My Most Embarrassing Motoring Mishaps

My driving instructor once turned to me at the end of a lesson and said:

“I am trying to decide whether it would be best to describe your driving style as reckless or suicidal.”

It was not the most encouraging of observations, but I can rather see his point. There has been a running joke within my family about whether the universe has a sense of humour allowing me to drive.

My first driving test I nearly wrote off the car.

I was nervous, my anxiety through the roof and I zoned out a bit, took a corner too quickly and nearly careened into a parked car. The driving examiner grabbed the wheel at the last minute and averted disaster. He then shakily asked me to drive back to the test centre.

It was, needless to say, somewhat awkward when we were parked up again for me to ask in a voice of eternal hope – “Did I pass?”

Well, maybe coming within inches of taking out a parked car was not an instant fail – you never know.

I shall never forget the look I exchanged with that same examiner when he appeared to take me on my second test some weeks later. There was a hint of dread on his face as he realised who stood before him. I am sure he developed a spontaneous twitch beneath one eye.

I smiled happily, thinking how many people had sworn blind to me that you never, ever get the same examiner twice, and then felt my nerves on the cusp of overwhelm as I climbed into the car.

I survived that second test, despite my hands trembling on the wheel. When we pulled back up to the test centre, the examiner gave the loudest of sighs, the sort of sigh a judge might give when about to issue a death penalty, and through gritted teeth he stated.

“You passed. Just.”

Just didn’t matter to me, all I cared about was that I had done it, I could drive a car! I think more than one person wondered what had been unleashed upon the world that day.

To be fair to myself, I have never had any major incidents involving me and my vehicle – more than a few near misses, I’ll admit, but my car fraps are largely of the embarrassing, slightly stupid and humiliating variety. Not the life or death sort.

I didn’t actually drive a lot at first, not actually owning a car, but when I did start to get around in my parents’ Vauxhall Corsa, I was happy and carefree. I even learned how to fill her up with petrol, which had been a source of worry for me some time – don’t ask why, it just seemed this mysterious thing that car drivers did, and I was nervous about it. I didn’t overflow with confidence in my youth.

The first car incident that I had, and which is regularly brought up when car fiascos become a topic of conversation at any party, occurred one sunny afternoon when I was heading off for a thirty minute drive to my local dog training club – dog duly loaded in the back of said car.

I had the window down as I drove down the road and turned the first corner. I could hear a ‘thrump-thrump’ noise that did not sound normal or reassuring. Thrump-thrump-thrump. I had not gone very far nor very fast. The logical thing would have been to stop the car and get out and take a look, instead I turned up the radio, shut the window to block out that disconcerting sound and carried on with my journey.

I arrived thirty minutes later at my destination without issue, satisfied my radio blasting solution had solved all.

Sadly, I was mistaken. Upon exiting the car, I discovered that my back right wheel was flat. Completely flat. Quite frankly, it was a miracle that it had transported me that far without some form of protest.

Rather shamefaced I rang my father and explained the situation and requesting emergency help as I had no idea how to change a tyre. Thankfully, with only some token grumbling and muttering, my long-suffering father appeared and attempted to change my tyre. In the process he accidentally tore off the trim of my car – but that is another story.

These days, any time a friend has a tyre problem with their care I jokingly offer them the ‘Sophie Solution’. Well, it did sort of work.

The next car kafuffle was actually a joint effort between me and my brother. I still swear it was his idea, not mine.

At that time my parents had suggested I take over the running of their Vauxhall Corsa. I was the one using it, and they said it was effectively mine. They deny that was quite what they said, but the gist was there.

One weekend they went away for a short break. That same weekend the Corsa, which had been doing weird things for a while, tried to break down on me. I am not the calmest with mechanical emergencies, though I am getting better with age. Back then, the thought that my car was unreliable and could stop working at any time freaked me out. What was I going to do?

My brother had the solution. Perhaps it was time to go shopping for a new car? We trundled up to the nearest garage, not really intending to buy a new car, but considering it. Somehow, we ended up chatting to the sales guy who showed us around some new cars, included a very cute Suzuki Splash, not big or fast, but I could easily afford the insurance and upkeep.

Even now the next part to me is hazy, but in the midst of saying ‘well, maybe’ ‘perhaps’ ‘possibly’ I ended up trading in the Corsa for the Splash. This was mildly awkward as the paperwork for the car was in my parents’ names, so when they returned from their holiday, I greeted them warmly before saying – “By the way, I sold the Corsa and I need the paperwork by Friday so I can get my new car.”

They took the situation rather well, though any time they go on holiday these days they do pause and ask me if I intend on selling anything that belongs to them while they are gone. We all laugh, but, well, you never know.

My Suzuki Splash was a special car because it was all mine. She had a 1 litre engine, absolutely tiny. As my father joked, most motorcycles had bigger engines than my Splash. Getting her up to the speed limit was always an adventure, working the way through the gears as the engine desperately tried to rev and noticing how car after car was overtaking us.

Steep hills were not for my Splash. Reaching one you would see the speedometer slowly decreasing as the car worked its heart out to climb up. You would start at 60mph and would be lucky to reach the rise at 50mph with your foot to the floor.

