Howdy all,

I'm sure many of us have suffered the injury of Gear (amps, heads, cabs, anything...) either caused by a vehicle, or vice versa (Gear hurting the car). Let's see some stories, and no, they don't have to be because of stupidity (though mine were!). I'll start.

Back when I was in high school, I had the obligatory POS first car. It was a 1985 Isuzu trooper II, and it had seen some hard times, and I loved the thing to death. Anyway I didn't have a bass cab of my own at the time, so I borrowed this huge 2x15 cab from a friend of mine. For those of you who don't know what a trooper is, It's an older SUV so it has plenty of cargo room. I got the cab inside, and packed up everything else I had, and took off to the gig.

Well... I didn't tie the thing down. I just had it wedged in really tight with all the other gear and I , in all my teenage male wisdom, figured it would be fine. A couple of miles away from the venue, I took a turn a little bit too fast and the cab tips onto it's side and the metal corner protector blows out my driver side rear sliding window.

I just kinda looked at it in shock, pulled over and made SURE EVERYTHING was tied down and kept on driving to the show. :rollno: The cab was perfectly fine, BTW.

Okay, so we all make mistakes right? Usually they only happen ONCE... Nope, not with me! Years later, My friend and i build a exact replica of that 2x15 cab, and once again I'm taking it to a gig. I thought I had it secured down properly with tie downs and making my way to the venue, when the SAME EXACT THING HAPPENS! Only this time It tilted the right and blew out the passengers side window! Not to mention the fact that I had my cables sitting on top of the cab, and when the window blew out my cables went sailing right out the window, landing right in the middle of a busy intersection.

I pulled over and had to dodge traffic, to grab the cables from the intersection. I saw a few cars actually run over them, once or twice. Aside from a few minor scrapes, they were perfectly fine and still work great today (and that is why I love spectraflex, LOL). :rolleyes:

Needless to say, I then learned my lesson and made sure everything that went into a car was tied down, so that even Hercules himself couldn't move em'. Since I was a poor HS kid, I just went to the hardware store and bought a couple of sheets of Plastic (not plexi, the other super tough ballastic type of plastic. can't think of the name) and made some new windows. They worked fine, hehe. I've since sent the poor car to the junk yard because It just gave out on me, but these days I make sure anything that goes in my new ride is not only tied down but covered so that no damage occurs. Not driving like a maniac helps too :p

I also witnessed a friend who didn't pack his cymbals into the back of his truck right, loose a crash going about 30 miles an hour. Cymbal flew right out the side of the bed and went rolling on it's side at full speed through a row of hedges. He freaked out and when we retrieved it it was covered in sap from actually slicing a few branches from the bushes! We couldn't stop laughing, even though it could have seriously HURT someone had circumstances been different.

So yeah. ALWAYS make sure gear is properly stowed for transit, because PLENTY of bad things can happen! Safety first. Anyone else? :D

I have a 1 year old nissan xterra. She is my baby. I just moved into a new house and i was unloading my cab. I got to the stairs and coulnt see, so I thought I was hitting the lights, nope the garage, and my cargo door was still up.

In slow motion I saw the garage door lower and grind all the paint off the back of my car, schreeeech.

I think screamed profanities in a family neighborhood in the middle of the night.

2 Days later I had to get my whold back door repainted:crying:

ouch. I have a few scars from hauling DJ gear. Dinged the edge of the door with the coffin, and scarred up one of the arm rests. No bass gear injuries yet though.

obligatory POS first car. It was a 1985 Isuzu trooper II

hey don't be dissin your Zu! :D i have a 1996 Rodeo i'm working on at the moment. surprisingly, though, i've never had anything bad happen to my gear regardless of how i've driven. i once took a speed bump at around 30mph (they neglected to paint it at all, and this was at night too) with all my gear in the back and i even felt everything be lifted at least 2 inches and i though my most expensive pieces of gear (and probably my suspension) would be wrecked, but everything was fine. however i am a bit paranoid about the way my dad takes his turns when my gear's in the bed.

the worst thing thats happened to me is my case i keep my leads and strap and bits and pieces in falling out of the back of my friends van, it landed so that it tore one of the latches right off.
just took the case in to work and repaired it though.

