At one point in my career I worked at a company that had a massive expanse of property that contained multiple buildings. The property was so large that we had electric buggies to get ourselves and the equipment around. Above is a picture of a similar type of buggy but ours had nice flashy chrome wheels and wide low-profile tires. I guess we got the sports buggy addition. However, I never understood why we needed wider low-profile tires if the top speed was only 5-10 mph.

It all started when I had to run down to another building on the property. It was around 5am on a very warm summers morning. With both side windows wide open and my one arm hanging out the driver’s side window I mashed the throttle petal to the floor. It quickly accelerated to the max speed. As I got closer to the brick building I was heading to I noticed a great parking space right in the front. There were a couple workers standing outside smoking their cigarettes just to the right of the parking space but nothing that really concerned me.

Without lifting my foot off the throttle, I pulled into the parking space and at the last minute I mashed the brake petal. Normally the hydraulic brakes are fantastic and stop the buggy on a dime. However, instead of the buggy screeching to a halt, I felt the brake petal go straight to the floor. Without enough time to reach for the emergency brake, I realized that I was going to hit a brick wall going at least 5-10 mph. Suddenly, I felt like a crash test dummy but in a clown car with no seat belts. I clinched the steering wheel hoping that would some how help. I smacked into the wall so hard that the steering wheel stopped my forward momentum as it dug into my stomach. With my head less than an inch from the windshield and my ass completely off the seat the buggy finally came to a stop. Stunned from the impact I sat there for a moment before one of the smokers that was standing there came over and said, “hey buddy you ok”? With a smile on my face I replied, “I have had better days”. I opened the door and got out to assess the damage that’s when I realized I hit so hard that the buggy must have bounced a good 2-3 feet backwards. Lucky for me the building wasn’t damaged and the steel bumper on the buggy took all the impact with only a couple scrapes.

I still needed to get my work completed so I went into the building for about 20-30 minutes. When I came backout I planned to drive the buggy back but just slower. After all I had my hands full of heavy items and wasn’t about ready to walk a quarter mile. However, when I came back out the buggy was gone. I just realized grand theft buggy had just occurred. I screamed “what the f—“!!! I stood in disbelief of my luck. There I was standing there for a couple minutes trying to figure out what to do when I noticed my buggy rounding a bend coming straight for me. Then I noticed the women driver screaming out the window I don’t have any brakes. At that moment when I saw her shear panic as she was screaming I felt like that was my pay back for her stealing the buggy. However, lucky for her she realized she didn’t have brakes before driving straight into a building and instead just coasted to a stop. I learned two important lessens that day. One, check the brakes. Two, never leave the keys in ignition.