Oh man. Talk about your can of worms. I stole the family car so often that it came to be no big deal. Most notoriously, perhaps, was the post-divorce episode when I was 13 years old: I'd received a bad report card and was scared to show my folks, so I stole my mom's gagrage sale money and her '79 Chevy Vega and headed for Worthington (from MPLS) to shack up with my "girlfriend". Oh man. Oh.....man.

I was 14 or 15. The dad of my best friend Cheryl was renovating some fancy classic car-a Riviera. One night Cheryl, her brother Pat, his best friend Erik and I decided to “borrow” the Riv while the parents were away. I had the biggest crush in the world on Pat so I would have followed him anywhere. We drove from Superior up to Enger Tower and then some crazy Duluth back roads. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere by the boat yards we hit a pothole and blew a tire on the Riv. This was bad. Daddy was going to kill us. I don’t remember if we had a spare, I just remember getting it filled up with temporary foam at some service station. Then our most brilliant idea. We were going to steal a similar tire from the parking lot of the Mariner Mall movie theatre. We lurked around looking for a good match but never actually stole one. I don’t remember much after that. But the Riv was eventually totaled when Pat was pulling out of the Superior Senior High School parking lot. No one was hurt-but I was in rehearsal for a play and felt jealous that I wasn’t there when it happened. And Erik grew up to be Dr. Thunder. We laugh that we spent so much time together as teenagers but didn’t become friends until our 20’s. If someone told me at 14 that Erik would be in my wedding twenty years later I would have said they were crazy.

Eddie Griffith wins

I did just wreck my first car ever this winter (though technically, it wasn't even mine). Snow + black ice + recalled anti-lock brakes + winding mountain pass at 2am = bad idea.

It's Eddie Griffin, not Griffith, Cork.

Jesus man, don't ever insult the star of Undercover Brother like that again.

I'll chalk the mistake up to one too many Pit Bulls.

I learned to drive on a 1974 Chevy station wagon: picture the Griswold Family Truckster in a less flashy, economy-model trim line. It was a "woodie" with a tan vinyl interior, AM radio, and a speedometer that ambitiously proclaimed a top speed of 120 MPH. At age 15, I was allowed brief solo forays around the empty parking lot across the street. With a little practice, my skill and nerve increased, although not at the same rate.

One day I decided to take the wagon on a slightly longer excursion. A calculated risk, I suppose. I was looking to impress my girlfriend of a couple months, with a glimpse of my future independent self.

I backed the wagon out of our driveway onto the street, and in my haste forgot to shift the transmission from R to D. I had mentally shifted gears, but forgot to follow through with the action part. (Telekinesis is a flawed theory- anyone who disagrees: raise my hand.)

I mashed the gas pedal, and the lumpy Detroit V-8 lurched the wagon backwards. Over the curb, onto the lawn across the street. Luckily this isn't the movies; no street vendors or fire hydrants were in the way.

Realizing my mistake, I selected 'D' with the column shifter, and eased off the turf, as my heart accelerated rapidly.

The nervous rush clarified my mission: woo with wagon. Thoughtfully, I had telephoned ahead, so that my lady friend would be looking out her window at precisely the right time. I think she might have been expecting something a bit more... spectacular.

As I cruised by her house I honked the horn and waved. With no time to spare, I was quickly on my way back home. Like driving, my youthful romantic endeavors often lacked skill and nerve.

That special place in my girlfriend's heart reserved for me was only a temporary accommodation. I was soon replaced by a 16 year old licensed driver, who had a Trans Am with T-tops. Also, this rival suitor never wore a shirt while driving around town. I know when I've been out classed. Time to walk way, since driving was not an option.

Four years later I was able to woo my future wife using only public transportation.

OK, so nothing was seriously wrecked and no one was really harmed in this story. Hardly even qualifies as a broken heart tale. Thank you for your time.

i drive around shirtless in the aquarium van all the time. "hangman" by styx is my theme song. cranked.

When I was sixteen I almost backed the family station wagon into Lake Superior, right alongside the oredock in Ashland...that would've been a hard one to explain to the folks.

two accidents before age 18, driving the Mercury Grand Marquis--a totally gigantor silver boat:

the first was driving into the the pylon trying to negotiate the drive-thru at the bank. i was so freaked out that i didn't stop and just drove straight home, looked at it and tried to figure out how i could pretend it wasn't me.

then there was the blizzard in which i was supposed to be heading straight to work. which was of course a lie--i was going to go pick up this friend of mine and *then* go to work. (i guess, i really don't remember.) less than a mile from the house, there was a big plow headed my way, and it looked to me like he was headed straight for me, so i swerved off the road. on a curve. the subsequent ruckus somehow caused two other people to end up in the ditch behind me. what i really remember is the ensuing grounding i got for being on the wrong road, which outed me for being on a mission of mischief. there was no damage to the car, but there was no way to get it towed without notifying daddy.

15. driving to church. learner's permit. 1985 grand am. broadsided a mustang in between twin ponds on skyline. that "events moving in slow motion" thing...it's all true. next time you're up there notice the huge boulder that has been knocked over the edge. that was me. and the stop sign...that's there because of this accident as well. i was so shaken up, i didn't get my license until i was 18.