This wasn't really caused by my gear, but one time I was leaving a gig (downtown, busy night) and got rear ended. My Chevy S-10 had an 8x10, 6 space rack, and two basses in hard cases in the bed. Luckily nothing got damaged (including me) but I was super pissed off. The funny thing was that I was sitting in stopped traffic. The light behind me changed and the guy took off real quick and just plowed into the back of my truck.

The worst that happened to me was before I owned my own car. I was driving back home from Worship practice and the road was clear but the wind was blowing in gusts cross the highway. I was driving a Chevy Astro Van, Oh man I miss that thing, could do anything and go anywhere. Anyway, I was driving in the left most lane and a very strong gust caught the side of the van and shoved me into the shoulder. Now normally this would not be a problem in the summer or early winter. This was in the middle of winter, there is at least six inches of snow on the shoulder. So when a 2.5 ton vehicle traveling at 65 miles an hour hits that much snow it pretty much gets dragged in. So before I can correct it makes a VERY sharp left turn and flips/rolls, flies about 20 feet then lands on the wheels and settles at about a 30 degree list. Well, the only bass equipment I had in the vehicle was my stingray in it's OHSC. Which promptly went flying through the sliding door window and was lying about 10 feet from the Van. So I get out, look at the van and imagine just exactly how my parents will kill me. Then being the Bass player that I am, immediately go and check the bass. The Case was practically undamaged, the only thing that got hurt was the lock. The rest of it is fine, no marks, nothing. The bass inside was undisturbed. I was amazed to say the least. Now the part that really is scary, is that I had decided to leave the Carvin 210 and R600 head at church since I was borrowing it. If that had been in the vehicle when I rolled it...

Yeah, so that's MY story...

My 410, my built like a tank Peavey head, and a Peavey guitar combo spent a week together in the back of my Ford Escape, as I was planning on trading them in on a new GK212 Neo that I was waiting to arrive. The day finally came, and I was bringing them all into the music store, and the sales guy said something behind me. I turned and looked and he was looking and frowning at the guitar combo - three of the knobs and pot shafts were sheared and the tolex was ripped!!! It *was* in perfect shape when it left the house a week earlier, but my Peavey head was unfortunately leaning against those three pots, and, well, the rest is history. I drove home *without* the new 212 and with all the old stuff.

Driving my brand new Eden Nemesis cab combo home I just put it in the back of my 4WD, thinking the carpet would chock the wheels with the weight and all. Silly me. First corner and it fell face down, where it stayed no problems :)

In one band I was in, the singers partner (both girls) was big on helping me cart my gear out, I have no idea why, but I never declined the offer :)

First time she did I pointed to my bass case and said "sure, grab that bass, it goes on the floor of the back". She followed me out and I'd loaded everything else up in 2 trips and went back in to chat figuring she'd be cool.

About 10 minutes later the singer asks where her partner is and I remember, laugh, go outside and see the poor girl still straining to get the bass in the car. It kept catching on the middle section and I forgot to tell her it does that, and she was hell bent on getting it in there with no help so didn't come ask...just kept pushing :D

Once I got arrested on my way to a show.

Had my guitard load my gear into the back of my F-150. I had to work and went right to the gig after in my car. While going down the road at the last turn before the club, I noticed a big green and black box on the side of the road... You guessed it, it was my Trace Elliott 210 cab. I picked it up and went to the club. My guitard was there wigging out. He had forgotten to put the tailgate up!
He drove all the way to the club that way, about five miles! His strat fell out in the parking lot... lucky bastage.

My guitarist had some of our drummers cymbols in his car one time when he was picking me up. obviously we had to empty his car to get my equipment in as well and the cymbols just got left on the road.
we reversed out straight over them, then drove forward over them again before we knew.
luckily nothing happened to them and they still played fine, and the drummer still doesnt know...

