Curb Hopping Does Not Work Too Well In a Yaris...

[Idahotom]

While on a cattle ranch dirt trail, and going walking speed, the damn cell phone rang and like a dummy I answered as it was business/$$ related. While continuing to drive the trail (not a road, a temporary trail across a field to a solar job I was doing) and answering the call I neglected to miss the boulder I had dodged on the way in. It lodged under the body, no damage to the running gear, but the mighty Yaris was now high centered and not going anywhere. The cowboy riding shotgun just looked at me as I shut down the engine while completing the phone call (got the job the call was about, so worth it as it was time related crane work and voice mail doesn't hack it).

We got out and eyeballed the situation, and as we were on a 10% grade I put it in nuetral, took the parking brake off, and we both lifted on the right rear corner, him on the fender and me on the bumper. Being REAL careful not to unstick it but then lose it down the slope, we were easily able to raise it enough to kick the rock free and continue our drive out of the field. It was about as hard as getting an ATV unstuck, light is good in a situation like that, if this didn't work, he indicated his horse could pull it free.....

[nookandcrannycar]

Originally Posted by Idahotom

While on a cattle ranch dirt trail, and going walking speed, the damn cell phone rang and like a dummy I answered as it was business/$$ related. While continuing to drive the trail (not a road, a temporary trail across a field to a solar job I was doing) and answering the call I neglected to miss the boulder I had dodged on the way in. It lodged under the body, no damage to the running gear, but the mighty Yaris was now high centered and not going anywhere. The cowboy riding shotgun just looked at me as I shut down the engine while completing the phone call (got the job the call was about, so worth it as it was time related crane work and voice mail doesn't hack it).

We got out and eyeballed the situation, and as we were on a 10% grade I put it in nuetral, took the parking brake off, and we both lifted on the right rear corner, him on the fender and me on the bumper. Being REAL careful not to unstick it but then lose it down the slope, we were easily able to raise it enough to kick the rock free and continue our drive out of the field. It was about as hard as getting an ATV unstuck, light is good in a situation like that, if this didn't work, he indicated his horse could pull it free.....

I have found light to be good in all situations except one --- trying to drive in a crosswind...ESPECIALLY if that crosswind is blowing across the 80 MPH section of I-10 in West Texas. In the morning, after my post #7 on this thread, I thought about a later incident where I observed my predicament happening to another driver, but this driver was trying to avoid driving two minutes out of her way, not the unknown number of hours parked on I-10 in the Summer sun with not enough water/fluids in the car that I was facing. She pretty much deserved what happened to her. In 2009 I was attending a performance of The Nutcracker (in California) that my little cousin was performing in. This was held at an events center that held maybe 2,000 people or a bit more. The building was full. It has it's own parking lot and then a ring road around it and then more parking outside the ring. Only a few people parked in the outside the ring lot and I was one of them. This lot only had one exit and it was at the opposite end of the lot from where I was parked. My area of the lot was closest to the events center and closer to the road leading out to the freeway than other areas of the lot. I was parked on the edge of the lot and there was a median that divided my edge from the road that led out to the freeway. There was a new Mercedes GL SUV (built in Alabama and Mexico only) parked in my row even closer to the events center. After the performance was over, the Mercedes driver didn't want to be bothered driving to the other end of the parking lot, exiting the lot, and then taking that short road to meet up wit the 'to the freeway' road that was on the other side of the median from the front of our parking spaces. There was no traffic, so this only would have taken her about 2 minutes max. Instead she put her SUV in drive and started to drive over the median....SHE GOT STUCK STRADDLING THE MEDIAN with all of the weight of the SUV on the median AND ALL 4 TIRES/WHEELS OFF THE GROUND/IN THE AIR AT THE SAME TIME. She got out and was immediately on the phone....to an OnStar type service or AAA I presumed. I drove to the exit that she was too lazy to drive over to and exited the lot. I had learned my lesson in 2007.