• erogenouswarzone@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I was at an intersection once in a friend’s car. This was about 20 years ago: cell phones, esp ones that could take videos and pics, were not there yet.

    Anyway, we were on the way home from work, just sitting there not saying anything. Then here comes this jeep, flipping through the intersection. Now, the intersection is big, like 4 lanes intersecting with 4 lanes, but not exactly at a square angle, and it must’ve been about 3/4 of a football field worth of length this jeep flipped.

    The front end would hit the ground and then it would bounce up and roll in the air, then the ass end would hit the ground and so on. All the while it’s coming towards us slightly, but seemed to be drifting towards a gas station to our right. Now, this is in the middle of Rush Hour traffic, and somehow no one moved - everyone is just frozen, holding their breath, waiting to see if this jeep was going to careen into a gas pump and cause a huge explosion.

    I’m not sure how many times it flipped, but it finally came to rest in a green patch of grass in front of the gas pumps right-side up, like some sort of insane Jeep ad.

    The driver emerged - a young lady - she seemed to be ok, besides perhaps a little bewilderment and dizziness. She proceeded to just stand there staring at the jeep for a while. Then she looked around, as if to ask “Does anyone know if this is ok - what just happened?” I shrugged with my mouth agape, as if to respond, “I have no idea, and I’m a little freaked out.” Then our light turned green, and we drove away.

    I have never seen anything like that in my life, and I still think back about it and try to figure out how the jeep got into that movement, and I just have no idea. It was all over in a blink of an eye. So bizarre.

    • Synthuir@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Having driven and driven in a couple of Jeeps, I’d imagine you could get it to somersault like that by stomping on the brakes while doing anything over 60mph.

    • grabyourmotherskeys@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I did an all night cross country drive once, got about three hours sleep in a recliner, and went for a walk with my friend so she could have a smoke. We were so tired. The night before that drive I’d spent a few hours sleeping on the floor of some place. Was a weird part of my life.

      We had just crossed at a busy intersection and were also by a gas station. A huge pickup truck came flying right by us to smash into a concrete planter. Passed by about 2m (6ft) away. The woman in the cab was holding her flip phone to her ear (long time ago) and staring straight ahead. We turned and saw another vehicle just crumpled in the intersection. We just kept right on walking (there were tons of people around to render assistance and we were so tired I think we both were delerious and thought we were hallucinating)