[warren brown]

I bought a whipper-snipper (line-trimmer thing) - fired it up first time, lowered it into the grass and it hit gravel shooting a stone about a quarter inch big through the back window of the Land Rover - smashing the glass to smithereens. They are one dangerous power tool! Very glad it didn't hit someone though - it'd be like being shot with a .22.

My other close call was a hill start with the Blitz - I was in the cab talking to the local copper in the main street, the truck pointing uphill the policeman standing next to me - unbeknownst to me, while we were talking, two friends of mine decided they'd stroll behind the truck (on the hill!) and stop to have a chinwag.
Said goodbye to the copper, revved engine, released the handbrake and moved forward - fortunately I'm not bad at hillstarts - but they jumped 30 feet in the air. Frightened the living daylights out of me too - could have been catastrophic. Note to self - always bloody check!!!!!

We do have to be careful if we wish to continue with our vehicles.
Some years ago the Veteran Car Club went on a run to the NSW Southern Highlands and a 1910 SCAT tourer was cleaned up on the expressway - several people killed. At the newspaper where I worked, there was (naturally, in typical Australian knee-jerk fashion) a call to ban old cars from our roads.
A similar discussion to the Blitz on Anzac Day tragedy.

It's probably fair to say modern traffic is way too fast and thick on our roads now and there are a lot of very agressive drivers out there. The other weekend I happened to catch up with a few vehicles from the AMVCS returning to Sydney on the expressway - slow of course - and vehicles like the M37 Dodge with its high canvas tarp were easy to see. Not so the WWII jeep however - tiny and slow compared with the rest of the flat-out Sunday arvo traffic doing at least 110 kmh. Cars roaring up behind - the stop lights suddenly on the brakes hit hard, swerving into the overtaking lane...Very, very scary stuff. My blood ran cold.