not a photoshop; it landed and stayed this way
Ok, I came clean yesterday with my stupid and totally self-inflicted little ding (more to the ego than the car). It’s the first time I ever had a problem in the snow, having prided myself on my various exploits in my Corvair and VWs back in the day. Pride goes before the slip. So what about you? Done something stupid you want to confess? Seen something stupid? Or just had Mother Nature give a snowy slap? Or?
Yeah, I’ve had a couple of them. The first one when I was about 18, and thought I’d try to induce a skid on a frosty road to see if I could correct it. The next thing I knew, the old 47 Ford sedan’s nose was against the road bank with the front wheels in the ditch. Considerably shaken up, I got out of the car, slammed the door, and stood there trying to clear my head. Then I realized I wasn’t wearing my glasses, opened the door – there they were, demolished – I’d closed the door on them. Not a good day.
I was Christmas shopping in Seattle with our two-month-old 1965 Barracuda when it started snowing, typical soft western WA snow. There was about two inches on the ground, and I slid into an intersection and hit the right front of a 63 or 64 Valiant with my left front, inflicting very similar damage to both cars. It took a long time to put the embarrassment of that one behind me.
Living in snow country, I’ve had my opportunities. For shear stupid, picture a 17 year old in his mom’s pristine low mileage ’78 Caprice behind a pizza restaurant. There is hard packed snow on the lot. The boy rolls the non limited slip car slow to a small incline. The car stops and the real wheel begins to spin. The boy presses the gas harder and harder, burying the speedometer. He releases and does it again several times. He wants to burn down to the pavement to get up the incline. Eventually a burning smell fills the interior. The boy straightens up a bit and drives the car home.
The car lasted another 15 years and almost 200,000 miles with no engine or transmission issues.
Lucky boy.
I spent four years in my teens in Montreal, and that was standard operating procedure for a lot of drivers. The sound of tires whirring on ice drove me crazy.
I’ve never lost control, been in an accident (other than people hitting my parked and unattended vehicles), or anything else – except for once.
It was in the Cutlass Supreme coupe featured a few months back. I was rolling down a blacktop county road, approaching a T intersection with a two-lane state highway. It was late afternoon, getting dark, difficult to see. The intersection was about a half mile away, and I was doing 40 or so – nothing out of the ordinary. Start to apply the brake, and discover I’m on black ice. No amount of pumping, steering, etc. is having any effect – I’m going to coast on through, like it or not. (This is a major problem. Cross-traffic is frequent, and if I T-bone somebody, things are going to get ugly quick.)
Fortunately, nobody was coming at the time. My brakes grabbed the few feet of highway pavement, bringing my speed down into the teens as I went straight down into the ditch.
I got out and assessed the situation. There was no major harm done that I could tell, other than my being a combination of shook up and pissed off. Fortunately I had a cellphone, and one of my clients was a tow service; I called them up and ordered a winchout. It was going to be a while, they said, so I set about trying to be inconspicuous until they arrived.
Several minutes passed. A Suburban full of girls rolled up, and stopped to see if I needed help. My destination was about three miles west, and I asked if they could give me a ride. But they were headed east – no dice.
So much for Minnesota nice – out of a good hundred or so gawkers, the Suburban was the only vehicle to stop. But several of the rubberneckers did call 911, resulting in two sheriff’s deputies arriving on the scene, lights and sirens ablaze. They wanted all my documentation, verified that I wasn’t drunk or high, and interrogated me a bit. After a firm scolding for driving too fast, not braking soon enough, or whatever it was they decided I did wrong, they let me go about my business.
The tow truck arrived shortly after the officers departed. Five minutes and $40 later, I was back on my way, thoroughly embarrassed and certain I felt something funny in the suspension (turned out to be nothing).
So, there it is – my one stupid driving mishap.
Backwards into the woods in a 1980 Honda Civic within site of the Thousand Islands U.S. border post. Not my proudest moment.
2006 300C recieved as graduation gift in June 2005, Around November 2006 was going to see “The Last King of Scotland”, live on a hill thats never treated and rolling on all seasons, I started going down the hill, hill goes right car keeps going straight, tried everything from braking to trying to induce oversteer to even putting into reverse with Hemi roaring, but no dice. Hit the sewer drain section of the curb, wheel shattered, tire developed bulge, camber, caster, toe all FUBAR and control arms needed replaced, steering and subframe thankfully unharmed. The last time all seasons were ever on that car past halloween and a wonderfull ensuing 7 years and 50k miles with really the only real American style car left. In my defense, that hill has claimed dozens of cars over the years including ambulances, garbage trucks and even plows. Town got serious about treatment after a full schoolbus almost ended up in my neighbors living room.
“even putting into reverse with Hemi roaring”
Really? Good thing you didn’t need a transmission rebuild to go with the front end repair 🙂
Although I survived the following incidents without a scratch, it was pure luck and not skill that saved me.
Both incidents happened in my BMW 2002, in 1975-77, on my way to work. I had recently graduated from university, and landed a job with a small startup company, quite literally in the middle of nowhere, reached by small country roads.
1) In the first instance, I was driving to work on a snowy, blustery day. I had been following some slower traffic for a while on a 2-lane highway, and decided to pass. I knew the road well, and figured this was my best chance. Because of the conditions, I needed some extra time to pass, and just as I was side by side with the car I was passing, there was a sudden gust of wind that reduced visibility to zero. The road was slick, so hard acceleration or braking were out of the question.
So I decided my best option was to drive on the opposite shoulder, which luckily had been plowed. As I was slowing down, a car coming the other way zoomed by on my right, between me a the traffic going in my direction. It’s a good thing that the driver probably could not see me coming towards him until the last moment. I slowed to a crawl, waited for the wind gust (and adrenaline) to subside, and rejoined the regular traffic.
2) The second incident happened the next winter, by which time I had moved closer to work. But it was still some way on small country roads. On a bitterly cold but sunny morning, I drove at a good clip through a wooded area, and the road was bone dry. However, when the road emerged from the forest into some open fields, I noticed a very strong cross wind that required a minor steering correction. Which had absolutely no effect… So I corrected some more… Big mistake!
Just then I transited from a patch of completely invisible black ice, back to dry asphalt. The front tires grabbed, but unfortunately by this time they were pointing somewhere into the fields on my left. It probably took only a couple of seconds, but it felt like an eternity as the car spun 540 degrees, and I was propelled backwards into the opposite ditch, at a speed that was likely still over 60 mph (96 kph). Luck was really on my side: the ditch was filled with fresh snow, I magically avoided hitting any road signs, and most important, I had the road entirely to myself.
The tow truck operator that came to pull me out could not believe how far away from the road I was parked, and that the car had sustained no damage whatsoever.
Needless to say, I became a much more careful winter driver after that. I also considered packing a fresh pair of underwear in my winter emergency kit!
Remarkably, I managed never to hit anything with my old Ford Courier during a couple winters in the snow in the northeast, between Philly and Potsdam, NY (nearest city: Ottawa, ON, CA). Not that I didn’t have some excitement where I should have known better — black ice on the hill down towards Allentown PA (“why isn’t anyone else going 45 down this hill? Oh S**t.”) (I’m glad I knew to keep an egg under my braking foot just then.) And ask me how I know that carburetors ice up at 30 below…
But the dumbest thing I did in the snow wasn’t with my car, though it was car related. Four of us were driving back to school in a buddy’s 75 Olds. Stopped for a snack in Syracuse, NY – 6″ of snow in the parking lot. Not bad… An hour or so later, north up I-81 near Pulaski, we saw a car with it’s front wheels in the ditch. We decided to stop and help the (literally) little old lady. Being big strong (cough, cough) college boys we figured we could get the front end back on the road – the ditch didn’t look very deep. I stepped off into the ditch, and immediately sank up to my waist. We forgot – Pulaski gets serious lake effect snow – 6″ in Syracuse means over 2′ in Pulaski. Cold and wet for the next three hours to Potsdam. Needless to say we gave her a ride to the next gas station instead (this being well before cell phones).
February 2011, driving back to Omaha, NE for my grandmother’s funeral. I’m at the wheel of my parents’ 2007 Chrysler minivan, with my mom my only passenger. For the most part it’s been an uneventful 14 hours as we make decent time ahead of the memorial service the next day.
Around North Platte, NE, snow begins falling. By the time we reach Grand Island, everything has fallen – night, temperatures, and A LOT more snow and ice. We spend the next 4.5 hours creeping along I-80 on snowpacked and icy roads, passing more stranded vehicles along the roadside and in the medians than I’ve ever seen.
We CAN’T stop; the funeral mass is at 10 am the next morning. And I know I’m the one in the car who’s best able to handle the weather, road and stress. Fortunately, I manage to slot behind a determined semi driver, who clears the path for us to follow through the worst of the storm, most of the way to Lincoln.
We made it to Omaha safely. Of many hundreds of thousands of miles I’ve driven over the past 22 years, though, those 4 1/2 hours were the only time I’ve ever been truly terrified.
When I was about 16-17, I was driving my dad’s Mazda B2000 pickup on packed snow and ice. As I saw a steep downhill stretch coming, I slowed down, and resolved to downshift to 3rd to make sure I had enough brakes to stay slow down the hill. Good idea? Hell no! I never recovered traction after the self-induced wheel spin. Best I can say is it put me in the ditch slower than deliberately aiming for it would have.
Oddly, things I did for ill-judged fun all went better than this move.
New Year’s Eve 2009. I only had my license a little over a month. I had never driven in the snow before, because I learned to drive in the spring. It had just started snowing, but I decided to go out to Sports Authority after track practice like I planned. It was just the right conditions for the snow to freeze over immediately.
I was only going about 20-30mph in slow traffic on the mall road, when I saw the car up in front of me come to a stop. I stepped on my brakes only to start sliding. In that split second all I could think of was “If I hit this car in front of me, my insurance will skyrocket for the next 10 years of my life.” So I turned the wheel to try to steer off the road and into a parking lot.
As I heading in the direction I wanted, the car picked up speed as it slid, and stopped turning. Slid directly into a tall, sharp curbstone going like 30, with the front driver’s side wheel getting the direct impact. The rim actually cracked, and I bent the tire rods.
In the end, it was over $1,000 in damage. The only good thing was no other car was involved, and we just payed to fix it out of pocket, so no effect on insurance. I felt like a total idiot and still to this day am a nervous wreck driving in any amount of snow.
Very similar incident this week myself, except going downhill (and only 5mph). Exact same thoughts went through my mind! Escaped without damage, incredibly. Phew. Kudos to the other drivers who didn’t lay on the horn or give me the bird. *Embarrassed smiley*
I’ve never had a snow-related accident, but just to share the shame I will admit to hitting (at low speed) the car in front of me while distracted by a shapely behind.
+!
I grew up in snow country(Ottawa Ontario, Canada). In the early 70’s I was one of the few that rode their bicycle year round in Ottawa. Sometime in January, attending a college studying cartography and photogrammetry, I realized, mid Sunday, that I might not have enough charge in my HP45 calculator for the survey test on Monday. I had left my calculator in my locker so the only alternative available to me was to ride to the college and pick it up. I set out on my bike, ( a trusty Raleigh 3 Speed winter beater) for the 15 KM ride to the college.By the time that I got to the college, the sun was beginning to set. As I rode along one of the roads within the college grounds, a cop passed me, stopped, got out of his cruiser, and stopped me. To put it simply, he told me that I was in violation of the law for not being illuminated as the sun was setting and that this was a 28 dollar fine. I told him that I could not afford a 28 dollar fine and, given his response that, that was not his problem, I decided to flee. I managed to ride around him and get a bit of a head start. By the time that he was giving chase I was headed to the only exit from a parking lot rimmed with tall snow banks, the stairs leading to the entrance to the college. As soon as he had rounded the corner, I turned around and headed at the fastest speed that I could muster across the road into the parking lot south of the one that I was in. I made it to the far rim of snow bank surrounding this lot, dismounted, and threw my bike over the snow bank. I climbed over the bank, carried my bike over a snow covered field, found a road, and rode home without incident. I should mention that the charge in my HP45 Held up for the test so this entire incident did not have to happen. I took a risk in winter conditions and escaped a record that could have branded me as a budding reprobate. ( I fled the interview) God I love Fargo
Bicycle incidents? I’ve got one. I was probably 15 or so at the time, and held down the sysadmin position at the local community center (great times). The center was about two miles from home, and I rode a Schwinn 10-speed to and fro every day, year round. It was also common for me to be carrying equipment with me.
On one particular evening, I was riding home after work with a computer minitower under my left arm. The sidewalk (and the street) was very icy, and I was having a bit of trouble keeping it together on my skinny tires. An oncoming Suburban lost control on the street and went sliding into the curb, narrowly missing me. (Steady course and speed was the only way to keep from falling; any hasty turns, acceleration, or braking, and I’d end up laying it down. This will become important in a moment.)
But that wasn’t even the good part. A block later, a late ’90s Grand Prix SE sedan (why did I remember that so distinctly?) took a left, cutting me off. There was little time to react, and few options even if I wanted to. End result? I struck the car in the left rear quarter, rolled over the trunklid and onto the ground behind them. The computer slid under the car behind the rear wheels; the bike just stayed put.
My first reaction was to pick my stuff up and continue as quickly as possible. The car wasn’t stopping, and I was concerned about being the one at fault for crashing into them – so if they kept moving, all the better!
I was back on my feet and nearly recovered when the car swung around. The young female driver opened her window, clearly shaken up, and asked if I was okay. I told her I was, and tried to brush her off as quickly as I could.
The rest of the ride went without incident.
Like many people, I’ve got many two-wheels-bad stories from my youth. (Ever been riding a bike, and get clotheslined by a downed support wire? And then hop back up and ride off? And then have good Samaritans track you down later to make sure you didn’t do damage? Yeah, me too.)
being from Texas, my snow experience is rather limited and short, but the only one that comes to mind is when I tried to drive back from school to home after it had iced/sleeted for a day or two. I was in my 1986 Pontiac 6000-STE, and it was my first FWD car, I was thinking front wheel drive with that all-iron six on the front wheels was going to be better than the RWD 76 Chevelle I had just junked in the slick stuff. Boy was I wrong. I manage to get it out of the parking space, out of the lot at school and tried to drive it on the street, the only thing I accomplished was sliding the front wheels up against the curb.
Turns out that torquey FWD cars are useless on ice. What made that car a great burnout machine in the summer, made it useless on slick streets. The 76 Chevelle I had was a much better ice crawler, and the RWD 95 Explorer that replaced the short-lived Poncho is a fantastic ice crawler.
