Last week I decided to drive into work. I had a need to go to my clinic after work so I was going to drive in and then head for the clinic after that.
That particular day there had been a warm drizzle followed by a hard freeze.
I hadn't realized this when I headed out. I went to the gas station before I headed to the express way. As I was headed toward the expressway, the car's annunciator panel lit up saying "POSSIBLE ICE" then "LOW TRACTION" then the little icon light for the posi-track came on.
This is not good, I thought. It was much worse than that. It was the blackest of black ice I had ever seen! I came up to a stop light and I started slowing down about two blocks before the light. I was only going about 25-30 mph and I thought I had it all under control. No I didn't.
At about a block from the light, I started to apply the brakes. I felt the ABS kick in pushing back against the pedal. I was in horizontal free-fall! Nothing was slowing me down accept wind resistance and prayer.
There was only one car ahead of me at the light. She was stopped. I was slowing down but not enough. By the time I came up to the light, I had slowed to less than five mph. I tapped her bumper. Well at least THAT stopped me!
I got out of the car to examine the damage. As I did, I almost fell on my butt! It was like a skating rink! I felt that I could have pushed the car sideways if I wanted to! Well at least the car was telling the truth! There was definite ice!
The lady whose car I hit was driving a big SUV and so I didn't even knock the snow off her bumper. She got out and we checked her car and it was fine. She looked at my car and said I had some damage. I turned around and I think I squeaked! There was a HOLE shattered in my babies bumper!!!! I had hit the lady's hitch adapter and it had poked a hole in my baby!
I was a bit surprised by that. After all the impact was less than five mph, the bumper should have absorbed the impact. The only thing I can figure is that the temperature was almost zero and I think the plastic in the bumper got very brittle.
*sigh* *whimper*
I exchanged information with the lady, but she said that there didn't look to be any damage to her car.
I proceeded to get on the expressway intending to still get to work. As I got on the expressway, I saw a jackknifed truck in the opposite lane. I also saw two or three spun out cars on the side of the road. Then the car in front of me spun out. All this in less than a mile of getting on the expressway. I never got above twenty mph! About that time, I decided that it would be a great day to work from home!
I got off the expressway as soon as I could and headed back home.
I called the insurance people and they offered to send out a truck to pick up the car and take it to the body shop. I agreed. They also offered me a rental car while mine was in the shop. I said yes to that as well.
So a couple of hours later, the truck comes to my house with the rental car. He drops off the rental then I pull my car out of the driveway so he can load it up on the truck. My poor baby! It looked so forlorn sitting on the truck waiting to go see the car doctor.
To put the topper on the day as a whole, the rental car they dropped off was a PT Cruiser. The same type of car I had traded in no more than a week before! What makes it worse is that the previous renters of that car smoked in it! It reeks! I nearly gag every time I get into the stupid thing!
I can't wait for my baby to get back to me...
-Sandy
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