Let's share some amazing coincidences that we've experienced, I'm sure there will be some thought-provoking and vastly amusing anecdotes!
As for me, mine happened about 15 years ago. I was just returning home from university, got out of the commuter train and walked up to my car, an old Mark III Ford Fiesta. I unlocked it, got behind the wheel and immediately it became obvious that something wasn't quite right. There was an unfamiliar odour, so I glanced round and my eyes alighted on one of those air freshener trees dangling from the interior mirror that I had NOT hung there! I hurriedly looked behind me at the rear bench and there was a ton of stuff strewn about which unequivocally did not belong to me either
It was pretty obvious by now that this was quite simply somebody else's car, but it seemed so implausible that the fact took a few moments to register properly. When it did, the temptation was strong to try whether the engine would actually start, but I thought better of it. Across the street was a residential area, and for all I knew the real owner was watching from the living room window, aghast, a total stranger preparing to drive away in his/her car! Hurriedly I got back out, locked the door and, casting surreptitious looks over my shoulder, went in search of my actual car.
Now, I was later told that in cheap cars of that vintage (early 1990s), not having totally unique keys for every example was still relatively commonplace, but the probability of randomly encountering a "twin" in the field must nevertheless have been tiny. It doesn't stop there though, because for me to even consider sticking my key into its lock, a whole laundry list of other puzzle pieces had to fall into place as well:
1) Time - the car had to be where it was within a relatively narrow window of time, or I would simply have missed it.
2) Place - not only did it have to be parked in the general vicinity of my own car, as little as 20m further down the line and I would likewise never have noticed. OTOH, too close and I would have seen both and looked carefully to make sure I got into the right one.
3) Colour - all this happened in broad daylight, so if it had been painted in even a slightly different tone, or had a bumper sticker applied, it would have told me something was wrong before attempting to open the door.
4) Model - the car further had to be the 3-door body version, and a facelift variant with streamlined exterior mirrors. Anything else, and again I would have been alerted to the fact that it was not mine.
5) Trim - had the upholstery on the seats been a different pattern to the one in my Fiesta, I might also have noticed that just before trying to get in.
The probability of all these coincidences occurring simultaneously to create the setup for my mistake must be vanishingly small!
As for me, mine happened about 15 years ago. I was just returning home from university, got out of the commuter train and walked up to my car, an old Mark III Ford Fiesta. I unlocked it, got behind the wheel and immediately it became obvious that something wasn't quite right. There was an unfamiliar odour, so I glanced round and my eyes alighted on one of those air freshener trees dangling from the interior mirror that I had NOT hung there! I hurriedly looked behind me at the rear bench and there was a ton of stuff strewn about which unequivocally did not belong to me either
It was pretty obvious by now that this was quite simply somebody else's car, but it seemed so implausible that the fact took a few moments to register properly. When it did, the temptation was strong to try whether the engine would actually start, but I thought better of it. Across the street was a residential area, and for all I knew the real owner was watching from the living room window, aghast, a total stranger preparing to drive away in his/her car! Hurriedly I got back out, locked the door and, casting surreptitious looks over my shoulder, went in search of my actual car.
Now, I was later told that in cheap cars of that vintage (early 1990s), not having totally unique keys for every example was still relatively commonplace, but the probability of randomly encountering a "twin" in the field must nevertheless have been tiny. It doesn't stop there though, because for me to even consider sticking my key into its lock, a whole laundry list of other puzzle pieces had to fall into place as well:
1) Time - the car had to be where it was within a relatively narrow window of time, or I would simply have missed it.
2) Place - not only did it have to be parked in the general vicinity of my own car, as little as 20m further down the line and I would likewise never have noticed. OTOH, too close and I would have seen both and looked carefully to make sure I got into the right one.
3) Colour - all this happened in broad daylight, so if it had been painted in even a slightly different tone, or had a bumper sticker applied, it would have told me something was wrong before attempting to open the door.
4) Model - the car further had to be the 3-door body version, and a facelift variant with streamlined exterior mirrors. Anything else, and again I would have been alerted to the fact that it was not mine.
5) Trim - had the upholstery on the seats been a different pattern to the one in my Fiesta, I might also have noticed that just before trying to get in.
The probability of all these coincidences occurring simultaneously to create the setup for my mistake must be vanishingly small!
Last edited:
