Posted on 01/12/2022 10:59:48 AM PST by RaceBannon
I got caught in the Virginia mess last week. After about ten hours I was able to get off the highway and take a backroad.
At one point I got back on and was making halfway decent time.
Since it was about 1am by now, I didn’t see the bridge in the dark. It was solid ice. There were a couple cars well behind me that got a real good look at the side of my truck.
At the other end of the bridge there were four cars in the guardrail.
Rumor has it that my driver ed instructor would take his winter session students on the ice in Anchor Bay, MI.
If I had heard that rumor before signing up for the fall session I would have waited.
Nah. We just pull back onto the highway and get on our way.
30A Songwriters.
https://30asongwritersfestival.com/
We went in 2019 and 2020. The 2020 one was one of the last big things we did before Covid hit, plus we saw John Prine for the last time, twice, during the event, and we’re big fans. He was an early Covid casualty.
Lack of road salt is why you can be killed by a Studebaker with the original paint in New Mexico.
Also the lack of humidity.
We got two feet in Texas and sure enough. Everything was shut down.
True, I can only visit my family in MD on the water in the fall or winter. Summer, it’s like breathing spit through a straw.
I’m from Michigan, and worked in Knoxville for a couple of years (loved it). First snow, they called me and told me not to come in—but I was already sitting at my desk!
I think part of the problem the last ten years or so is the proliferation of cars with low aspect ratio tires. These wide but shallow tires with their good quick dry weather handling characteristics are terrible when it is slick.
I had an Audi 40 years back that with front wheel drive went over old Wolf Creek Pass with a foot of packed snow on it. It had tall tires that dug through the snow and also locked you into the rut you were making as you drove. A sport Honda Accord I rented a few weeks back was hardly stable in rain.
I was in a 4wd F150.
Stay in your house and drink. Well that’s our plan. 😆
Yes, I understand. I was reflecting on the other cars and commenting in general. I also don’t doubt that as years have gone by, even trucks from ten years back average lower aspect ratio tires than trucks from 20 years ago.
I had a Ford Aerostar van when they first came out and to get around my neighborhood and out for work in the mornings, I used to put studded snow tires on it AND load it with seven tubes of sand for a total of 490 lbs right on the rear axle. LOL, it made it like a tractor.
You had a reason, not seeing the bridge. He said he would watch them drive up to the bridges, see the signage and as soon as they hit the bridge slam on their brakes.
Sometimes you just lose traction regardless. The same brother was driving back to college in the 80’s in a snow storm with a load of other guys from our town who went to the same college catching a ride back. He was doing well and came to a traffic light he knew was there and he had slowed and geared down(84 Pontiac Sunbird 5spd) and was easing into the light and without warning his tires lost traction and he did one 360 degree spin and then a 180 and was in the same lane except facing traffic mainly a big rig that was following him when the car came to a stop. He popped it into 1st gear and pulled off on the shoulder as the semi went right on by.
All in the car were recovering from a major rear in pucker as the truck blew by, total silence, except for heavy breathing. When traffic passed he turned the car around and they went on with very little conversation.
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