I was on my way back to my job in Denver from Salt City on a cold and snowy winter day on I-80 in Wyoming. It was snowing and visibility was limited, but I was still doing 70 mph (normally I would have been doing 83) in my Olds Touring Sedan. Unexpectedly I ran up in the snowy gloom on a red Geo Metro going about 40 mph. I made a flick to the left to avoid the slug and found out that having grippy Yokohamas on the front and summer-rated Sumitomos on the rear were not a great winter combination. As the car began violently fishtailing, I went into my Bondurant skid control routine-with little effect. As I began to rotate 180° into the center median, I prepared for a rollover. Fortunately I just came to rest in the median going the wrong way. The engine was dead. The gd Geo passed me with its flashers flashing. I hit the key. The car started. I gently hit the gas and the car moved. As traffic allowed I made a uwie, got back onto I-80, and continued onto Denver as though nothing had happened. After changing into clean pair of undies in Rawlins, I got to Denver a couple of hours later. At first opportunity, I got rid of the Sumitomos.
I lift-off oversteered my Voyager at one point and ended up turning right at an intersection instead of going straight. Luckily I had the whole road and was only going 20ish.
When it was -20F back in late January 2011 I decided to fire up my 95 Voyager and go for a drive at 2AM. Took about 5 minutes for the engine to go down to idle speed and I had to bungee cord my door shut since the latch was so cold. The door eventually shut once the Minivan warmed up and the area around my house has no cellphone service. I was driving near the Tompkins County/Tioga County border (forgetting there was a ditch on either side) and I decided to try and get the tail out going around a corner when I Understeered into a ditch. About 10 minutes of trying to not fry the Tranny or bald my tires I got out, went home, and had to explain to dad what I was doing.
The Winter of 2010-2011 in Central New York was gnarly and I was using new All Seasons because I could not afford eight tires
The Winter of 2011-2012 in Central New York hardly existed because there was hardly any snow at all, kind of depressing. I had bought and mounted 4 snow tires on my Voyager for the Winter since the All Seasons were no longer good enough and I did not want to nearly shit my pants like last Winter.
As a tow truck operator I’ve seen some bone headed things. This morning I pulled a lady’s RSX from the ditch after a light dusting of snow. I noticed her tires where nearly bald summer tires. After I plucked her car out she asked if I could fallow her back to her house so she could pick up her other car with snow tires on it.
I learned how to drive back in ’79 driving a Pinto, a Spirit, and 2 Concords, so when my dad bought an ’84 Escort in the fall of ’85 I thought to myself “Front wheel drive will make me invincible”… right. One day that winter my dad let me take the Escort to work. The night before the Cleveland metro area had quite a heavy snowfall, and the next morning it warmed just enough for it to rain a bit. So later that day I left work to take some packages to the airport post office. I turn onto the I-71 ramp and the snow/rain mix caused the road surface not only be quite slippery but rutted from the snow buildup, and the little Escort dutifully followed said ruts. Smartass little me hits the gas on that little Escort and I smile at how nicely the little car plays in the snow. Near the end of the ramp there just happened to be a wrecker pulling an old Volvo back onto the snow covered pavement, and I saw no problem getting around said wrecker. Boy, was I wrong. Between the ruts and my spirited (well, for an ’84 Escort anyway) driving that little car decided it wasn’t going to stop, and it definitely wasn’t going to turn. It just decided to plow right into the back end of the wrecker… hard. Just barely missed sideswiping the Volvo, whose owner then gets out and immediately tears into me about my driving skills. Ironic, no? That poor little car spent 4 weeks in the body shop, hell, they even had to take the engine and trans out of the poor little thing. That was the last time I ever got overconfident about driving in snow.
Nothing dramatic, but I was thrilled the first time I drove my 2006 4wd Ford Ranger in the snow. I had gone to the gym, it had started snowing while I was there. I was driving along a curvy, divided 4-lane road with intermittent traffic lights, marveling about how I could do 40mph on the slippery road with no problem. They I came to the first red light, slammed on the brakes….. and ended up somewhere in the middle of the intersection. That’s when I realized that while 4wd will give you some grip while driving, it won’t do anything to help you with the whole stopping thing. If anything, it will make you overconfident enough to take on more speed than you can handle when coming to a stop.
January 1996. Front end of dad’s Mazda B2600 met the rear end of a parked Chevy S-10. $6000.
December 2000. Front end of my 1999 Cutlass GLS (that I bought THREE DAYS PRIOR) slid in a snowstorm, hit a metal barrier, and took off a good portion of the front end. Another $6000.
Did someone else say it? Winter f**king sucks.
My worst incident was about 5 years ago while I was still at UTI. I knew a storm was coming so I decided to take advantage of my otherwise excellent attendance record and duck out of class before the real nasty stuff kicked in(and the ensuing parking lot chaos that’s already bad on a clear day!). So I left class not too long after evening rush hour as planned and the weather was still pretty much just light flurries, but in the time I was wiping the layer of snow off the car those light flurries went into full blown white out, at which point I got the hell out of there.
