didn't have the parts to replace it, but they were able to move the passenger side arm/wiper over to the driver's side.

At this point we debated continuing on or stopping at a hotel. If we'd stopped at a hotel, we'd have been there for 2-3 days before being able to continue, but we decided to continue on. We later found out via news reports that I-24 west out of Chattanooga got closed not long after we got out. We navigated from Chattanooga to Nashville mostly by following in the tracks of semi trucks. At one point the one we were following got off at an exit and we were crawling along at about 20 mph until another one passed us and we could follow it.

We eventually made it to Nashville and from there the snow diminished, turned to rain, and then finally quit. It was probably a stupid decision to continue, but then one of my roommates got stuck in Alabama and ended up sleeping at a Burger King for 3 nights.

[bwana39]

We were driving westbound on Interstate 30 (RL Thornton Freeway) at around 8:00 AM one morning. We were just past Grand Avenue. A red Hyundai was cutting in and out of traffic. The traffic was going around 50. He was going at least 75. I saw him doing his frenetic weave in my mirrors. I was driving in the next to farthest left lane. He sped up behind the car next to me in the farthest left lane. He made a jerk move all the way to the far right lane. At this time of day, it would be 4 lanes wide. He moved one lane left. He was not that far in front of me. He jerked all the way left. His rear left tire hit the curb at the median. When this happened, his car bounced and pivoted. While he was initially being carried backward by the inertia, eventually the engine stopped him and sent him hurtling forward. Directly toward us. I slowed dramatically and found a break to get out of the lane he was in. When I last saw him, he was sitting still in rush hour traffic facing backward in the traffic.