All the guys in the band we stoked when I picked up an old '79VW bus, cheap, because it was a big open box that had a lot of room for gear. Until, that is, it caught on fire on the way to a gig with ALL the band gear in it (drums and PA and all). I wasn't there, my sax player was driving, as I had something going on that afternoon and was going to show up in time to play but not set up.

The van pretty much burned to the ground (so very sad, great vehicle) but my sax player managed to get all the gear out first. He scortched the front of his shirt getting the guitars and basses off the deck above the flaming engine at the back of the van. A guitar amp had its grill burned off, and everything smelled like burnt rubber for a few weeks, but it all worked fine and we did the gig.

Friend of a friend / Urban Legend tale of woe:

Small band on tour, all gear in van with band. Axle breaks on van, which slides into a ditch. Instrument case comes flying to the front, decapitating the driver.

True story or false, make sure everything is secured, and if you're doing the van tour thing, might not be a terrible idea to get a security cage installed.

Lastly, if you're sleeping in a van, always feet towards the front. Never a good feeling smashing your head into the seat in front of you if the driver slams on the brakes. Or better yet, keep the seat belt on.

our guitarist nearly lost a good portion of our gear, and possibly his and our singers lives on the weekend.
swerving off the highway to avoid someone braking quickly. the cars behind him too busy looking at him go off the road all crashing. so lucky there was nothing on the side of the road to hit.
i think also the weight of all that gear in the back helped the van to not roll over.

its scary what can happen.

One time coming back from a gig I was sitting in the very back seat of the drummer's old converted school bus with all of the equipment basically piled around me.
The other guys were in front. At some point I hear some indistinct yell from the front and look and see just down the road in front of us some guy pulling a boat on a trailer had stopped dead in the middle of the highway,being that our bus had not so good breaks, our drummer slings it into the ditch going 60 or so-

I can still see this in slow motion in my head- There was this big bump and everything in the back of the bus flew up in the air- drums, guitars, speaker cabinets, and me.

Then I hit the floor. Then everything else landed on top of me.

At some point I realized I was under everything and somewhat in shock, but also realized that our drummer had managed to "pull out of the dive" and got back on the road. I could hear the guys up front laughing and saying stuff like "man!!!! that was close!!

And then I heard someone say "hey.... where's Cris?"

Then I dont remember anything after that until they had pulled everything of off me.

Amazingly nothing was broken, but I was bruised up all over my body and it was a month before I started feeling normal again.


Besides me, the bus took most of the damage, my old Acoustic 360 bass cab had smashed one of the windows in the side of the bus.

not a bass but still funny
one of my mates has recently had a kid an i was round his place an was talking to his gf for a bit, she takes the lil kid upstairs to change the baby. The lil kid just takes this huge runny sh*t all over his prized guitar.
I love that kid :)

I think some piece of gear had rubbed against the rear defroster in my station wagon. One line going across the back doesn't work.

yup i got one for you.

so everyday i have to take my hartke combo to and from university, just throw it in my back seat and go. one time last year i guess i took a turn too fast, and luckily there was no one behind me, because at that moment my amp took a tumble, straight through my rear drivers side window. glass everywhere. amp hits the pavement. 250 bucks worth of damage to the car, and suprisingly i play that amp even today, it has some bumps but no major damage. amazing durability! :)

This is straying off-topic just a little but it's still gear/vehicle related.


Our regular van man was driving a few weeks ago (it's his work's van, he gets to take it home, we pay him to move our gear) when he approached a bridge.

Without warning, a body fell from the bridge, hitting the road in front of him.
He slammed on the anchors and managed to avoid hitting the person but they were dead from the fall.

How about that?
Broad daylight, just going about your business and some poor wretch commits suicide in front of you. Needless to say, he was a bit shaken up.

