[Philkotse collection] Driving horror stories: Make sure you're ready!

Have you ever had that one driving experience that you can’t help but talk about to friends and family? We’ve probably all had it at one point or another, from encounters with parking lot queens and kings to attempting a drive through flooded areas (and failing spectacularly).

If you’re fond of reading stories in the hopes of actually learn something, here are accounts of some real scary drives that we’ve compiled from several sources. These don't necessarily involve ghosts and ghouls, instead revolving around the real-life horrors of driving in less-than-ideal conditions. Note that the names in these stories have been changed, for the privacy of those concerned.

1. The floating car

Sometime in September 2016, Metro Manila was bombarded by heavy rains. "From where and what?" many of my neighbors, friends, and family members asked. Well, if they didn’t have the attention span of a goldfish,  they would know that it was Southwest monsoon season, otherwise known as Habagat.

So yeah, we’ve had lots of heavy rainfall while the weather was humid all the freaking time. So, being an insufferable know-it-all who just happened to read an article about the Southwest monsoon, I was smug about it and was feeling superior as I was explaining it to my wife.

That smugness, however, changed when I needed to drive through Valenzuela City.  Because well…I live near there.

A lot of areas in Metro Manila regularly experience heavy flooding, especially in Valenzuela City

It was raining that fateful September morning, heavily so that what actually woke me was my neighbor’s screams of “Baha!”. I looked out, but I saw nothing major. So I got up, got dressed and went to work on my old Toyota Corolla, which I proudly describing as being an indestructible tank.

Despite being an experienced driver, I still used Waze to optimize my travel time. The app leads me to a street in Viente Reales. As far as I could tell, the water was rising gradually, but all of a sudden, the Corolla’s interior was getting soaked, and my sneaker-clad feet were wet.

I figured I can deal with soggy socks, so I pressed on along this street, and for the life of me, I couln't be certain if it was passable or not. Being supremely confident of my car’s robust nature, I said “Screw it”, switched to second gear and revved high. I had managed to crawl two meters when I found that I wasn’t moving forward anymore. Instead, my car slowly listed sideways, as if it was floating. Which of course it was.

I never got my Corolla out of that terrible situation. Instead, I waded, or rather swam out and waited for the flood to subside several hours later. Upon assessing the damage to my car, I found out that my engine has been hydrolocked was most certainly ruined.

It turns out that other motorists were screaming at me before I decided to plunge into the deep end. Nevertheless, they were jeering and laughing at me when I scrambled out of the semi-floating, semi-sinking car.  The water was actually 26 inches deep. Screw me sideways, right? What happened to the car, you might ask? Well, I already sold that thing, but it never was able to run again, from what I gather.

Argggh, even a Toyota won't be able to survive this

>>> Continue with scary series: [Philkotse pick] Top 7 scariest-looking cars ever made.

2. Wrong turn

I was born and raised in Metro Manila, but I moved to Mindanao in 2000, working even as I left my family back in the capital. Eventually, I had to go back to Novaliches because of a promotion. The transfer, however, wasn’t as simple as you might think, because I needed to bring the company car along with me, a 2000 Nissan Sentra FE which was popular at the time.

The solution? Drive from Cagayan De Oro City to Novaliches, a 1,400-kilometer drive that can be covered in 31 hours, at least that's what Google Maps said. However, it was the summer of 2000, and my own drive probably took longer than that, so I took a week off.

 I was excited at the prospect of seeing the beaches of Surigao, the San Juanico Bridge, more beaches in Sorsogon, and then Mount Mayon. And when the day of the drive came, I hopped in my thoroughly prepared car (with the oil changed and every nook and cranny inspected), bringing essentials like basic tools and two days’ worth of fresh clothes. I had rented a cargo truck to carry the rest of my belongings, which meant that I was free to go as I pleased.

When I reached Leyte through the Lipata-Maasin route, I found out to my utter surprise that I didn’t understand a word of what the locals were saying whenever I asked them for directions. It turns out that they spoke Waray, which only sounds a bit like Visayan, but most of the words were alien to me. I followed the Bato Bontoc Road on the western side of the island. Upon reaching Bato, I consulted my trusty 1 x 1.5-meter road map of the Philippines, and proceeded to follow the path heading towards Bontoc. As I would eventually find out, I was bad with maps.

Many roads and some parts of the national highway in Leyte look like this

Back in those days, the place didn't have that many local residents, which meant that the roads were especially lonely at night with not a house to be seen. God forbid that you should suffer a mechanical breakdown or some other inconvenience while driving here, far from help. Worse, I made the same mistake again after reaching Sogod, Leyte because I took the AH26 Pan-Philippine Highway to Mahaplag (on Leyte's eastern side), one of the loneliest stretches of road you could find anywhere, with sections that were yet to be paved.

Even the gasoline there was sold not in properly calibrated forecourt pumps, but in repurposed 1-liter softdrink bottles. Oh, the humanity. I also discovered to my chagrin that rural folk would turn the lights off as early as 6pm, which meant that car repair and vulcanizing shops were already closed by the time I was passing through .  

Thankfully, I made it to Baybay City, then on to Tacloban; it was smooth sailing from there, well, apart from that time when I badly needed to use the toilet while driving through Camalig in Albay. I had no choice but to do the deed on an empty field, with Mount Mayon as the backdrop.

Nothing but road as far as the eye can see, and it's getting dark. Scary, right?

Luckily, I avoided making the same mistake when I got to Sipocot, Bicol. I avoided the Rolando R. Andaya Highway, instead using the Pan-Philippine Highway.

>>> Also check: 

• 8 haunted places in the Philippines that you don't want to drive through.
• Story of a haunted 1964 Dodge 330 that killed at least 14 people in the US.

3. The day of the chicken intestines

Ever heard of “bitukang manok”? It's that portion of the Pan-Philippine Highway which runs through the lush rainforests of the Quezon National Forest Park. Why is it called Bitukang Manok? Well, I and my girlfriend found that out the hard way, when friends told us it was a great route to take, when making your way to the western side of the Philippines.

While I was a relatively new driver with a brand-new base model Toyota Vios, we decided to go to a resort south of Atimonan, Quezon. Foolishly enough, we heeded the advice of our mischievous friends to take the Old Zigzag Road or “Bitukang Manok”, so-called because the winding road resembled a chicken's intestines. Naive old me agreed.

As you might already know, if you’re headed towards Atimonan, you’ll be negotiating the uphill zigzags in alternating turns; in essence, it was a one-way road. The flow of traffic was being managed by traffic volunteers, waving green flags as a signalling system to motorists.

Not for the beginner driver who just started driving a few months ago

It was my first time seeing a road bent in such an intidating shape, so I started to sweat bullets. Once we got our turn to ascend, the first thing I immediately noticed to my left was what looked like a sheer drop into never-ending foliage. I involuntarily let out a groan, which thankfully wasn't heard by my girlfriend who was fast asleep.

After the second hairpin, I chose to immediately shift to fourth gear thinking that the engine had had enough of third. In just a couple of meters, the car stalled. The sudden shock I felt was quickly burst by horns blared out behind me, jolting me into restarting the car, all the while mumbling aloud what my driving instructor told me on how to start a car on inclines.

>>> Make sure you know: Top 5 most accident-prone roads and highways in Metro Manila.

Once you get through the zigzag road, however, here's your reward: a quiet and comfy Atimonan Zigzag park

Once we made it out of the most hair-raising portions, we stopped by the Quezon National Park Pitstop. It was then that my girlfriend woke up and asked me if I was alright.

Did these stories make your hair stand on end? Do you have driving horror stories of your own? For more articles like this one, keep reading Philkotse.com.