Ugh….I got shivers reading that! Im not a bug wuss but I dont want them on me. Especially spiders! Glad we dont have jumping spiders here. Shudder. I dont want to know what those look like.

The only thing Ive dealt with is a hornet in the car. I hate hornets because the few times Ive been stung I swelled up like crazy. One time I got stung right under my eye and both my eyes and all my face swelled up.

Ahhhhh!!! That would’ve freaked me out too!! I hate when spiders get away from you in the car. I lost a little pale spider in there one time, then found it an hour later when it repelled right onto my nose from the roof *faints*

Bwahahahahahahhaha ROFLMAO I know this scenario sooooo well but thankfully I wasn’t on the freeway…… I am an arachnaphobe.
Well, one busy weekday afternoon I decided to stop into the local chemist to pick up some bits. Purchase made I returned to my car at the far end of the car park and started to drive towards the exit. Suddenly I notice something stick like hanging over the edge of the sun visor I looked twice and something set my senses tingling. Then the stick like things moved and the entire large hairy tarantula (aka a huntsman in Australia) appears over the visor. At this point I was actually very proud of myself, I did not scream or swerve I simply opened the car door and got out. Yes, it was still moving but I was fast on my feet in those days also it was a manual so once my foot was off the clutch it stalled and rolled slowly to a halt at the other end of the carpark. Unfortunately the FWD was in the middle of the roadway and no one could pass either way. I was not however getting back in the car until the spider was apprehended and removed. The spider of course had made itself scarce. By the end of an hour the entire female staff of the chemist was in the carpark with me pulling things out of the car with several large pairs of tweezers and shrieking and bolting at any sign of hairy legged movement (also a couple of male bystanders who had run away at the mention of a large hairy spider) Finally this gentleman who had been watching us from his truck on the main road pulls into a layby further up and wanders across to find out what is going on. (We had quite a crowd by then no one brave enough to tackle the hairy spider hiding in the Suzuki 4WD) He is told of the dilemma, shakes his head goes to my car and rummages around in the debris on the passenger floor for a few minutes then brings out his hand in which the tarantula is now sitting happily. Once again much shrieking and running but the interested parties. He carries it to the small garden adjacent to the carpark and releases it. I return to my car, thank the girls from the chemist for their support and assistance and as I round the corner and stop at the lights the truck driver chooses that moment to remind me that “they usually travel in pairs” Head for home at high speed and bomb the car with bug spray.. Ripped anything that was left out of the car with y BBQ tongs and proceed to clean it top to bottom with a high pressure hose. It was several weeks before I could actually drive anywhere without conducting a floor to ceiling search befroe getting into the car.

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!

Only you guys!

Didn’t your mothers tell you not to pick up hitchhikers?
Put this on your blog NOW.
*wipes snorted coca cola off of nose after laughing*

This has happened several times. The worst was when this spider crawled behind the door handle on the inside. I was afraid to stick my finger in there to open to door so I made my husband get out and open my door from the outside. I’m not terribly afraid of spiders, but I don’t want them crawling on me either.

Bahahahhahaha! Spiders can be so scary  I love how when spiders come around people start acting so irrational, my sister and I freaked out the other day because their was a HUGE spider in our basement and we were afraid that if we smashed it with a shoe that it would fall on us, so we ended up sucking it up with the vacuum and then we both started freaking out even more that it would crawl back out so we decided that the best thing to do would be to suck up some litter from the cat boxes to bury it 

People are pretty funny sometimes. There is actually evidence that we are hardwired to be afraid of certain things and those fears are reinforced when we see other people reacting strongly to certain stimuli. The power of negative conditioning.

All these stories are SO funny! I know It wouldn’t be if I was the one it happened to though!

Haha I bet people were like “what are those two doing?” I don’t generally get freaked out by bugs, though I don’t want them on me either. Glad you didn’t just smoosh him though, not his fault he’s scary!

I’m still dying laughing! That was hilarious!

I probably would have wrecked the car! I HATE spiders, and jumping one are especially bad!

hahaha that is so funny! ive had a similar scenario, i had a project for uni that involved surveying an area and collecting invertebrates which we then had to identify. It was a group project with 3 of my friends and someone didnt screw the lid on one of the jars properly and it was somehow picked up wrong…. think spiders, centipedes, beetles and other crawlies all though the car! and being Australia our spiders arnt very friendly either…needless to say a giant freak out ensued!

All these stories keep making me giggle …… Oh Freyja, I’m from OZ too so I know the beasties you describe. It is not surprising a mass panic ensued. LOL

The ones over here I don’t like are the big fat round garden spiders. I stomped on one once only to have THOUSANDS of baby spiders explode from the remains and skittle through the house. Too numerous to contain, it was like a wave of shimmering bodies spreading out over the carpet. My flat mate at the time born and bred in WA tried to stop me by yelling NO but he was too late. Tiny little spiders were going in every direction. I still shudder when I think about it.

