[xlabel]

I'm a transplant from FL on my second stint in MI and even though I have a little sliding experience under my belt, I'm still petrified of wintry roads. I brushed a gaurdrail pretty good one time on an icy county road bridge, but I've never put in the ditch, YET. The bridge incedent was a complete surprise,it wasn't snowing, the road was pretty good, but the truck just took a hard left like right now. Do any of you Michiganders have stories about going off the road? What were the conditions like? Sometimes I'm amazed at how I'm pulling away from traffic when roads seem really bad, and then other times I can't believe they are flying by me like that.

[Bydand]

I think just about everybody who has grown up and then spent their adult life driving on snow and ice every winter has a tale or two of the view from the ditch. Most start the same way... Friend and I were fooling around one day on icy roads when....

For one of my trips to the ditch we were out fooling around in my lifted, Jeep CJ-5 that I had stuffed a 360 V-8 under the hood and some decent sized tires on. While wide tires helped during the summer out in the boonies, they are useless on ice. We had finished a street hockey game (with ice skates so you know just how icy it was) and went out looking for a place I could pull everybody on inner tubes behind the "Heep." When I shifted into third gear the cold blooded beasty "coughed" and caused a slowly spinning slide to the left. I hit the snowbank which was about 18" high and hard as a rock at about 35 MPH and it swept the tires right out from under the Jeep and over we went. Rolled one time and landed back on the wheels down into the ditch. Climbed out and put everything that flew out back in the rear of the vehicle, started it back up and drove out of the ditch and back home to call it in to the insurance company. That was 22 years ago and I just got rid of the Jeep a couple of months ago .

Doing about 65 MPH on I-75 headed up from College in Detroit area, back to the UP for a week-end. My room-mate was driving and it was glare ice when he hit a ridge of slush and put us into a spin. Ended up in the median almost into the Southbound lanes. Couple of us jumped out and pushed it into the Southbound lanes where he took a running start and plowed back across the median back into the Northbound side and we climbed back in and went on our way like nothing happened. Didn't lose more than 15 minutes total. That was with a POS 1970 Opel Cadette Wagon.

Haven't even come close in the last 20 year though to ditching it. A bit more common sense and a LOT better vehicles really helps. Plus I don't tend to "play" as much in the snow as I did back then.

[YAZ]

Some good stories there, Bydland...


I was takin' a night class at EMU in Ypsi and headin' back to Brighton on US 23....

It had rained all day and into the night when the temp dropped a bunch of degrees and it started snowing. Being careful, I was OK for a while in my 'lil front wheel drive chevy. Around the Whitmore Lake area, a semi passed me and I got a little nervous and swerved a 'lil bit too fast....

A nice layer of ice on the road covered with an inch of snow combined with my maneuver caused my car to do a 900 degree spin in the middle of the expressway.


Headed on over to the median which stopped my spin and backed up into the guardrail...right where it started. Three feet to the south and I would have missed it. Instead, I trashed a bumper and a quarter panel.

I lived in MI for 40 years and that's the only mishap I've had while driving in weather.

Tips from someone who knows:

1. Slow Down, maintain a safe following distance.
2. Steer in the direction of the "spin".
3. Ifya have time, put your vehicle in neutral...then use your brakes.

[jeeg]

In all my years of driving here, I've only had one winter "incident" where I overcorrected a slide, went into the ditch but kept steady pressure on the pedal and drove right back out so I was in there maybe all of 5 seconds.
Denver, CO gave me fits in the winter however but I suspect that was my vehicle at the time and the fact I could only afford the cheapest tires they had available. When I lived there it seemed like I could count on doing at least one 180 if not a complete 360 every single time we got fresh snow on the roads. Amazingly I never hit another vehicle but I think that's because I worked weird 3rd shift hours so there weren't many people on the roads.

[SpaceGhost79]

Originally Posted by YAZ

Tips from someone who knows:

1. Slow Down, maintain a safe following distance.
2. Steer in the direction of the "spin".
3. Ifya have time, put your vehicle in neutral...then use your brakes.

My trick is to downshift from "D" to "1"...that will instantly slow your car down without having to touch the brakes. I try to avoid the brakes as much as I can if I start losing control. Most likely it'll just spin me out of control more so.