It turned out the roads were already pretty bad and were getting worse — plows hadn’t yet hit and salted the main 4 lane road I was on(Bloomingdale/Roselle Rd FWIW) and there was a tall layer of snow built up in between lanes from the other traffic. Well I ended up in the right lane getting onto it but needed to eventually turn left onto US 20, thus change lanes. As I gingerly made my move to the next lane I could feel the resistance of the packed snow and loss of traction through the steering wheel and backed off a bit, then tried it again a bit more aggressively hoping I could just break through the center line snow pile and before I knew it the rear end kicked completely out and sent the whole car completely sideways into opposing traffic for what felt like an eternity. Luckily there was no southbound traffic and I managed to SOMEHOW to recover it before doing a complete 180* and get home with everything but my pride intact.
I had a few other incidents as well but the only ones of note involved me losing braking traction and slowly slamming into curbs a dozen times. I blame the horrid all-season tires I had at the time on that.
Don’t often get snow where I live but once it was knee deep I thought I’d practice snow driving and floored my £300 14 year old Ford Sierra 2.0 litre.I went sideways up the curb,over the pavement,up a grass embankment and almost into the town cemetary.I did a complete 360,no damage done and no one about to see me make a complete herbert of myself.I was 43 and should have known better
I was 14 or so years old, we lived outside of Traverse City MI on a dirt road that only had our our house on it. I was car crazy and wanted to learn how to drive, so dad would let me take our 1975 Audi Fox (auto trans) down and back on the dirt road by myself. One winter day I took it to the end of the road, but then made the fateful decision to turn right on the paved road instead of doing a u-turn. That road had a short, very steep hill with a stop sign at the end where it teed into another road. Need less to say I gained too much speed on the hill and couldn’t stop at the sign so crossed the luckily empty road and ended up nose down in a ditch buried in snow. Luckily the car wasn’t damaged but Dad was really unhappy and I had my joy riding rights taken away for a while. Shortly after that we moved to Florida and I have only driven in snow a handful of times since then when traveling.
Wow…these stories make me grateful that I was pushing 40 – and perhaps more cautious than in my younger years – when I moved to an area where I have to drive in heavy snow at least once per year.
From reading comments over the past week, I’ve also learned that spotty and nonexistent plowing and treatment of roads seems to be an issue that is not just confined to the upper South, where state and municipal governments don’t invest in equipment that will only be used once or twice a year, and only in the northernmost part of the state.
That’s definitely the case here in the Arkansas Ozarks*, but if I venture a few miles north to the state line, the major highways in Missouri are completely clear.
* As I must explain to my vendors and suppliers in California and Colorado every winter: YES, Arkansas is considered a Southern state and was part of the Confederacy, but when you’re within spitting distance of the Mason-Dixon Line and on a mountain range, it gets cold enough to dump 6″ to 12″ of snow between thaws at least once per year – and in early 2011 we got over 20″, causing a few roofs to collapse (our building codes generally don’t consider that much of a snow load to be a normal occurrence).
Almost a snow story, but not quite…last Christmas Eve Eve (23rd), my beloved 1989 E30 was in the shop for warranty work (long story…I managed to get ZF to replace a faulty replacement part for free at the original BMW dealership, who were tickled to work on my vintage ‘vert). The loaner was a gorgeous new 1-series, and my spouse and I left the dealership en route to a buddy’s winter hideaway upstate, but since we were in a fancy new car, decided to use the fancy new built-in nav system, which promptly got us lost (ten miles from where I grew up but an area I didn’t know well). We went into a county park parking lot to turn around; it had been alternately snowing and raining on and off for two days, but the ground looked reasonably dry and solid when I decided to, instead of taking the gravel path out of the parking lot, go straight up a small hill that I didn’t realize was covered with wet leaves that covered mud. A 1-series, while equippedwith the latest traction control system, has low profile 18-inch tires with shallow tread…needless to say, a hill which would have been nothing for my old Bimmer to tackle landlocked the 1-series within two seconds…wheels spun to no avail, and the car then rolled down the hill, the bumper coming to rest on a small fence post, bending the plastic covering of the rear bumper…on a loaner car I’d declined coverage on. It had then started to snow quite badly, and the brand-new car was coated with mud..my partner was most displeased with my ludicrous act of not-quite hoonery; I called AAA and we sat tight. The tow guy was a younger fellow with piercings, and as Pam and I look pretty rock and roll, he had pity on us, and kindly ribbing us for our predicament, shook his head, saying, “Don’t worry, you’ll be on the road in a minute.”