I had just got home from a gig, about 4:00am, my brand new 1986 Mazda 626 with my brand new Steinberger XP2 in the trunk. I went in the house and crawled into bed, not more than ten seconds after I layed down I heard a huge crash outside. I looked out my window and there, where my brand new car and bass used to be, was a big yellow taxi, my new car (now about 3 feet shorter) and the car that was parked in front of my car wedged into a telephone pole. The taxi driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and totally demolished my new car... But! the Steinberger survived! It suffered some small stress cracks around the neck/body joint, but it still played just fine! I still have it and it is still the best playing bass I've ever owned.
To top that off, I got a rental car the next day, and while I was at work a truck backed into it and totalled it. So, the next day I got another rental car, and again, while at work, a truck backed into it, not totalling it, but folding in the side pretty good. So I trashed three cars in three days, and wasn't inside any of them!

I had just got home from a gig, about 4:00am, my brand new 1986 Mazda 626 with my brand new Steinberger XP2 in the trunk. I went in the house and crawled into bed, not more than ten seconds after I layed down I heard a huge crash outside. I looked out my window and there, where my brand new car and bass used to be, was a big yellow taxi, my new car (now about 3 feet shorter) and the car that was parked in front of my car wedged into a telephone pole. The taxi driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and totally demolished my new car... But! the Steinberger survived! It suffered some small stress cracks around the neck/body joint, but it still played just fine! I still have it and it is still the best playing bass I've ever owned.
To top that off, I got a rental car the next day, and while I was at work a truck backed into it and totalled it. So, the next day I got another rental car, and again, while at work, a truck backed into it, not totalling it, but folding in the side pretty good. So I trashed three cars in three days, and wasn't inside any of them!

Something hated those cars!!!!!!

So I trashed three cars in three days, and wasn't inside any of them!

That's pretty amazing...Good thing you weren't inside though.

Good stories guys, keep em' coming!

And I mean good, in a uh... well, not in the "ohh cool!" type of way, if you know what I mean :confused: :hmm:

That story about getting covered in gear... ouch man. Ouch. All of these stories to me have excellent points (well, most of them): Be extremly careful when hauling gear, not only will your gear possibly be trashed but you could suffer some serious consequences. /end public service announcement ;)

Not a bass, but a good (bad) story. My daughter's ex-boyfriend's mother owned an old Gibson guitar, a 1954 LG-1 acoustic. I saw the guitar, and dated it for them by the factory order number. It was a very sweet old Gibson flat top, all original & playable.

So weeks later he borrows the guitar from his Mom one day, and leans the cased guitar against the car while loading something else, and forgets the guitar, leaves it leaning against the car. The car backs over the guitar. I heard the tire scored a direct hit. I never saw the damage, but I heard it was toast. Still, I offered to buy it for scrap wood and the Kluson tuners. They probably ended up throwing it away.

I was transporting gear to the new practice place and was in a hurry so I just threw cables, mixers, amps, shelves, papers speakers and everything else into open boxes and loaded them into the bed of the pickup for the move. Going around a corner on the way there, one of the boxes fell over on it's side and a few small pieces of gear fell out and landed on the highway. I pulled over to the shoulder, backed up and got out near where the stuff was and waited for a break in the traffic to run out and scoop it up, and fortunately, the cars were slowing down and going around it. Except one smart*** semi-truck driver who ran over the main pile at full speed while I stood there watching. When I finally retrieved all my stuff I had two things FUBAR: A Shure SM-58 microphone with the windscreen smashed pretty flat, and a 4 channel Behringer mixer that was also squashed.

a couple of years back, i was playing(and singing at) a small hardcore punk show here in town when my strap came unlocked from my bass while i was holding the mic with both hands. my bass(the 1st one i ever owned - a cheap rogue 5 string) hit the mic stand, then my pedal board, then the stage, and then fell into the mosh pit. i just jumped in, picked it up, and kept playing the show. all that falling, and only one small ding in the finish near the strap button. oddly enough, it wasnt even very far out of tune.

