Post by gibbinator on Jan 22, 2016 11:16:53 GMT -5
I'm assuming these people must have gotten caught pre-snow tire pre-road ice season and that there was a combination of freezing rain turned to snow. Most of the ridiculous accidents that happen in the winter here are in November when people are still stretching their all-seasons. That hill looks pretty damn steep too.
Of course have X-Ice tires on our cars and dh still slid off our driveway into the lawn the other day after a night of freezing rain.
From the day i parked at a stranger's house and walked home. Dh also parked at a stranger's, walked through this general area, and spent the night with a friend.
Post by scottyderp on Jan 22, 2016 14:33:59 GMT -5
I drive in bad conditions regularly and this is not normal. I would think that once people saw cars sliding backward like that after one or two, people who were in their surrounding cars would stay put. That's a combo of ice and bad judgment.
This one happened a few years ago. Good lesson on driving too fast for conditions!
I remember this - it was all over the news here in Chicago. It so scary watching that video. I'm also pretty impressed that 18 wheeler was able to stop.
I've left my car downtown many a time in the city. It's just not worth it. Why did every one of those people think they would be the ONE car to make it through that?
It was a bizarre day. At the time, I lived maybe 12 miles from work. I was downstairs in our cafe, saw the first snow flake. Immediately went upstairs to get my laptop, went to my car and started driving home. It was barely snowing. By the time I got maybe 4-5 miles from my house, there was so much on the road, including ice, that I couldn't keep it going straight. I pulled into a neighborhood, stopped off the street in front of someone's yard, and asked if I could leave the car and walk home. She agreed and asked me to text her when I got home. I was afraid to walk next to the road b/c people were sliding all over, so I walked halfway up in yards. Got to a grocery store about three miles from my house and went in, and there was a guy there that had a big truck and he gave me a ride the rest of the way. I was fine to walk it, but I had to cross and overpass and there was no where on the side of the overpass for me to get out of the way of swerving cars so I didn't really want to risk it.
DH got stuck in it as well, and called me from where he was stopped at one point. I tried to get him to pull in at the hospital he was close to and just spend the night but he tried to go a bit further. After a box truck that was stopped almost slid sideways into him, and after he saw people going up a hill the wrong way, he also drove into a neighborhood and asked someone if he could leave his car there.
20 minutes or so made a huge difference - we had one friend that left work 20 minutes before the other, she got home with no problem. The other one took 4 hours to get home (coming and going to similar locations). If I'd left maybe 20-30 minutes earlier, I'd have made it with no problem.
The people that really irritated me were the ones that just left their cars in the road and left them for days. When we went back out to get our cars, there were still cars just stopped in the middle of the road. Not stuck, just abandoned.
It was a combination of a freak weather system and stupidity.
I was in this system, too. When I left work, it wasn't snowing, but by the time I drove 20 minutes home, the roads were coated. Everyone who left 20 minutes later was stuck on the roads for hours.