Hey Pandas, What Was Your Most Random Road Experience?

My drive home from work took me alone a twisty road through a bit of country.
Coming round a bend there was a straight run to the next corner.
Just as I came around the bend I saw a big grey owl on top of a fencepost.
As I drew beside the owl, he took off. And flew beside me.
There we were. Owl and man traveling together.
Wonder that I didn't run off the road. Me staring out the driver's window.
The big grey owl and me. Sweet.

Not me, but I witnessed it. A case of road rage. Two drivers started arguing at a stop light. Finally, apparently they both had had enough of each other, but, amazingly, they were almost kind to each other, chivalrous. They parked their cars at a corner, away from traffic, and went to town on each other: no kicks, no low blow, just clean fists. People were watching from everywhere, including a police officer who acted sort of as a referee. At last, one of the men landed a punch squarely on the other's face that knocked him to the ground. Nothing serious. The downed man raised his hands and the fight stopped. The first man helped the other up, they shaked hands, hugged it out and each one left on its merry way.

Many years ago, when we were young and stupid, a friend and I were travelling along Hwy 101 in Oregon, very late at night. We might have eaten some mushrooms earlier and were heading for our favorite crabbing location. We came up a hill that was a slow, blind curve when we suddenly spotted something on the side of the road. Mind you, it's shortly after 2 am (when the bars had just closed), and we had just gone through one of the small coastal towns along the Oregon coast.

My buddy was driving and he stopped the car rather quickly. In the headlights, it looked like a black trash bag was in the road. My buddy inched his car closer to the object, and we could tell that it was a body, but from where we were positioned, we couldn't tell if it had a head! We both looked at each other with the same thought: who is going to go see what's going on? We decided that neither of us was in any condition to render aid (or be freaked out even more than we already were) and started driving to find a pay phone (it was the 80's).

After what seemed like forever, we finally found a pay phone and I called the police. I told them that we were coming around the corner near [coastal town]... and before I could say any more, the operator said, "Are you calling about the body in the road?"

Flabbergasted, I replied, "yes."

She said that they already have officers on the way.

We never did find out what had happened.

After dropping my grandmother off at the airport, I went to the only exit road which, as usual, was bumper-to-bumper. On the median, I see some guy with a huge backpack walking up to cars both approaching and leaving the airport. Here I am thinking, "Oh, great: a beggar". I get closer, and I recognized the backpack: an industrial-sized urn! The guy wasn't a beggar, he was a walking coffee shop, making money hand over fist.

Getting knocked down at a zebra crossing when I was 10.

It was southern California six of us Marines in our camouflage uniforms pulled up next to a car full of Nuns with their robes and habits on. We just waved and smiled while they did the same. Seemed surreal.

Driving to work one morning and suddenly the car in front of me lost his right front tire. It just flew off the car and rolled down the street. I stopped and offered assistance. He was just getting off a third shift job and was on his way home. His car was an older model and not in very good shape. So I helped him get his tire off the middle of the road and by that time a police officer was on scene. He didn't have any means to rectify the situation so I had AAA and told the officer he was my friend and I was helping him. I called AAA and they came and loaded up his car and took him home with his car in tow. The towing guy stated that if the guys home was beyond a certain milage, they charge extra. The poor guy didn't have any cash on him so I happened to have twenty two dollars and gave it to him, just in case. Extremely grateful and profusely thanking me, we exchanged numbers and he sweetly told me if I ever need anything to please call him. It made my day to be at the right place at the right time.

Some that come to mind:

When traveling around Australia I got taken over by a horse. It was in a smalltown. Horse came running behind me on the main road, I slowed down, and it took over. No rider, no saddle, nobody else around. And just off it went...

Driving in Bangkok is always an adventure and only recommended (if at all) for experienced drivers. The motorcycles and scooters are known to drive quite pushy and aggressive. That's quite common and alright to handle. But I was on a main road downtown and suddenly a whole group of Tuktuks came towards me. On my lane, against the traffic. Looked like a game of "chicken" for a moment, but seems to be quite a normal situation for them. Just before we met, they somehow managed to swerve around me and continue their way...

Autostrada in Italy. I was on the fastlane, taking over another car. Going around 100 km/h. Suddenly a small bang and my car jumped forward. Some guy came in with around 120 km/h or so and just pushed me away. Luckily he had a compact car and I was in an SUV. Damage on my rental car (with full cover) was minimal, his front looked worse. But he never slowed down. Just kept going and drove away. Luckily my car was quite stable and we didn't lose control. At that speed it could've been worse.

This happened when I was 18. My friend and I were driving around town in the middle of the night smoking pot. Definitely stupid, and we were lucky no one got hurt. Anyway, we were very stoned and my friend made a turn but hit a curb with a trash can and 3 plastic bins out. The bins tip over and about 60 pounds of colorful candy scattered onto the street. It must've been like 15 feet of the road covered in rainbow colored candies. It was so much! It was so random and actually really pretty to look at. Now though, I do feel bad for the person that had to clean it up.

I was driving home from work one day, stopped at a busy intersection, when someone in a big truck, leaned out the window and sprayed silly string all over my windshield while driving past me in the oncoming/opposite lane. Not enough that I couldn't see, but it ran the length of the windshield and of course I had to leave it there until I could safely pull over and get rid of it. I didn't recognize the truck or the driver, it was a random person as far as I know. The funny thing is, this was in 2022 and I haven't seen silly string in a store since the early 2000's...I guess they still make it?!

