Winter Shows Up

After getting dressed this morning, I walked downstairs and let the cat out. It was a normal chilly Autumn morning, like every other morning in recent memory. Susan came down about three minutes later and said, "It's snowing!".

I looked out and it was really coming down. It had only just started and the ground was already turning white.

By the time I got out to the car to drive to work, it had a nice coat of heavy white on it.

Since this was going to be my first snow drive of the season, I was cognizant of the fact that it was possibly going to be a hairy commute. I never really worry about myself. I worry about the other drivers. All you other people! So I give everyone lots of room.

At the same time, I do not drive like a slow moving snow covered turtle. I'm deliberate and aggressive while giving everyone else lots o' room.

The conditions were damp and there was snow piling up between the lanes but it wasn't slick.

So I'm driving along on Interstate 90 in the fast lane and approaching the overpass at Evergreen Road. There was an SUV about 100 yards in front of me with one car between us.

I suddenly saw the rear end of this SUV swerve to the left and then to the other left, commonly referred to as right. It fishtailed dramatically a couple of times and then it rammed into the center divider. I was already slowing and I could feel the anti-lock brakes working. The SUV bounced off the divider and spun around a couple of times and stopped facing the wrong way straddling the center and outside lanes.

No other collisions occurred and the SUV didn't really look that bad. I drove past and could see the woman at the helm. I'm sure she was shaken up but it didn't appear that the air bag had gone off. It looked as though she could have turned around and driven off. I ended up driving on past the SUV and continued my journey.

As I rolled on, I thought I should have stopped to offer help or something...but I'm not sure what I could have done other than block traffic.

I talked to a co-worker who drove through the scene after the event and she said the SUV was off on the shoulder of the freeway, still facing the wrong way but traffic wasn't backed up.

So that was my first snow drive of Winter 2013-14.