Even though the van missed me by only a couple feet, I walked away from the collision without a scratch. I believe that I now have six lives left.
Minneapolis had around 175 accidents and 3 deaths two days ago in the wake of freezing rain. Between 6 and 8AM the freezing rain put about 1/2 inch of ice on all roads, including highways. You can imagine driving down the road and seeing cars in ditches, trucks jack-knifed, vehicles stuck in medians after 360ing.
My incident occurred on the exit ramp off a main highway going into downtown St. Paul. I was coming around the exit ramp when my Honda CR-V spun out of control. Now, this wasn’t freaking me out, because I have plenty of experience maneuvering cars over ice and snow from my DC days and nights. Sort of. I managed to get the car to careen over the curb and come to a rest just off the exit ramp lane. No big deal, no damage to the car.
About a split-second later I realized that, being a metropolitan area, that other cars may be coming off the highway exit ramp as well.
Sure enough, he comes Mr. Big & Mighty Van, careening directly at me at 25 MPH. Luckily, the broadside collision impacted the rear driver side, missing the driver door by about 3 feet. We both went blasting down the highway exit ramp, which luckily move us to an area that would inevitably render my immovable car out of striking distance from other cars sliding down the exit ramp.
Nothing sucks worse than handling the swap of post-accident consideration and information than doing it in 5 degree weather. Plus, all my musical gear was in the back of the car, and I hauled it a position behind a tree, in the event that other cars ended up slamming into my helpless, smoldering vehicle.
The good news (besides surviving) is that within 3 hours after the accident, the insurance companies determined it wasn’t my fault.
Glad it’s not your fault, but…
Glad it’s not your fault, but man, I’d be horrified if my equipment were in my tiny little subcompact when it got hit by a van or bus. Ouch!
I had a small experience along those lines yesterday. I was cooking at about 45 MPH on the interstate (hey, the weather was bad) when I came over a rise and saw that traffic appeared to be stopped right in front of me. I pressed pretty hard on my brakes, and felt my anti-lock braking system kicking in on the front wheels while the back wheels began to skid sideways. I corrected a little, eased off the brake so that I stopped skidding, and tried again. Again, the ABS on the front, while the rear wheels tried to slide around to take their rightful position facing traffic in front of me.
After four cycles of this, I finally got the slowdown under control, and managed to get down to the speed of traffic on this black ice a few feet shy of the back end of the vehicle in front of me. The truck immediately behind me had a similar problem, and skidded slightly off the road as I looked behind me, scared for my tiny little aluminum car.
My Honda Insight is very, very expensive to repair because it’s made of aluminum, not steel. It’s much more difficult to straighten without cracking the metal. I’m so glad I didn’t actually wreck, but it was a close thing. And it would have been all my fault.
Glad you escaped unscathed, but it sucks that your car got trashed. Any other readers have an exciting winter weather story that tops Sam’s?
—
Matthew P. Barnson
One time..
I was driving my station wagon and this bee flew in and..
wait..
that wasnt..
WE WERE ON A BREAK
WOULD YOU STOP DOING THAT! IT LANDED ON MY EYE!
(You know, now that I’ve watched several seasons of “Friends” on DVD, this is beginning to sound like Ross’s refrain, “WE WERE ON A BREAK!”)
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Thee Bee story..
..per your request…Is officially retired..
until which time I decide it would be funny to bring it up again.
Dude
Glad you weren’t hurt. Are CR-V’s the bomb or what? Holla!
Oh uh… well my car caught fire on the highway once. 🙂
— Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor
Glad the equipment wasn’t hurt..
Oh, and you too..
Seriously.. it can be scary. Four years ago when I was performing with a children’s theatre in Baltimore, getting on 95, I actually did a full 360 on the road and regained control.. albeit facing the side of the road.. and was able to keep going.
Still, it was terrifying.. thank God the roads were empty and that I was going slow.
JT
You Know You’re A Musician When
Imagine some dude emerging from a crushed car, bundled up in layers of thermal wear, going into the trunk, making trips to haul bass amps and cabinets across the highway exit to some tree on the side of the road. That was me. Dodging other cars sliding off the exit ramp while doing it.
Not the safest thing to do, but I had a gig that night.
Priorities
You got your priorities straight, man! Forget the women, save the sheep!
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Sheep?
Okay.. that bears explaining.
Inside joke…
It’s an inside joke. And you’re on the outside 🙂
No, it’s actually pretty simple. For my 17th birthday, during a… what was it, a cast party? Or a Show Choir party? Anyway, during a huge dinner with a bunch of other kids from our high school, Ben, Kevin, Dani, and Sam showed up and sang me this little ditty, to the tune of… crap, I don’t even know what the tune is. It’s that tune that goes may-do-fa-so, sung as | 1/4 1/4 1/2 | whole | time in 4/4. My brother had sung this a few times, where he’d acquired it from some singers in a Medievalist club called “Dagorhir” at a battle one day.
I’d sung it to Sam, and it became a bit of a band in-joke on birthdays, until they created the ultimate version and sang it to me:
Anyway, Ben, Sam, Dani, and Kevin had arranged it in this funeral dirge-ish minor four-part harmony and sang it to me in a booth in the middle of Godfather’s Pizza. One of the highlights of my teenage years, it was. They gave the gift of their time.
The only other thing I remember about the day was that Lynnaea Malouf (sp?) was there. So it was probably a choir dinner, not a theater dinner. But anybody who remembers it better than me, feel free to chime in.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Hey!!
Children crying and despair.. people dying everywhere…
I think I know this one..