Doh! Put the Key in When You’re Driving a Towed Vehicle
By Chuck Cage
You can imagine where this video’s going already, can’t you?
What’s interesting, too, is that the car is obviously either a competition vehicle of some sort — or a “wannabe” competition vehicle. Note the rear crossbar and harnesses visible after the accident.
It’s also right hand drive. I wonder where this video was shot?
February 7th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Once, after destroying the transmission of my car, I and a friend were under tow in said car.
The dead transmission was now a box full of neutrals, so we saw no reason not to have the engine running, so we could enjoy air conditioning and the loud stereo.
(And minor stuff like power-assisted brakes, should they turn out to be necessary. But naaah - the tow strap was at least 10 feet long!)
February 7th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
I saw this a few weeks ago. From what I remember, the car (either a Subaru WRX or STi) was in the process of being modified to put out ungodly amounts of power. They ended up blowing something on the engine and had to have it towed back. The key was in the ignition, but it wasn’t turned past standby (or whatever it was). The towing was going fine for a while until they needed to turn the wheel past the lock, at which point it was stuck going left into the trees as shown.
The full video, however, so exactly how lucky and stupid these guys were. Before the accident, they were being towed around blind turns at speed and were actually passing other cars on the two-lane roads. They were going much too fast for being towed, much less in a car without a running engine (and thus steering or brakes).
February 7th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
thats a hard way to learn a easy lesson. oh well at least they lived to tell the story.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Most sanctioning bodies requires steering locks to be disabled to prevent this kind of accident on the track, or while being towed off the track after an “oops”. I wasn’t very happy about it when I was still driving my road-race RX-7 on the street and parking it in the open. But this convinces me. =-o
February 7th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Wow. That was incredibly stupid. Yet entertaining. Modular tow bars are getting better and better–cheaper, lighter, and easier to use. I am surprised that, in what looks like a semi professional setting, that a safer system is not in use.
Good entertainment though.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:32 am
these guys are pickle puffers.