|
One night, driving cab, I came over the crest of a hill, planning to turn left at a T intersection. Then, I found out we were on black ice. I hadn't slowed down much by the time I got to the intersection. Luckily, I had a green light, but didn't know what the terrain was farther down the hill, above the T. I was wearing my seatbelt, and my passenger wasn't, so I decided to put both her wheels on the far curb and hope for the best. I'd just started the 1/4 spin, when I hit traction from the cross-traffic in the intersection, and just drifted right through, even getting the left lane. You wouldn't have known anything was amiss, except for the scenery approaching at an odd angle. I mumbled some apology about "not usually doing that with someone in the car" instead of "Boy! I was going to really slam you into that door just now."
Then there was the lovely night I was doing 20 instead of 30 on a hairpin turn because my girlfriend was having to do the shifting, and crowding my steering arm. Turned out to be the right speed to steer around on black ice. .
The only time I've crossed the ditch was from something so slick I couldn't stay straight against the road camber. The car picked the cheap side of the road, instead of doing hari kari.
On a bicycle, I had a green light heading downhill into a great sweeping left turn, and was probably doing the speed limit, moderately laid over, when I suddenly went down and slid through right in front of the cops. That ribbon of water on the road, it turned out, had been soapy, greasy water from a new car wash. They went to have a word with the owners. I had one abrasion, but had ridden mostly on my U lock, which I carried by sticking it into both my front and back pockets.
|