However, the Splash served its purpose and took me on some new motoring adventures. We had no major mishaps, aside from the ‘trapped dog’ fiasco.

To enable me to transport my dogs about I had collapsed the two rear seats and put a car crate in the back. This enabled me to take my two smaller dogs around safely. One day, I headed for a summer fete being held at a school. I had my new puppy with me in the crate and my older dog was participating in a special display put on by my training club. My dogs would need to spend time in the crate while I was helping set up and I had brought along a padlock so I could leave the boot up and allow them plenty of air, while making sure the crate door could not be opened and my dogs removed.

Halfway through the event, I placed my puppy in the crate and locked the padlock. I am still not sure how the next thing occurred, but the padlock key dropped from my hand and slipped through the tiny hole around the boot latch and into the space where my spare wheel was situated. In normal circumstances it was really easy to lift the false bottom of the boot and access the spare wheel, but I had a big dog crate sitting in the space.

I should add, that to get my crate into my car, it had been necessary to fold it down, slip it in and reassemble it. This meant that I could not remove the crate while it was locked with my dogs inside, and it was sitting on top of the panel beneath which the padlock key had fallen.

Oh, and I didn’t have a spare.

There was a moment of abject panic as I thought I had trapped my dogs and visions of bolt cutters and other tools being deployed filled my mind. Though it was slightly embarrassing to admit to what I had done (and even harder to explain how I had managed it) I was able to rally some helpers and between us we managed to jiggle the crate back and up enough to allow the lip of the panel to be lifted and the key retrieved.

After that I have always kept my padlock key attached to my car keys and I always have a spare to hand.

I had several years of peaceful motoring with no interesting stories to tell. I traded in my Splash after a couple of years for a Peugeot Tepee as I needed more space. That was a great car, you could tuck yourself in the back for a sleep if needs be. She took me to and fro without incident.

Then I decided to get into the world of caravanning, and I needed something more suitable for towing. I ended up with a Vauxhall Antara, a heavy-duty 4x4 with the power to tow whatever I wanted. She was also my first automatic, which took some getting used to, though now I cannot imagine going back to a manual.

I was happy in my new monster car, feeling empowered and able to conquer the world. Then, barely six weeks after I bought her, we were on a motorway when I was enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The car lost power and I limped to the edge of the road, wondering what on earth was the matter.

I rang up my breakdown cover provider and then sat on the verge waiting to be rescued. It was not a pleasant experience. Several of my fellow motorists seemed to think my decision to park at the edge of the motorway had been made out of choice. They honked their horns at me and flashed their lights angrily, as if I could do anything about my now dead car. Her engine would not even turn over, let alone take me to the nearest layby.

I was rescued eventually. First a breakdown engineer assessed my car, managed to tow me to a layby (an interesting experience when you have absolutely no power in a one-ton hunk of steel and have to guide her along on a tow rope) then declared my new car was dead in the water and would require a tow truck.

So once more I was waiting alone on the motorway, though this time my scenery was pleasanter, with a pair of horses in the field next to where I had been abandoned. The tow truck arrived, an utterly enormous beast under the command of a tiny woman who I rather bonded with immediately. She was cheerful and friendly and between us two small ladies, we were able to push my powerless car up to the tow ramp and get her onboard. Then I climbed up into the cab of the tow truck – it was so tall it had a built-in ladder – and enjoyed feeling above all those other motorists who had honked and flashed me.

The affair of the Antara was a sorry story. Her fuel injectors needed replacing. Luckily, she was still under warranty and so the garage I bought her from would cover the cost. Unluckily, the garage she was taken to were a nightmare. At first it was just they did not seem interested in fixing her, then they could not get the part, then when they did get the part, they did not have the correct tool to change it…

The story dragged on and on for weeks and my first garage kindly supplied me with a Dacia to tide me over.

Now came the one incident in my motoring career that I feel truly embarrassed about, probably because it hurt my pride so much and came on the back of a lot of stress with the fiasco of the Antara.

I was in a carpark in the Dacia, a few days after collecting it. I had to reverse out of a space. The car had parking sensors, but they proved to be not like my Antara’s sensors which have a three-sound warning system (#1 getting close, #2 getting really close, #3 seriously going to hit this thing!). The Dacia only had one sound, there was no geared warning and as the sensors started to beep at what I thought was the ‘#1 getting close’ level, I heard a terrible thud and grinding noise.

I had reversed into a parked car.

In all my motoring mishaps, I have never felt so angry with myself. I found the owner of the car and exchanged insurance details, then I drove home and had the humiliating experience of ringing up the garage and informing them I had damaged my loan car. After all that, I quietly broke into tears.

As motoring accidents go, it was certainly not the worst, nowhere near, but it had taken a shine off my car journey, it knocked my confidence and it took time to overcome.

I still drive my Antara and I still get twitchy if she smokes a little, but I have two lots of breakdown cover (hey, why not!) so I have my safety net and she is good for towing a caravan.

My driving experiences have been diverse and largely comical. They certainly have provided my family with a good giggle over the years. Do I have regrets about my car career? Only one, the time I misjudged a reversing manoeuvre. Other than that, no, no regrets.