Damn, something I learned in Driver's Ed thousands of years ago paid off!

[tavalon]

So, considering that I had a fair chance of dying about 90 minutes ago, I think today is a really lucky day for me. Not so much for my front tire - it's toast, rim, wheel and all.

I hit black ice on the Montlake exit from 520. My car slammed into the concrete and was about to spin out when I remembered to take my foot off the brake and turn into the slide. Fucking A., it worked! So, I need a new tire, not a new life. And thank goodness, the air bag didn't deploy. This was one time that would not have been good.

Oh, yeah, and GO SEAHAWKS!!!

[fizzgig]

1. has your heart slowed down yet?

and i'm glad you're ok.

but i do have to disagree with you on one thing.....

GO BRONCOS!

[tavalon]

2. Yeah, and now the bone weary exhaustion is setting in

I worked a 12 hour night shift before this little encounter.

As far as the Seahawks, well, I live in Seattle. I barely know what sport they play but I try to blend in.

[fizzgig]

3. put up your feet

and do what you do to relax

[orleans]

4. omg--so glad you are okay. that must have been really scary.

(are the seahawks in the super bowl today?

[tavalon]

5. Giant scary afterwards

But during, time slowed down. I think that's a common perception. I feel like that's why I felt I had the time to stop doing it wrong and do it right. I didn't start shaking until about 5 minutes later.

[mrmpa]

6. Reminds me of the time back in '74.........

when me and a friend were driving to Denver in January. I was in the left lane of I 70 in Kansas going about 70 mph, I had just passed a semi when I heard a tire blow. I began pumping my brakes, put my turn signal on to return to the right lane and sidled over to the berm as the semi passed us. I remembered learning about pumping the brake from my Dad.

My friend looked at me in a state of shock. She asked how I did that, I said I had listened to my Dad. It was way below zero outside the car. A nice guy stopped and in his shirt sleeves and put a new tire on for us.

[lastlib]

7. I had a similar experience about thirty years ago.....

Just after an ice/snow storm hit our area, I was driving to work. I came thru a couple curves, which made me kinda nervous, but I got thru them ok. About the time I started to relax, my car started fish-tailing. I let off the gas and just touched the brake, and that did it--I started doing a donut on the road. I tried steering out of it, but started to do another one the opposite direction, did a complete 360, and was starting into the second one when I just let it go, quit steering. My car went off the road, slid down a small embankment (backward!), and came to a stop in a guy's yard. Three feet from my driver's door was a 6-inch-thick oak tree; three feet from my passenger door was a gas meter. Not a dent on the car! I, however, peed my pants!

[tavalon]

10. I couldn't believe I had clean underwear after that

I had just watched Gravity the night before and I kept saying to myself, keep an even keel. After the danger was over, I was shaking like a leaf.

[mnhtnbb]

8. I hit black ice once.

Fortunately, I was only going about 10 mph on a 2 lane road. Jeep spun all the way around
and hit the curb, but didn't roll. That was scary enough for me.

I can't imagine hitting black ice on a freeway exit.

OMG. Glad you are ok.

And yes, go Seahawks!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. I was driving through upstate New York with three passengers

when we hit one of those little microclimate whiteouts that mountainous areas can get.

I hit a patch of ice, and the car went sailing and landed in a ditch right in front of a farmhouse.

One of my passengers went to the farmhouse and asked the farmer if he would be willing to haul us out with his tractor, which he was.

We paid him $10 (it was still the late 1970s, so it was a significant sum), and after we had paid him, he said that we were the third car he had pulled out of the ditch that day.

As we drove off, we idly wondered if he had hosed down that patch of road.