As he gathered the tow straps and began turning his rig around to winch us out, a county officer drive into the lot. Now, as it was pretty obvious what had happened and that the problem was being solved, one would think he would just turn around and go, but the officer decided to get out and check things out. Ok, no worries; again, pretty obvious it’s a problem being solved. But the officer came up to the car window-as the tow rig was setting the straps on the car – and said, ‘License and registration, please.” Huh? I said, “What seems to be the problem, officer?” He said, “Are you kidding?” I said, “We got stuck in the mud…since when is that a problem?” (In a nice, humorous way of course…) “What did you do?” I explained (lied) that I was turning around and the car rolled down the hill (almost true), that it was a loaner (there was no reg info in the car for some reason, just my rental agreement) and my newlywed spouse and I were on our way to Christmas in the woods….he took my info and went away to his truck for a moment; meanwhile, my spouse is cracking up as was the tow guy, who by this point was just hanging out and smoking cigarettes; the officer took his good time assessing my paperwork, and finally came back.
“Now, what happened?” I repeated my story.
“I should cite you for driving off-road. And I should tell the dealership you damaged their car. But it’s Christmas and I want to get home. You drive carefully now.” Um…thanks..?
It took two more minutes but we were free once the cop left. shook the tow guy’s hand and tipped him ten bucks…And we left a giant trail of mud all the way down that county road…and never used the GPS again. And the fence post against the bumper? Left a tiny indent the size of a dime; we washed the car but deliberately left the bumper dirty before turning it back in, and I stood next to it when they did the return inspection. No one was the wiser. 😉
There was also the time I slid into a cop car; I was in high school, and driving my GF’s Mercury Tracer from her house in Montclair, NJ to my house in Maplewood. there is a huge hill on Northfield Ave in West Orange, which is pretty much the only way to get between our towns. At the bottom of the hill is another road to the right that takes you to my town. For some crazy reason, in a blizzard, a cop was stationed right at the intersection – literally in the middle of the road – with little visibility. Coming down the frozen hill in second gear at about fifteen mph, I didn’t see the cop until it was too late to do anything but tap the brakes. I slid…slowly, slowly, slowly…while the cop’s amazed face followed the trajectory of that little shitbox right into the side of his Crown Vic. Amazingly, there wasn’t a scratch on his car, and though the cop shouted, “You’re crazy! You musta been going sixty down that hill!!”, which I denied, he just waved me through….
Stupidest snow moment – jumping off a stopped ski lift & finding its hard to judge height on a featureless surface… It was only 7-8′ instead of 5′ but the extra fall time was not welcome. Worst was possibly accidentally skiing over a jump in very poor visibility – realised it once I was in midair! Happily the subsequent crash didn’t hurt that I can remember.
I have only driven past snow on the side of the road on the lower part of the mountains.
Hurrying to my Uncle’s Farm Christmas Eve 1993, in my beater 1980 AMC Concord to catch a 200 mile ride to my parent’s house for the holidays.
Coming out of the esses on the packed snow of River Road I got on the gas too soon, overcorrected and stuffed it into the snowbank. All four wheels off the ground, no damage to the car.
I ran the mile to my Uncle’s house. A no nonsense man, he was not amused. He put the charger on the tractor just in case, and we headed off in the mighty Chevy 454 dually farm truck with a chain.
As mentioned previously, that truck was capable of moving the earth off it’s axis and it yanked the Concord back on the road like it was nothing.
I thanked him, he looked a me like the idiot I was and we made it home for Christmas…
No damage to the car, but you have to go down a big hill and then up a little hill to get to my place. In the first of the big storms we had in VA 08-09, it started coming down like crazy about an hour before I got out of work. The city hadn’t treated or scraped so it was exciting.
I slipped and slid in my Regal and was expecting the worst when I started going down the big hill. To my surprise, the car stayed plumb and came to a slow stop at the bottom. I got up a head of steam to climb the little hill annnnnnd slid right back down. Tried it again, same luck. Any sane person would have dumped the car in a parking lot and just walked, but I was sure I could make it. I went about halfway up, the car started sliding sideways and I freaked out. I stopped the car as close to the side of the road as I could get it and walked the rest of the way up.
The next morning it looked like a cockeyed igloo and it took FOREVER to dig out because the snowplows pushed all the snow against it.
Now I’ve learned to either leave the car in a parking garage and walk home (it’s roughly a mile) or just dump it in the pottery painting place’s parking lot at the bottom of the hill.