When i was a young kid i once got a ride home from summercamp. It was a Toyata HiAce and the guy that drove it took my cabs and put them on top of eachother you know a 410 on top of a 115! And then he put all of our bags in and my brandnew Yamaha JP sig. in a gigbag on top og the bags.
Suddenly he sped up to get into a roundabout and i heard a crashing sound...
When we opened the doors the 410 had fallen down onto the neck of my bass!!!!
I was ready to see a headstock popping out of the bag when i opened it. But no - it was fine - not even a ding and it was in tune!!!! How lucky can a dumb guy(me) be?

a few years back, we had a new roadie who also owned the van that we travelled to and from gigs with ..... one day he loaded my new (1 month old) F bass (4 string fretless) in its hard shell case upside down into the van ..... stupid schmuck didn't know any better and i neglected to mention it to him to make sure to put the case in with the sticker side up

after travelling for two hours to the gig, we unloaded and i noticed my bass upside down in the van ..... i opened it up on the spot and noticed that because of the whole shaky trip and the strings resting against the fretboard, all four round-wound strings had worn grooves into the beautiful ebony fretboard all the way down the neck ..... i was SO pissed off i punched him in the breadbasket hard enough not to do any damage but enough to let him know NOT to ever do that again

gotta talk to lou or george one of these days to see what can be done to fix this fairly major problem

My car got stolen back in September, and my combo amp was in the trunk. I left it in there because it was convenient - whenever I went somewhere to play, I was ready to go. No gear to load. It was a Peavey 115, nothing to write home about. But it was loud, though muddy at times, and effective. And it was one of the few pieces of gear that I bought new.

Whoever stole my car also took the liberty to write some checks on my account - my checkbook was in the glovebox. I was hoping for a while that the check fraud might help the police find the people who took the car, but so far, nada. I 'only' lost $170 in my checking account. I guess it is cheaper for the bank to just give me the money as opposed to paying people to work on the case. If they do find the culprit(s), that Peavey combo in my trunk might have to get "upgraded."

Any suggestions? :)

sorry to hear your car/combo is still MIA and here's hoping that you get your rig AND your car back in one piece ..... i would imagine from now on, you won't be leaving your gear in your car out of convenience

as far as the cheques go, if you remember the series of numbers on the cheques, just phone your bank, tell them what happened and maybe they could just not honour those cheques

the bank knows about it for sure, they are just taking their sweet time. they told me a fraud investigation can take up to 90 days. It happened on September 24th, so I guess that I still owe them a month. But I find it hard to believe it's taking this long. And I've gone down to the bank several times to try to find out what is happening, any progress etc. They tell me someone will call, nothin happens. BS. Unless they decide that I did it, I get the money back. But like I said, it's not so much about the money. The morons who stole the car/cashed the checks cashed them on a legitimate account, so they were either stupid enough to use their own, or they used someone's they know. Either way, there has to be something they can trace. At least back to the account holder.

Oh well enough of this, sorry for the hijack.

I've been pretty fortunate about accidents and the scariest I've ever had is leaving a hard ibanez case standing up on one end by itself while I locked the front door. Of course it tips over and proceeds to slide down the flight of concrete stairs. The bass was unscathed but the case has these white scrape lines going down one side now; neither of them are mine . . .

The funniest vehicle story I have was from this past Tuesday. I went to a concert (Squirrel Nut Zippers) with this girl from school about and hour or so away in Los Angeles. We drive to the theatre separately and find parking in the closest lots because we couldn't find anything labeled as parking for the theatre itself. While we waited for the show to start we were discussing how it seems like a lot of things had gone wrong that day. Anyways, the concert ends and we're mumbling to each other about how unsafe it is for us to be driving home because we're both wiped out as I walk her out to her car. As we pass the first part of the lot's fence she looks over and says that her battery better not be dead because she apparently left her lights on. Then we realize the bigger problem: The thick steel gate to get into the parking lot is closed and locked now. We figure the valet parking will be able to help us, or point us in the right direction at least; Nope, they have nothing to do with that facility and the best advice they can give is for us to break down the gate (NOT happening in a civic, lmao). Whatever, we figured we would just have to both go back in my car and she would get in trouble from her parents and just have them pick it up with her tomorrow. So we walk around the other side of the building to find that the two entrances to my parking lot are gated off as well. Crap . . . just so you get a picture of how it looked, we were two teens in LA somewhere at 12:30 am confused at how we were going to get home. XD That was very funny to me at the time even though I had no idea what to do (we ended up hopping the fence and discovering a back exit to that parking lot, but the other was walled in completely). . . . I swear it was a lot funnier in the moment . . . .

