Monday, November 27, 2006

Interesting drive this morning.




So this morning was an interesting one for sure. It started out with noticing that the car was frozen when I took Puma out to play. This of course changed my plans to play longer with him and set up a short time before I leave to turn the car on and let it warm up so I could drive. I also decided to leave a bit earlier since the drive might be slower. Sure enough it was.

I turned the corner to get on to the St. John's bridge and I noticed that a lot of cars were backed up and moving slow. Didn't think much of it at first until I got closer and tried to slow down. Yep that's it, tried to slow down!! The front tires hit the ice and locked up. Luckily with my intense parking lot training with John a few years ago in the snow I remembered to let off the brakes and let the tires steer where I needed to go. I managed to stop the car just before the car in front of me. I then looked in the rear view mirror to see if any cars were behind me about to do the same but fortunately nobody had followed. A few seconds into driving across the bridge at about 2 miles an hour, I noticed in the rear view that the cops had blocked the road behind me. I thought....well great timing....about 20 seconds sooner and I wouldn't have the luxury of trying to cross the ice covered monstrosity in front of me.

So I continued, tires spinning and the car sliding to the large curb on the right hand lane. The car in front of me was worse off then me. I noticed that the tires were pretty close to being bald and being a Dodge Neon and having the wind pick up on the bridge wasn’t helping him. I managed to stay far back letting him show me the more icy spots on the road ahead and give me enough warning as to when the traffic would be coming to a stop.

I managed to make it to the top of the curve of the bridge and then it was all down hill!! I thought well I am half way there. This is when it got tricky! I kept pumping the brakes and letting the tires steer me on all while keeping an eye on what the driver was doing in front of me. I stopped for a second to let them get ahead and just then the Neon hit the brakes and slid to the curb scraping the side of his car to slow him down. I decided to drive in the middle of the road to give me more room.

I finally made it to the bottom of the bridge were traffic was backed up each way coming from East and West. Luckily the cops had stopped the traffic waiting for the cars in front of me to finally get off the bridge since we pretty much couldn’t stop. We all made it across the bridge without becoming bumper cars or a jumbled mess of cars.

I found out after I arrived LATE to work that they had just reopened it after putting down a deicer and some gravel.

I wonder what the rest of the weeks travels will be like with the high hovering around freezing!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooh, scary!! I'm glad I heard about it after it was over. Hopefully, the weather wil improve soon.

Anonymous said...

The John Connelly School of Inclement Weather Driving will run every Saturday starting at 1pm. We will be driving up to the mountains and practicing controlled slides and braking. Classes start at $50.00 per hour. Please make out your checks directly to me. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I am glad you made it safe and sound, luckily you had John to teach you how to drive in this weather Arizona boy!! Its worth mentioning that John has been "stuck" in the mountains 2 out of the last 3 weekends, he should lower his hourly rate!

Jen

Anonymous said...

Sounds like those of you in Portland have had it just as bad as we did in Seattle! Clarissa's school has been closed since Monday. So, I have been working from home in my pj's all week! We are still covered in ice here. Hopefully the next storm front will bring some warmer temps!

Anonymous said...

Wow... I would've been flipping out!!! Actually, after that first patch, I probably would've turned around and taken a personal day. I can't stand ice. Do you guys get that a lot out there? We almost never do. It's a cultural thing in our area to flip out at the slightest hint of bad weather. :) - Todd