Back in ’94 I was still living in TN. TN rarely ever gets much snow or ice, and I was only 19 or 20 at the time. I was entering in my second semester at community college, and doing a little job hunting. I was DAMN proud of my pristine ’81 CJ-7 Laredo. While on a job interview (which I did get the job) I was returning during the beginning of an ice storm that is remembered as one of the worst in that area. But at the time, I knew it was cold, but not at the point of freezing. I tested it on a notorious bridge by coming down to about 15 mph and nailed the brakes to see if I skidded…nothing. So I figured hell, Im all good. I didn’t even bother to lock in the front hubs and started off. I made it about halfway. I was doing 55 or so, and came down a decent slope onto a bridge in a bottom flanked by cornfields on either side. The expansion joint on the bridge was just rough enough, and the air down there was just cold enough to slick over that bridge, sending me into a nasty fishtail. The bridge was maybe 150 feet long and I managed to drive thru that fishtail until my tires caught on drier pavement on the other side. I went across to my left ( 2 lane road ) and went down the embankment on that side, flipping it and coming to a rest about 10 feet down in the cornfield. I landed upside down and dangling from my seatbelt. My knife was in my console and down on the ground just out of reach, but luckily the salt truck was coming down the other way. Just in time too, because on the way down I had bent and ripped the fuel filler neck and gas was pouring all around. The driver cut me loose and I caught a ride back home with a guy who as I remember looked a lot like Tyrese from Walking Dead. The Jeep never did catch fire, after discussing my options with my dad I really REALLY wanted to just re-body the Jeep in fiberglass since the frame wasn’t damaged, but instead sold it to a buddy of his. He replaced the fuel neck, windshield frame and radiator, and flipped it for more money. My dad helped me buy a ford ranger as a stop gap and let me tell you it was a total shitbox, thankful as I was to have the help. A year later, I kicked that turd to the curb and scored a rode hard and put away wet ’85 Scrambler which was and still is one of my favorite all time vehicles. I came back across my old Laredo just after buying the Scrambler. My stomach went in knots on seeing the original bodywork all mangled up, but after talking to the kid who bought it (it was already sporting body parts off another Jeep) he seemed pretty enthusiastic about restoring it and enjoying it. That made me feel immediately better.
A few interesting points on this story: I rarely if ever wore my seatbelt prior to this wreck. For some reason I was, and between it, the rollbar and the overall un-killable nature of Jeeps Im here to tell the tale with no injuries after a nasty rollover. A few weeks later, my mom remembered that the day I wrecked was the exact day 13 years after my grandfather passed away. Grandpop was riding shotgun with me that day!
This would easily have to be the night in December 2005 when my much loved Bravo JTD got written off.
Was driving home from visiting my folks in Yorkshire, to the house in South Lanarkshire where I lived at the time. The weather report had had a possible warning of snow later, but as I set out it was only “possible”. Rather than (sensibly) taking the long way round using the M62, I decided to stick with my preferred crossing of the Pennines: the A66. It’s a slower road at the best of times but a more direct route and a far more enjoyable drive than the motorway.
Anyway by the time I reached the junction of the A1 and A66 at Scotch Corner the snow had gone from “possible” to “emphatically happening”. A real snow storm had moved in and the slower-but-more-direct A66 began seeming less and less like a good idea.
Gritters had been out, but only down one lane of the (infrequent) dual carriageway sections. Plenty of folk (like me) knuckled down to a slow crawl over the hills but a fair few nut jobs carried on regardless, even as the snow worsened.
I gather it was one such nut in a rental Mondeo who caused the (mercifully casualty free) pile up further down the road. First I knew of it was on cresting a hill to find the gritted semi-clear lane just stopped dead. The road ahead was in complete white-out. Down the hill scattered at various angles were already around twelve or thirteen cars, in various stages of collision, on, part-on and off the road.
I did my best to stop but my (modest) momentum, relative inexperience in snow and gravity all conspired to land me corner to corner with the back quarter of a white Lupo that had already hit the side of a stopped Volvo, I barely had time to register the Lupo bouncing away over teh ice-rink-road into the central reservation before the side-slaloming Escort behind me knocked full into my drivers’ side pushing me to an eventual stop on the outside verge.
Happily as I mentioned there were no injuries in the whole mess. The Mondeo driver had lost control as he crested the ridge and apparently ploughed into the back of a police car somewhere toward the bottom of the hill. The rest of the assorted impacts happened quickly as the knock-on result of other cars unsuccessfully trying to avoid the subsequent obstacles of stopped and crashed cars along the downhill slope but most were moving fairly slowly and while there was plenty of damage to the cars, nobody was hurt.
Only a couple more cars had time to hit each other behind me before the police made it up over the crest of the hill, and began bringing traffic to an orderly stop on the gritted uphill lane. After that it was all a matter of swapping insurance details (except with the idiot woman in the Lupo, who’d left the scene before any of us could get out of our cars, and who later reported “being hit by a black FIAT” at Penrith police station – the cops on the scene at the accident were very amused by that when it was radioed in and I gather she was charged by the officers at Penrith with leaving the scene…) then waiting for a tow-truck to make it through the snow, to cart me and my busted up car back to Scotland.
Sadly thanks to the lead-baloon depreciation on Italian cars, my four-year-old Bravo was written off by the insurance company. Only as a “Cat-D” (UK insurance speak for “uneconomical to repair but still perfectly roadworthy if fixed”) but sadly I didn’t have the funds to get it fixed up myself. So we parted ways. I gather a mechanic at the crash repair place had an eye on it – sensibly enough: apart from the caved in front quarter it was in excellent shape and the engine was a real gem… I like to think it’s still rattling around Lanarkshire somewhere. Avoiding the snow.
Definitely my worst snow experience. One I learned from though.
