Blender Names Rock & Roll's 'Worst Drivers'

This would be great reading material for Britney Spears right now. It's sort of like watching Jerry Springer to feel better about your life.

"Baby, you can drive my car," said the Beatles—wisely. With singer-actress Brandy facing a potential misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge for a crash on San Diego's 405 Freeway, it's time to revisit those prophetic lyrics, for whenever rock stars get behind a wheel, results can range from the insanely dangerous to the tragically terminal.

By Clark Collis, Mike Errico



Run for Your Lives! It's...
Billy Joel
Accident-prone Piano Man

License and Registration, Please: Joel's automobile-related problems began in June 2002, when he drove his 1999 Mercedes-Benz into a post. The ivory-tickling troubadour checked himself into rehab just one week later, but in January 2003, plowed a different Benz into a tree, prompting supermodel ex-wife Christie Brinkley to say she feared for the life of their daughter. Subsequently, Joel kept his mishaps off-road for a period, shattering his wrist falling down stairs in October 2003 and cutting his finger opening a can of beans in April 2004. But later that month things returned to being just the way they were when, going out for pizza, Joel lost control of his 1967 Citroen and crashed into the wall of a house in Bayville, N.Y., cracking its foundation. As one comedian subsequently pointed out, "In the last two years Billy Joel has pretty much hit everything except the charts."



Rolling Stoned
Keith Richards
Stones guitarist/junkie and, unsurprisingly, terrible motorist

License and Registration, Please: In the late '60s the walking—and, too often, driving—chemistry set purchased a 19-foot-long Mercedes that had once been a Nazi staff car. The fact that he immediately crashed it, had it rebuilt, and then crashed it once again was probably connected to his penchant for snorting heroin prior to turning on the ignition and then falling asleep while the car was in motion. In 1971, Richards again took another nap while driving and wrecked another car. He did so yet again in 1976. His wife no longer lets him get behind the wheel—a state of affairs that perplexed the Living Chord, who remarkably insisted, "I'm a great driver!"




Get Offa That Gas Pedal
James Brown
Godfather of Soul, interstate car chases

License and Registration, Please: James Brown liked to say he had a "doctorate in funk." He also has an advanced degree in "driving like a drug-addled nut job." This was proved on September 24, 1988, when the soul legend led Georgia police on a car chase that found him driving first into South Carolina and then into a ditch, after the tires were shot out on his pickup truck. In the course of the chase Brown tried to run over two North Augusta cops. Tests subsequently revealed PCP in the singer's bloodstream. Despite Brown's claim that things had been "blown out of proportion," he was handed a six-year custodial sentence, becoming, as Eddie Murphy put it, "Soul brother No. 1-5-5-4-1-3."



All Shot Up
Elvis Presley
Trigger-happy King of Rock & Roll

License and Registration, Please: Elvis loved cars so much he once bought 32 Cadillacs in a single day. But sometimes he hated them, too. One car that felt the ire of the former truck driver was a 1971 Ford Pantera he purchased for wife Priscilla. After an argument with Mrs. Presley, the singer got into the car intending to drive away. Unfortunately — at least for the Pantera — he couldn't get the car to start and, enraged, started blasting away at the vehicle with his .22-caliber revolver. According to Dick Messer, director of L.A.'s Petersen Automotive Museum, which now owns the Pantera, "He was pretty short-fused. If things didn't go right, he'd just pull out his gun."



Fake Tha Police
DMX
Feeb-impersonating hip-hop legend

License and Registration, Please: On June 24, 2004, the rapper told a parking attendant at JFK Airport to let him leave the lot without paying a $9 ticket because he was an FBI agent. When the attendant refused, he crashed his Ford Expedition through the gates. In another incident at the airport the same day, DMX ordered a driver to get out of his car after, the rapper claimed, he had cut him off. The driver declined to do so, even though the hip-hopper again identified himself as a federal agent. DMX then allegedly tried to drag the driver from his vehicle. He was arrested by police, who found cocaine in the "zoned out" rapper's ride. In December, DMX pleaded guilty to driving while under the influence of drugs. He was fined $1,000 and directed to forfeit the Expedition. Commented prosecutor Gerald Brave: "It's the most expensive $9 parking ticket he ever avoided."



Cut Off at the Knee
Kuhjo
Vehicularly maimed Goodie Mob rapper

License and Registration, Please: "Somewhere along 75 South the devil sang me a lullaby," Kuhjo would later recall, of the events of June 25, 2002, when, early in the morning, he fell asleep driving from a recording studio to his home in Stockbridge, Atlanta. The rapper, born Willie Knighton, was woken by the impact of a freeway rail slicing thought his cherry-red Cadillac. After Kuhjo was rescued from his car, doctors amputated the 30-year-old's right leg from the shin down. "My thoughts on how this thing is going to turn out are all good," he claimed a couple of months later. Indeed, after being fitted with a prosthetic limb, he would appear on OutKast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below album.



Non-Designated Driver
Keith Moon
Chauffeur-crushing Who skinsman

License and Registration, Please: In January 1970, Moon and wife Kim got into their S1 Bentley, only to be surrounded by a crowd of English skinheads. Moon's chauffeur, Neil Boland, got out of the car to try to clear a path but was attacked. Panicking, Moon clambered into the driver's seat and drove the car for 100 yards before stopping. A bystander pointed out there was someone trapped under the vehicle's chassis. Kim Moon later recalled, "Keith went underneath. He put his head down and pulled out brains." The gray matter belonged to Boland, who was declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. Moon pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol. He never served a day behind bars.



Unarmed and Dangerous
Rick Allen
Limb-challenged Def Leppard drummer

License and Registration, Please: On New Year's Eve 1984, the then-still-fully-limbed Allen was driving his Corvette Stingray along Britain's A57 Highway when he was overtaken by an Alfa Romeo. "Then I saw the driver up ahead, slowing down," the metal skinsman later recalled. "I tried to pass him, but he speeded up. We played this stupid game for four miles. Finally I lost my temper and put my foot down." Allen took a corner too fast, rolled his car and was thrown through the sunroof—sans left arm. According to Allen, "All I remember was standing in a field saying, 'I'm a drummer, and I've lost my arm.'"



Hair-Metal Mayhem
Vince Neil
Mötley Crüe manslaughterer

License and Registration, Please: In December 1984, during a several-days-long party to celebrate the start of "work" on Mötley Crüe's third album, Neil convinced Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley to accompany him on a beer run. On the return journey, Neil, who was driving almost 40 miles over the 25 mph speed limit, lost control of his '72 Ford Pantera and collided with a Volkswagen. Razzle was killed and both occupants of the other vehicle were injured. Neil pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and was sentenced to 30 days imprisonment. Said Neil: "Now people hated me even more than before."

Spicy
Source: Thanks Blender.com

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