I have yet to put it in the ditch (knock on wood), but I have spun out once or twice overcorrecting and gotten stuck in a few parking areas out in the woods.

I remember a few years ago I was driving back north during an ice storm and just as I got into the Flint area where I-75 and US-23 connect (and there's like six lanes across) the van in front of me suddenly lost control and spun out of control across all six lanes into the ditch. There was traffic at that merger and I couldn't believe he didn't take anyone out with him.

[Northman]

I moved to Petoskey from Georgia, and this is my 2nd winter up here. So far, so good for me, but I try to restrict my wintertime driving as much as possible. I have a rear wheel drive light pickup truck, and so I threw 360 lbs. of sandbags over the rear axle, which has worked very nicely. Again, I try not to go out if I know the roads are gonna be bad.......using common sense where that's concerned will help you avoid more trouble than any snow tires or driving tips will. I plan on heading into next spring with zero ditch trips in 2 northern Michigan winters!

[magellan]

I've never put it in the ditch in 38 years (knock on wood), but I've spun out a few times and curbed it a few others. Not good for your alignment by the way.

I once had a Chevette in high school and was driving on Creyts Road in Lansing going over the I-496 bridge and hit black ice. My car did a 360+, hit the curb, and bent the fender in enough that the front wheel would not move, so I left it in the middle of the road with hazards on. I ran down to the nearest gas station to get a tow truck (no cell phones back then). While waiting for the driver, multiple police cars went whizzing by heading to where I had spun out. By the time I ran back up to check on my car, it had been it by 3 cars and sent across the road down the embankment leading to the highway. Luckily no one was hurt. Eesh. Car still worked though, haha!

Here's what the roads look like today near us. A general rule of thumb is that if the snow starts to look like fog, it's probably a good idea to just drive slow.



If it looks like this, stay home!

[stanman13]

Originally Posted by SpaceGhost79

My trick is to downshift from "D" to "1"...that will instantly slow your car down without having to touch the brakes.

I've tried that method. Tends to lock up the drive wheels and is hard on the trans. You just have to do everything slow and easy, and remember to leave yourself enough room to do that.

I had a 1971 Pontiac Grand Prix when I was in college. Great car but crappy in the snow. I suppose my college budget tires didn't help that. At any rate, coming down a hill on a divided four lane Everybody hit the brakes. They were all stopping quicker than I could, so I was presented with this choice: take out the Chevette in front of me, go under the semi trailer on my right, or take the center ditch to my left. Going about 40 mph, I took the ditch, hit a cement culvert which I did a "Dukes of Hazzard" over, and landed in oncoming lanes. The car was totalled, but luckily I wasn't hurt. Lesson: spend the extra for good tires.

If you have four wheel drive, don't let it fool you. It does not help you stop or steer in icy conditions. The cars I see in the ditches, especially on expressways, are disproportionally four wheel drive. Usually the ones who just passed me flying by a few minutes ago.

[GlassPipe]

Been in the ditch a couple times due to the lovely fluffy slop. Don't forget though, some of the slickest driving in on new pavement. Me and a few friends were in my car headed to Traverse City going south on 31 about 13 years ago. Out in front of the Grand Traverse Resort they had just repaved and it was raining. Someone jammed on their brakes and everything came to a screaching halt. I hit my brakes but the new, still oily road was so slick that my car went off to the right sending us into the ditch. Had I let it go down sideways the way it was sliding we would have rolled right over. It's about 8' deep and a pretty quick drop. So I turned to the right when we hit the shoulder and drove right down into it. Thankfully there was a little culvert coming up with an access road over it just a hundred yards up or so. Was able to drive out with no damage to the car or us. Did come away with a good lesson though - don't think you're going to stop on a dime on a brand new wet road that hasn't had the gravel laid down over the blacktop yet.

[SpaceGhost79]

Originally Posted by magellan

If it looks like this, stay home!

And if you do go out when it looks like that, please use your headlights!! I can't believe how many idiots I see on the road during near white out conditions who don't drive with their headlights on. You might think it doesn't help you see any further ahead, but that's not the point. The point is it makes a HUGE difference for oncoming traffic to see you sooner.