A 65 Vw Bus. Angeles Crest Hwy 1973. 17 years old. Big snowstorm. let’s go play in the snow. What could possibly go wrong? This story starts about 2 weeks earlier after breaking an axel in the bus. 1835cc motor, high RPM’s and dumping the clutch does not pop a wheelie but does produce a loud “bang” and causes the back of the bus to hop. I actually was able to replace it with the assistance of special gear pullers and a helpful auto shop teacher. Until I was refilling the transaxel with gear oil. I filled the main case and asked my Chevy expert teacher if the fill plugs in the top of the reduction gear cases needed to be removed and filled. He looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “of course not, don’t you realize the axel tubes are hollow and the oil flows from the case to the cases?” Then why are there plugs on the top and bottom? “Just stupid german engineering”. Halfway up the road in the falling snow the rear end starts to howel like crazy. So in the blinding snow I turn around and head back down. Soon the noise sounds like a drier full of rocks banging around. The right real locks up. No problem, just pull into the piles up snow along the edge of the road an press on. A few miles later a loud “pop” and left rear wheel locks up. Slide across road sideways into turnout. Stopped by huge pile of snow built up by snowplow. Slid into it sideways. About a 2000 ft drop on the other side of said snow pile. We got out, had not seen another car in 45 minutes. I wonder why? As we start to walk down the road we see Mercedes 240D on a sideroad in the camping area. The driver and his girlfriend are in a small frozen low spot and are just spinning the tires. We offer to push them out in exchange for a ride down the hill. The next day after the towtruck brings the bus back to autoshop, I pull the reduction gear covers off. No oil and lots of broken gears and metal shavings. Auto shop teacher says. Damn stupid German engineering.
My stupidest snow experience happened two years ago. I was looking for a summer job so I got a job interview in a summer camp in the begining of winter. I drove there in my shitbox, a 1985 Chevette, painted with Tremclad paint and rusted through exhaust pipe (you get the picture…). Anyways, the weather was nice when I got there, but it took more than an hour since there was a lot people waiting for their interview. When I got out, there was more than 5 inches of wet, sticky, slippery snow on the ground. To get out of the parking lot, you had to climb a really, really steep hill. I had to do so in my tiny puny RWD subcompact with rock-hard 15 years old winter tires and no weight at the back. I could not even back out of my parking space (which was on a flat surface).
I finally mannaged to get out of the parking space by placing my floormats under my tires, but I still had to climb the big, extremely steep hill. I saw other people struggle with their small SUVs, so I thought I was out of luck. Meanwhile, I still had aprox. 40′ to go to reach the hill and I could not even make it. It took me an extra 40 minutes drive to the hill, constantly getting stuck. I had my windows opened, since the wonderful Chevette’s heater/defroster system doesn’t really work well for side windows. I had about an inch of snow everywhere inside the car (and stayed there for… pretty much the rest of the winter).
I decided to call a friend who’s dad had a Mazda Tribute to help me up the hill, but I made it to the top by flooring the pedal and screaming while the little Chevette crawled up the snowy road. My friend, who arrived while I was going up, parked down the hill and pushed my car for the last few feets it had to do to make it all the way to the street. I mannaged to drive away, slowly, but I couldn’t see my friend behind me. I called him up to see if he was alright, but it turns out he had a hard time to go up too.
Things said, I didn’t get the job. I’m not blaming it on the Chevette, but maybe it has to do with it… hehehe.
By the way, I bought the horrid awesome little car nearly 3 years ago for 450$. It survived 28 Canadian winters, the light blue metallic paint burned away, the floors are rusty, the rear diff is noisy and loose, the steering box has play, the engine has been neglected and ticks a little (2 out of 3.8 quarts of molasse came out when I first changed the oil), but the damn thing still starts every day, -30 degrees or 30 degrees and has only ”failed” me once (cracked vacuum hose) in 25,000kms of city driving in Montreal. I bought a Mazda Protege to replace it this summer, but it’s been a real lemon, so I kept the Chevette and the Mazda sits in the driveway (or at the garage) most of the time. So yeah, I still drive the ‘Vette and I don’t think I’ll ever love a car as much as I ended up loving this one. Now equiped with new winter tires, it’s a real gem to drive in the snow. I’ll miss that thing when it’ll bite the dust!!!!!
Sorry for putting it in another post, but here’s the beast in it’s glory. It doesn’t look that bad, thanks to a coat of Tremclad paint applied with a roller over the blue-turned-to-rusty-brown paint. You can actually wobble the door panel since it separated itself from the inner section because of the rust that ate the bottom of the door. What will I do when it dies? I can’t possibly think of replacing it with an Aveo or something *puke*…
Driving too quickly down a hill towards a traffic signal in NW Washington DC in the parents 72 Estate Wagon during rush hour in a snow storm. Parallel parked cars on one side of the street and a steep wooded ravine on the other. I realized I couldn’t stop and used the sides of two or three cars to slow down/ stop the beast. The car I came to a stop against was a small Datsun/Toyota. Not pretty!