December 4, 1984 - I was a senior in High School. There was sleet and I was driving, with my friend David Roberts, to go see 2010: Odyssey Two.

We were driving on Cemetery Road and I started to break for the stop sign and realized I wasn't slowing down at all. I could see a car was coming from the right and knew it had no stop sign. Desperate, I tried to drive into the ditch, but I couldn't even turn. I was out of control skidding on ice. I remember thinking, "This is going to be close."

The car struck us right behind the passenger door. We went flying and hit the utility pole right in front of my door. We spun around and ended up in a field. Both cars were totaled but no one was seriously hurt. They used the "jaws of life" to get my friend David out of the car.

As penance, I carried books for David between classes, who was on crutches, for the next three months.

My dad restored a 65 Mustang that I and all my friends were dying to drive. When I was 15, he was going to let me try it out. So I got behind the wheel, dad got in the passenger side, I pushed in the clutch, shut the driver's door, started it up and realized that my legs were too freakishly long to let out the clutch. Even with the seat all the way back, my knee hit the steering wheel, and there wasn't even room between the door and the wheel to bring my leg around.
Dad turned off the ignition, gave me a "Life's a bitch" shrug of the shoulders, put the keys in his pocket, and went back in the house.

So that was pretty uneventful. Even more uneventful was my first car accident. I had a Ford pickup truck with an aluminum camper shell on the back. (life in Nebraska + freakishly long legs = pickup truck). When I was at work one day, the security guard paged "the owner of a blue Ford pickup" to the security desk. A crazy strong wind had ripped the flimsy aluminum camper top off my truck and flipped it over on a VW a couple spaces over.
So I wasn't even there for my first car accident.

My first accident was on a snowy day, just exited highway 55 on to 100 and started fishtailing everywhere. I thought I had it just about under control, but my car lurched to the right down a steep embankment. I ended up sliding through the bushes at the bottom of the hill, tearing off everything on the outside of my car (wipers, side mirrors, etc). It was kinda like being on a roller-coster, only it sucked a lot more...

One of my earliest memories is playing in a neighbor's car, putting it into gear, and having it roll down a hill and smash into some guy's house. I was about 2 years old. No one was hurt, but the image I remember most is seeing my mother through the rear window running after the car as I sailed down the hill.

never a wreck, LOTS of near misses, including a potentially fatal one involving a snowy Highway 16 just outside Gig Harbor, Washington, and a fully loaded logging truck. I was on my way to work one morning, just over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. At the time, I owned an '88 Toyota pickup...5 speed, with P245/60-14 tires (wide and low), which don't do all That well on snowy roads...I was in the right lane, and a logging truck was coming up a little faster than I was on my left. At the moment that I was about midway back of his trailer, I hit an ice patch and started to spin. I did all the right stuff that you're supposed to do in a skid and was able to recover, but not before I had gotten turned around to the point where my trucks was pointed toward his trailer, which was by now almost passed me. All I saw was his rear axle set passing...slowly...in front of my truck, and at that moment, I struck something on his trailer. I don't know what, but I hit it with enough force to spin me round the other direction and off to the side of the highway. I wound up on the shoulder, with my truck pointed toward the highway.

I learned to drive on my grandpa's 1974 Toyota Hi-Lux. 4 Speed.

In the early 1920s my grandfather, about 15 at the time, took his father's car to go across Indianapolis to visit his mother, who his father had divorced. His father, an influential banker, called the police and had Marion arrested on charges of Grand Theft Auto. My grandfather spent almost a year in jail and my great-grandfather forbade any family to visit him.

This is my family.

About 10 years before I was born, I had a cousin who was killed in a motorcycle accident.

As a consequence, I was not allowed to have, ride, or even look at a motorcycle while growing up.

Doing some background on my late cousin's unfortunate demise, I discovered that in addition to not being the brightest bulb in the box, he was also quite intoxicated at the time of his death.

Upon leaving home, soon after my arrival in Washington, and quite far away from the watchful and forbidding eye of my family, I purchased a red 1968 BSA Lightening. Never laid it down, never had so much as a ding or dent in the time the bike spent in my possession.

Stole my parents cars all the time when I was a kid. It was kind of a tradition in my family. Me and my brothers would switch off the automatic garage door opener, slowlllllly lift up the door, coast the car out of the garage and down the block, then jump in, crank it over and drive. This all ended when I blew the muffler off my Dad's '74 Monte Carlo when one of my brothers said, "Turn the car off, wait a couple seconds, then turn it on again (while cruising at 65 mph)." Of course, I was an idiot enough to do it. The backfire was incredible. All I heard was "BANG" then instantly "BWAAAAAAA!" Man, my Dad was PISSED!

First accident? 18 years old. Getting my land yacht (an ancient 1972 Ford Galaxie) stuck in the mud out in the country after making out with my girlfriend at the time. Oh, those were the days.... Anyway, I gunned it, then slid right into a tree. Out of nowhere, a highway patrol pulled up and embarrassed the hell out of me. I was already embarrassed enough. Took all our beer, too. Bastard. Arrr.

Well, just a few years ago, inspired by anger (over being ditched for the early am fish by the guys) and fueled by Bloody Marys (extra-spicy)- me and a couple of girlfriends stole the PONTOON. We were gloating, but we had to go in reverse the whole time because we couldn't get it into 1st. RIDICULOUS!