Driving in the snow

Our winter has been unseasonably warm and nice, and I haven't been complaining.  The last few days we've started getting the winter weather.  I do love how the snow looks, especially when it's freshly fallen.  But I really miss the days when we got off school and didn't have to drive.  If I didn't have to drive in it, I'd be perfectly content to watch it fall.

Thursday we were supposed to get some snow (a few inches, not a lot) and it started a little bit before I left work.  I ended up leaving Cranberry around 4:30.  I had a bad accident on the turnpike about 2 years ago that totaled my RAV4 so I'm hesitant about that road (mostly the construction area- 2 years ago I slid on black ice and hit both concrete barriers on both sides which took out my tires and then my car slid forward with the momentum, ruining underneath and the front even though I never hit the front at all).  I actually don't mind driving in snow if there aren't a lot of other cars around and I can take it somewhat slow.

So I decided to take back roads, which would normally take me about 45-50 minutes from Cranberry to home.  There were other cars on the road but it wasn't bad and we all drove slightly under the speed limit.  There were hills, curves, stop signs, stop lights, etc., and I did slide around a bit but I was pretty comfortable.  It took me an hour and 20 minutes to get within a mile from home and that's when the problems happened.

Our housing plan is kind of on the top of a pretty big hill so no matter what direction you come from, there is some type of hill you have to drive up.  What's worse, no plows or salt trucks had gotten to any of the roads.  (They didn't really on the other roads either but with less traffic around I was able to keep momentum on the hills, etc.)

I was headed on the main road to get to my house and at the very bottom of the hill, there was a car stopped with flashers on and a lineup behind them.  One of the things about driving a hill in snow- if you slow down or take it too slowly you won't have the momentum to carry you up the hill and once you lose that you lose traction and- well, you can't get up the hill all the way.  I'm pretty sure this ended up being a sports car (because Dave drove coming from the other direction later) trying to get up the hill and it was probably not ever going to happen for a car with super sporty wheels/tires.

I ended up deciding to turn around and try another back road.  This one is worse- very, very curvy and steep.  But I wasn't really having any issues so I decided to try it.  Dave had dropped his car off for inspection and was waiting for me to get him, and I didn't want to get stuck away from home.

I made it almost all the way up (and I'm pretty sure I would have) but a car coming down around one of the bends was sliding down in the middle of the road.  So I pulled over to the side and slowed down.  When I did that, though, I lost all traction and couldn't get started again.  I ended up doing a 3 point turn to go back down the hill and either try again or think of another way to go...  All was fine until I was facing down the hill and took my foot off the brake.  At that point, the car just slid.  It was very slow but still shook me up.  I hit the brakes, the ABS kicked in, which adds to the panic (as well as the stupid "YOU'RE SKIDDING" light on my car.  Thank you.  Thank you very much.  I already know I'm skidding, and the light doesn't help.)  Anyway, there were two cars at that point coming up the hill, a guard rail on the left side of the road, and a hill on the right side of the road.  My car was pretty much uncontrollable so it slid into the guard rail (on the driver side).  I was watching the cars coming up and thinking there is no way I'm not going to hit them.  But my car kind of slowly bounced from the guard rail, and hit the hill on the other side of the road.  That's what finally stopped the car.

At that point I was able to put the car into low gear, go to the bottom of the hill, find a parking lot, and just stop and sit. My heart was racing.  I got out of the car and actually the damage wasn't bad.  I was ok.  So I'm counting my blessings.  I also can't believe I didn't hit the car coming up.  (They also got stuck because they had to stop and lost their momentum.)

Here are some pictures of the damage.  Anybody know what to do to sand and paint it?  The metal is exposed on the car behind the rear wheel and I should get that taken care of.

Very minor damage by the front wheel

Somewhat worse damage by the back wheel.

Dave ended up driving to get me (took awhile for him to even get to me and he was only a few miles away at the car shop- thank goodness he still had his key).  I went to a local bar where we know the bartenders and some of the people and drank a coke watching the Pens game until we thought the salt trucks and plows had had enough time to clear things up.  And sure enough, by that point, we drove both cars up and were so happy to be home.

But this is why as an adult I'm not really that crazy about snow anymore.  And lesson learned- if I ever get stuck like that again, instead of trying the bad curvy hill I'm going to wait it out somewhere even if I just want to get home.