Killer Bee Cars

Judging by the massive popularity of dashcam crash footage on YouTube, everyone loves a good fail. Not one to shy away from transparency, I’m going to share a few of my own epic fails from years gone by.

The first incident goes back to when I was a bored, mischievous 15 year old with my best mate Tom. For a reason unknown to everyone, he’d gone and bought himself a clapped out Vauxhall Corsa for about £300 with a sound system that cost more than the car. A typical for him, spur of the moment decision. For about a week, we sat in this Corsa going up and down the driveway every night trying to teach ourselves clutch control and getting ever faster before slamming on the brakes just before the road. One night however, Tom thought it would be a good idea to go for a spin round the local back lanes and me being the idiot that I am, thought why not and jumped in shotgun. Underage, no license, no insurance and by what was to unfold, no idea how to drive either.

The highly illegal journey was going rather swimmingly at first, if rather jerky. With Tom behind the wheel and me in the passenger seat, his confidence was growing by every uneventful mile that went by. Once we got onto the back lanes and away from built up areas, that confidence predictably turned into arrogance. “Watch this” he said, those famous last words as he yanked on the wheel in an attempt to kick the back end out, which with help from a little lift of the throttle, was actually a success, that is until he over corrected, got his arms all crossed up and we ended up squirrelling down the road and flying through a hedge.

It’s a moment I still vividly remember, Runnin by Tupac and Biggie was blasting on the sound system as the car got airborne from the raised bit of ground where the hedge was and then dipped into the field. That moment between seeing the hedge directly in front of the car and it slamming nose first into the ground on the other side, seemed to last forever, I swear the music played at half speed before it cut off at the moment of impact. The car ended up settling on its side with me at the bottom and Tom hanging on trying to stay in the drivers seat above me. Once he’d managed to get his door open and climb out I remember jumping down into a rain sodden field and instantly losing one of my trainers in the mud. It was pitch black with only the moonlight and some of the still functioning lights on the Corsa to help us get our bearings. With my lost trainer soon found and thinking just how lucky we were to both come out of this without a mark on us, the thought turned to what do we do now?

Tom being Tom had quickly come up with a plan to worm our way out of this sticky situation. He informed me that we were to smash one of the windows with a rock and pretend the car had been broken into, while disconnecting all of the the sound system, taking it back home with us and then reporting to the police that the car had been stolen off his driveway. Not having thought of anything better, I went along with the plan and began the long walk home with a sub, amp, and 2 6×9 speakers in hand. It was proper early hours of the morning by the time we’d made it back to his house and decided the best thing to do was to get some sleep and deal with things in the morning.

Come about 8am and being awoken by his incredibly annoying Insane Clown Posse alarm, he stuck to his plan. Tom rang the police and said his car had been stolen from the driveway. I was convinced they’d be able to smell bullshit and he’d be in a spot of bother but not long later he gets a phone call back from the police saying the car had been found and recovered to a local garage, that it’s probably written off and does he want it back, to which he replied no it’s ok thanks, put the phone down and that was that. We never heard anything regarding that incident ever again! I can guarantee if it was my car and me making that call, I’d be brought into the station for questioning!

I’d like to say, driving underage and with no insurance is not big and it’s not clever, we were both very lucky to come out of the crash completely unscathed and things could have ended up very different. But it’s a memory I’ll keep with me forever of my best friend who sadly passed away a few years later. I could write a dozen articles about mine and Tom’s adventures on both two wheels and four but we’ll leave it there for today.

If you’ve got this far, thanks for taking the time to read this little story, I hope you enjoyed it!