Just this past Thursday evening. After practice. Loaded up my Scion xB like I usually do, with my heaviest cabinet at the back (my new Markbass 151HF).

In the past, my heaviest cabinet was a Traynor YCV-18, which weighs a ton. When I'd load that thing in my car, it would not budge, no matter how much I would swerve or accelerate/decelerate, until I got to wherever I was going and took it out with my own two hands.

The new Markbass cabinet is significantly lighter than the Traynor. Which means it's more apt to shift around. And that's what happened, I accelerated, it tipped back into the rear window, completely shattering it, and making a huge mess. I finally cleaned out 99% of the mess yesterday. But until next payday, I am driving around with a rear window made out of clear Scotch packing tape. It's gonna cost me like $350-$400 to replace.

From now on I will have that cabinet toward the front of my cargo area and put smaller items behind it. Or I suppose I could just lay the cabinet on its back, then it would be much more stable and unable to tip. I should have done that in the first place I guess. Oh well, lesson learned.

Ya, I would definitly lie the cab down, and make sure there are objects along the sides and end of it so it doesn't slide around.

After reading the posts of this thread over a few times, I've confirmed my old fears of damaging cars and equipment. Boy im just to paranoid. :D

I never travel with an unsecured load. I used to drive with a metal toolbox in the rear set area of a Ranger extended cab pickup. I happened to leave it at work one day. I rolled the truck the next morning. If that tool box had been where it normally was, I'd likely be dead or at least very brain damaged. Since then, I view everything in the passenger cabin as a potential high speed projectile.

I drive an Element these days and all gear gets strapped or belted in. I also find I don't hesitate to make quick maneuvers like I used to when gear would slide all over the place.

I was at camp and their was this slope to get to the mess hall area. Anyway, we were having a talent show, so I brought my peavey TKO 115. BIG HEAVY AMP. So I was pushing it up the hill. We had some slow people, so I had to stop. This kid jack sat on it, I didnt care because a 300 pound camp worker sat on it. So I was just waiting and I have to cough alot. So I am coughing into my elbow when I start to hear this rumling sound. I look down the slope and I see my AMP ROLLING DOWN A FREAKIN HILL! Jack jumped off before it started to pick up speed. Since it has flipy wheels it starts to spin around, Then it flips over and stoped. All within 25 seconds. Not a scratch on it:p

This last saturday, I managed to rip two 1" long holes in the leather of my back seat trying to get my 4x10 in. I was rather unhappy about that.

We had a lucky escape earlier this year, thanks to a flaky handbrake....

http://www.peterdonegan.com/gallery/vanriver/vanriver1.jpg

Thankfully, the gear survived undamaged. The van was a write-off, however...

Back in the 80's I had a 72 Precision get backed over by our tour bus! I had set it down to help load everything into the bins under the bus because I wanted to take it on the bus and work on some new material. Normally I would just put it in there with everything else. Somehow it got knocked over and pushed up under the bus and by the time we got everything loaded I just forgot about it. As soon as the bus backed up I remembered! You could actually feel the bus move. It warped the road case and broke the neck in two. I was poor then so I just put a no name neck on it and duct taped the case. I still played it for years after that and it's stored up in the attic now....

wow man...that must have been a trip right there...glad ur ok :D

personally i haven't done too much damage (yet). i drive a chevy aveo so getting my 6x10 cab into the backseat was always an adventure, eventually i got it down to a system, but i put a few dents into the door frame the first couple of times.

i had a guitarist in a band i used to play in who would stick his 4x12 behind the back seat of a minivan and one night he was driving home and had to step on the breaks hard, rocking the cab forward and and then on the recoil it smashed out the back window.

another guitarist i know had a 75 strat that he backed over with his car. he was doing some cleaning in his garage, propped it and a few other guitars against his car, then realized he had to move his car, so he hops in, puts it in reverse, and somehow manages to knock the strat under the front tires. snapped the neck like a twig.

The ultimate van breakdown...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwX4qOIYqGk