Puppies on ice

Snowed here yesterday (Thursday/Friday overnight) for the first time this winter... or the first time at our altitude anyway. We're at 2200ft, and the snow line has been 3,000 up 'til last night.

There was 2-4" of snowfall around the region, but we had about an inch of accumulation (the first inch or so melted).

Last night, it got down below 20 degrees (its been above freezing most nights), and the black ice was REALLY bad.

...Really bad black ice, on a two lane, unlit 6omph limit highway; mostly with no guardrails, and a couple of long 6% grades with 90 degree turns in the middle...

The one major disadvantage of where we live really.

We went down to Spokane to celebrate our anniversary with friends (a couple days early. Our anniversary is tomorrow), and on the way down, we saw six cars off the road; including two that actually went off the road right in front of us (black ice, on a turn just over the crest of a hill).

The truck handled the ice just fine, but knowing how to drive properly helps. Four wheel drive and good snow tires are great, but they don't trump the laws of physics.

It doesn't matter how good your vehicle is, or how good your tires are; inertia overcomes friction pretty damn easily on ice.

When you are maneuvering in a low friction environment, you want your motion to be a simple vector. You can either accelerate, decelerate, or turn... just one, not two; or the product of your vector components is going to be greater than the friction force acting on your vehicle.

Four wheel drive, and good tires, increase the friction component of your total forces, (and help keep them balanced between your front and rear tires), but there's only so much that they can do.


Simple physics.



It got even colder while we were down in Spokane, and rather than risk driving back up into the mountains, with the rest of the idiots sliding around, slamming into us or running us off the road; we ended up staying over with them (and then going for breakfast in the morning).

Overall, a good night, but ended up a pretty long one, since we only got home late this afternoon.

Well, We ALMOST Escaped Winter Unscathed...

The Dodge Earth Sodomizer and I almost got in a major accident today. Almost.

While northbound on the US 95 headed home from Hayden, the weather got the best of a poor little black sedan headed south. I was driving a reasonable following distance behind another 3/4 ton hauling an rv. I saw the black sedan hit the black ice at 65mph and cross into oncoming traffic.

The driver of the 3/4 ton ahead of me managed to pull onto the shoulder so instead of getting hit head on he got hit on the tail end of the rv instead. I managed to pull over to the shoulder into a snow bank and escape getting hit head on myself (barely).

I watched the black sedan pass me, still swerving, and go into the ditch on the side of the road about a 1/4 mile down. Several vehicles pulled over to check on them. I pulled over and called 911 immediately. The dispatcher asked me to check on the driver of the truck pulling the rv so I pulled in behind him and found that the elderly man and his wife were okay. I waited by the side of the road, safely pulled onto the shoulder, for emergency services to show up.

After they showed up I finally noticed the damage to the Dodge Earth Sodomizer. The snow bank had caved in the lower portion of the rear passenger side door.

Compared to the damage that could have happened if I'd let the car hit me head on (which would have happened if I hadn't pulled myself onto the shoulder) I think I got off easy.

Certainly our insurance agent (and neighbor) is much happier with that outcome.

The rv in front of me was trashed (it actually got pulled partially into the ditch and into the reflective markers), the truck pulling it lost one of his equalizer bars,  and our truck's door got dinged, but nobody was hurt or killed. We got off easy.

Several things I learned from this experience:

• 99% of drivers in North Idaho are responsible winter drivers. It's that 1% that's the issue.
• Thank God Chris taught me how to drive on the ice early on in the season. Because I'd internalized "smooth and deliberate" I was able to avoid an accident without losing traction myself.
• Since it was snowing and I was pretty sure there was ice on the road (it was 21 degrees out) I kept the truck in 4 wheel drive lock. If I hadn't already been in 4 wheel drive my emergency evasion would not have turned out as well.
• Since I've been dressing for the weather and not for the heated truck I was VERY comfortable standing on the side of the road for an hour in 4 inches of snow. Shearling boots, wool socks, good jeans, and a coat rated to 20 degrees are all good things.
• Good batteries (in this case 2 of them) make it so you don't worry about how long your emergency flashers will be on.
• A GPS, even on a familiar route, will enable you to tell dispatch EXACTLY which two rural roads you happen to be between.
• Emergency blankets and supplies kept in a truck enabled me to offer the elderly woman a warm blanket while she was waiting. If I wasn't dressed as well as I had been I would have been in need of a blanket too.
• A personal relationship with our insurance agent and his phone number in our cell phones enabled Chris to call him after he got off the phone with me and meant he was at our house shortly after I got home to get the info and get the process started and off my mind.
• Bonner County Sheriff's Office and Fire Department are some of the nicest guys on the planet.

This could have ended up much worse. I'm glad that both our truck and the truck in front of me managed to avoid a worse accident, because even though the accident wasn't either of our faults that wouldn't have made the possible death of the car's driver any less traumatic. Thank God we both managed to avoid a head on collision.

Mel