I hope you didn’t have any funnel webs on board !!!!

YIKES!!!

I have had various creepy crawlers in the car, and it’s horrifying. And my husband is MORE scared of bugs than I am, so I’m the one who has to “man up” and take care of the problem!

The worst thing tho… ABSOLUTE WORST was when I first started driving at 15 1/2. Long story short, we were on a trip, stopped off at a hotel overnight, and accidentally left the small back windows open in the minivan (the ones that open out a couple inches).

Next morning, my mom says I can drive (remember, I JUST got my temps!) and we get in the car. All over the dashboard, there are dead moths of varying sizes, from teeny tiny to BIG, with a wingspan of at least 2 inches. I’m already freaked out, but my mom says, “They’re dead, we’ll clean them out later, let’s just go.”

Sooo… we get back on the highway. Everything is fine for a few minutes. Suddenly the “dead” moths all come to life AT ONCE. On the highway, 15.5 years old, probably going 60-65 mph, moths fluttering in my face while I try to drive. It was horrifying. To this day, I am still frightened of moths. And if I see a butterfly that looks like a moth, or even just a regular butterfly that startles me, I freak.

I also DESPISE spiders :|… especially jumping ones, double :|. When I lived in Mexico for a bit, working at a turtle conservation camp, we decided to take a little paddle boat trip through the mangrove forest that was close to camp. WORST IDEA EVER. 7 of us in this teeny tiny boat going through this little opening in the mangroves, just bigger than the boat, and about half way through… SPIDERS START FALLING FROM THE CANOPY. So needless to say, I start losing my s***. I lurched across the boat trying to hide under someone, while at the same time almost capsizing us. Oh and did I mention that this mangrove forest was located in a crocodile infested lagoon? So anyway, everyone makes me calm down enough to stay still, so I decided that I would use my paddle to kill the spiders… That’s when I find out that they are JUMPING SPIDERS. This brings on a whole nother round of freaking out. So everyone decides that for my sanity (and their safety) that we will turn around. Well guess what, the little stream we are going through is too narrow for that, so we have to travel another few minutes down into this opening and then turn around and come BACK the way we came.

It may have been the most terrifying moment of my life. And this is coming from the girl who swam in said crocodile inhabited lagoon and worked with 12 foot crocs

AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
I can honestly (and gladly) say, “no, this has never happened to me”.
The story was very entertaining, however.

I have never heard of bugs that try to hijack cars.

Ok, not driving but….

Fight with boyfriend – I’m very angry & stomp off to the city park to cool down. I’m totaly dressed in black, jacket, tee shirt, & pants, all black. So I find a shady picnic table which happens to also be black & sit down still swearing under my breath. I’m there for about 15 minutes.

I look down at my hand & see that there are about 20 baby black spiders on it. I don’t like spiders but that’s not too bad, Untill I see that I’m actually completely covered in thousands of them. Of course much shreeking insues as I’m franticly stripping off clothes in the middle of a city park. Right down to underwear…….

I’m lucky I wasn’t arrested.  For 3 days I swear I could feel them still crawling on me although I’m pretty sure that the 2 hour shower must have washed them all off.

If I was driving – I would have crashed for sure.

LOL I can only laugh because virtually the same thing happened to me twice! I’m driving, home from camping, and a spider drops down from the ceiling in front of my face. I calmly asked my boyfriend at the time to pass me a tissue from the glove box. No answer…he’s panting and pressed against the door in fear…Sigh…pull over, deal with spider, reassure boyfriend.
and it happened twice!! lol!!
Your spider sounded a LOT bigger though and jumping omg. My language might have been colorful too lol!

Hogeeze…just found this. Had to respond because I’ve had such a crummy day and I was laughing so hard by the end of the thread tears were ROFLing with me.
But I truly sympathize. I’ve had a few close calls with spiders but not driving. When the kids were little though my daughter git stung by a bee she’d sat on just as we’d all completed a 60 mile round trip to and from town. Knowing my son was mildly allergic I feared my girl would have a reaction and had to consider running all the way back in to the hospital. Luckily not though but what a nightmare!
My daughter is mortally afraid of spiders and hates all bugs in general.
My best friend did, years ago while on her way to work, crash her car while a spider hung down in front of her face from the rear view mirror. She was wondering how to get the insurance to cover it because there’s no random spider clause.

Coming from a person who has 5 tarantulas, I would not have been that worried about a harmless jumping spider. lol In fact I would be honored to have it in my car driving with me. I love jumping spiders, they are amazing creatures and very beautiful.

Interesting situation though.