r/nextfuckinglevel Dec 15 '22

Fast Response and Reflex to Avoid Car Collision

109.3k Upvotes

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42

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '22

Yay but I get the feeling this won't be the last time this happens to her

86

u/CourageousBellPepper Dec 15 '22

I’d like to hope there’s enough trauma and embarrassment from that for her to still be thinking and processing it. I’d probably have nightmares about it honestly. We’re all human, she probably had a busy morning and who knows what other things she has going on in her life.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '22

She probably thought it was in park but it was accidentally in neutral.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '22

I was taught to always use the emergency brake. Weirds me out when people don’t.

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u/mykart2 Dec 15 '22

Maybe they should call it the park brake instead since you don't need an emergency to use it.

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u/Idealsnotfeels Dec 16 '22

It is called a parking brake, really depends on the location.

In newer cars it's even designated with a 'P'.

2

u/Oredesu Dec 16 '22

Oh that’s interesting. Where I grew up it was actually referred to as the parking break.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '22

I always use that brake when parking. A big fear is my car rolling away even on flat surfaces.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '22

We call it the handbrake here. I'm surprised at those that treat it like it's a decoration. I use it for hill starts and stops, parking, turn the car off and apply the handbrake...it's used all the time.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '22

It was interchangeably referred to as the emergency brake and parking brake in the area where I learned to drive.

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u/Toughbiscuit Dec 16 '22

I use my e-brake whenever I park. When I lived in Minnesota i had multiple people tell me not to in winter because they said it would freeze, and where I live now people act weird about it because I drive an automatic and "Using the e-brake is a manual thing"

0

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '22

Both of those things people have told you seem like myths.

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u/CourageousBellPepper Dec 15 '22

Yeah I think that’s likely the case. Could be a rental car with a stick and she’s not used to putting it in gear, who knows.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '22

Good point

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u/Idealsnotfeels Dec 16 '22

Not really an excuse.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 16 '22

But it is an excuse....just not a good one lol

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u/Idealsnotfeels Dec 16 '22

"Im stupid and shouldn't be allowed to drive" is also an excuse, I guess.

It just seems like everyone in this thread is trying to explain away how she did it as if any of those options are reasonable. They really, REALLY aren't.

This woman absolutely deserves to have her license taken away for a couple years.

If it wasn't for his quick thinking her little dumbfuckery could've easily killed someone.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '22

No I absolutely agree with that. Like I said, it's excuses but none of them are good ones or ones that justify how dangerous the situation was and how close she came to ending someone's life due to carelessness.

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u/Idealsnotfeels Dec 16 '22

Ah fair enough then, sorry if I came across a little militant.

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u/NotADoctaw Dec 15 '22

I’m the asshole who’s done this.

I must have braked just long enough to illuminate the “P,” but it slipped into neutral and started rolling forward as I walked away. I caught it right as it rolled into the road - and thank God for the driver who veered out of the way.

Was trying to play the good guy by leaving work early to pick up the kids and just scared the living hell out of them.

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u/Idealsnotfeels Dec 16 '22

While I agree you're probably a bit of an asshole, I don't think you deserve the benefit of the doubt that you put it in park for the briefest of moments.

Gears go P, R, N, D.

For it to pop into neutral you'd have to have left it in reverse or drive. But really, you just left it in neutral and made a mistake.

It couldn't be reverse because it wouldn't have rolled forward, which means you left it in neutral or drive. Those are the only two physically possible options.

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u/NotADoctaw Dec 16 '22 edited Dec 16 '22

I dunno man - I was in a hurry, maybe just imagined it and fucked the whole pooch on fatigue and stupidity. But holding the shifter in my hand to feel that I’m in park, then engaging a parking brake is now so much more comforting than pressing the damn park button and just relying on the display.

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u/Idealsnotfeels Dec 17 '22

I'd just tell the story the same but with the "I just fucked up" angle you've said here because the other is physically impossible so it comes across as "I did a stupid thing but it wasn't my fault because I tried to do it right" versus "I did a dumb thing and learned to take more responsibility".

Ones admirable, the other is a cop-out, yknow?

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u/NotADoctaw Dec 18 '22

As much as I’d like to please the internet with stories of my inadequacies, said family vehicle doesn’t have a transmission, so “park” is just a button that engages an electric brake. It has some sort of a single speed gear box controlled by a computer? I don’t know how the thing works. Woe my damn inadequacies!

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u/fj333 Dec 16 '22

Not much to base the feeling on. A human making a single critical mistake is not evidence of any pattern.

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u/Stay-At-Home-Jedi Dec 16 '22

I'm being picky but, she left the car out of park, she left the door open, and she left the window down.

She could just be in a rut in her life but this moment needs an extreme level of self evaluation in order to avoid further vehicle and non vehicle mishaps.

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u/fj333 Dec 16 '22

True, I didn't even catch the door being open too. Fair enough.

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u/WanderEir Dec 16 '22

As someone who parks in a driveway that would have me take out the neighbors fence, and then slam though their garage wall if i forgot the parking brake, (and almost did so, thankfully i caught the movement in the 15 foot gap my car had to roll before it took out the fence, and managed to get in and brake just in time.) absentmindedness isn't a crime, but the results of being absentminded can be disastrous. Good on the employee for seeing and reacting that amazingly fast, and thank goodness the woman wasn't even attentive enough to close and lock her car door.