When i was 13 i got volunteered to spend a month with my scientist aunt driving across the u.s. My aunt is also a former fransican nun. Within a week i spent the night in a convent. Let me tell you those Fransicans know how to party.

Luckily i gave up my attitude quickly and learned abt nature and John denver. When we reached Glacier National Park it was mid july but the ice was still amazing. As we trudged along the train on the glacier i fell in waist deep. I called for my aunt to hold on. She turned and saw me waist deep in a cravesse. I still hear her scream on cold winter nights lol. I also learned its very funny hearing a nun cuss even if im the target.

Btw she wasnt mad just worried. Its been 30 yrs now and we still laugh.

Shout out to the Sisters of Niagara.

I worked nights, and was driving home around 2am on I-95 (the major interstate that runs from the southern most part of Florida (US state) all the way up to Maine (most NE US state)) and somebody started aggressively tailgating me (following me way too closely at around 75mph/120kpm) - so close I thought they'd bump me, or even already did. About 1/4 mile (0.40 km) from my exit, so I was kinda concerned they might follow me home, when the vehicle in front of me lost a tire that flew straight over my car and smashed into the guy behind me!

Wouldn't have hit them if they were following the proper distance behind me! I hit the Onstar (roadside assistance, amongst other things, on most US cars made in the last 25 years) button on my mirror and told the operator what happened and where so they could dispatch highway patrol or whatever else was necessary.

2023 - A Truck driver smashed his truck into car, nearly toppling her over so she drove in front of the truck, and slowed him down

- Camping-Holiday with Brother and Dad
- South of France, some country-road (we were looking for a camping site) just a stones throw from the shore.
- In the parked car at the side of the road, figuring out paper maps and google maps - no body anywhere, no cars but ours.
- out of the brush over the street comes a guy, about 45, pretty big and just a shirt and waaay to short shorts and sunglasses (it was overcast, so kinda weird)
- he looks around, takes a 3 second look at us and comes over, asking for sunscreen and a piece of camping line in broken French
- My Bro asks what he wants and I answer in swiss German. The guy reacts, turns out he's German
- While figuring out the maps, none of us were up to getting to know new people, so we just cut a little (about 25-30 cm) piece of line and we give him an almost emty can of sunscreen - no questions asked
- Just before Good-Byes, Dad asks if the guy is camping too
- Guy gets a little enthusiastic and lists the places he camped at
- We ask if he's camping right now, he says yes
- We ask if he can point us to the closest camping site or the one he's at - he gets weird... saying things like, we wouldn't like it and it was full and yada yada yada.
- In the end, he thanks us and leaves in a hurry, we're kinda unsure what to think of this.
- Dad gets it, googles for nude beaches in the area... Everything about the guy pointed towards that: The sort shorts for trips out of the nude camp, the glasses for anonimity and his weirdness about where he camped.
- We can't find any mention of a nude beach online, wich makes it all the weirder. We speculated about a non sanctioned German nude colony in the French woods or Drug Parties at the beach, but we let it go and drove on a few minutes later. Most random road Exp ever...

I was a brand new driver (16) handling my first winter storm (Chicagoland). Was doing okay until I tried to brake for a red light at the bottom of a hill. Brakes had no effect...we even started to speed up due to the downhill slope. I said a quick prayer, yelled to my passenger to hang on, and blasted my horn the whole through the intersection. May have invented some new swearwords on the spot. Thank God everyone else could stop. We called our dads to come get us after that little adventure.

I was hauling my horse and trailer down the interstate and as we were coming up on an 18 wheeler loaded down with big metal tresses they became untethered and started falling off all over the freeway in front of me. I had to weave my truck and trailer super fast through the trusses landing on the freeway all around me and I was all over the freeway myself, weaving in and out to avoid the falling crashing giant trusses.

On my way to work driving down the freeway an 18 wheeler entered into the passing lane which left me no where to go except the mediun strip. I Daisy Duke'd it down the mediun until I could enter back onto the freeway and then chased down that trucker and honked and honked as I gave him the one finger wave...

We (my dad and I) were driving on a road through some hills. It was night and as it was semi rural there were no street lights. We saw around a corner a set of head lights and thinking it was a police car we slowed and stopped. Only after stopping did we see a kangaroo in front of us on the road. We were there for at least 5 minutes as it kept jumping back and forth along the road (I'm assuming the 2 sets of headlights confused it). It finally made up its mind and ducked under the guard on the side of the road and we and the other car drove off.

Biking down the road in the country, suns setting, im in the woods, and I run into a motha freaking rib cage in the middle of the road, and turn to see a pile of animal corpses...

Driving through town on the main road I come to a 4 way stop light to see this little kitten in the middle of the intersection. I guess the other guy had the same idea because with out even looking at each other we both at the same time used our pickup trucks to block two lanes of traffic and then jump out to catch this kitten. Then he hands it to me and said good luck. then we Just both got in the Trucks and drove away. I drove to the first place I could park so I could look at the little guy and make sure he was ok. Not one person honked at us, complained or said anything they just let us save the cat and move on. It was kind of cool. So now I have a cat that owns my house and allows me to sleep there.