AJChenMPH
Forum Health Inspector
Forget combat -- I almost bought it in my car! I was driving back to my g/f's place in NJ from DC after work on a Thursday night (15 DEC 2005), the day it started off by snowing in DC, coverting to freezing rain at midday, then just plain rain as the afternoon/evening wore on. I was basically following the weather up north.
I got off the NJ Turnpike at exit 8 and was traveling east on Route 33 in the middle lane of a divided highway -- it's 12:45 a.m. and I wasn't even a half-mile from the Turnpike, doing about 55-60 mph in the rain, when I noticed a cop on the other side of the road, and he/she was using the A-pillar spotlight to light up something on my side of the road.
At the last possible second, I see something in my lane -- to this day, I'm still not sure what it was, but it was about two feet tall and white. I immediately lifted off the gas and threw the steering wheel hard right; uh-oh, between lifting off the gas and the slick roads, the rear end unloads and comes around on me to the left. (Whatever it was I was trying to avoid, I think I missed it by about 12-18 inches.) My immediate thought is, " :cen: , I can't believe it broke loose on me." I'm dialing in opposite steering and staring at a guardrail. I catch the tail, but it snaps around on me to the right, and now I'm thinking, " :cen: , I can't believe I'm about to stuff it into the guardrail."
Those of you that have experienced a sudden snap oversteer condition know that as a car spins, it spins to the inside -- so as my rear end snapped to the right, it brought me away from the guardrail on the right and back towards the center of the road. At this point, I've got full right-lock steering dialed in, and I'm just sliding straight down the road, sideways. I think, "Okay, good -- I can lock up the brakes and just slide straight down the road."
Waitaminute -- with antilock brakes (ABS), how am I gonna lock up the brakes? Well, I've been having problems with my ABS, to the point where I had gotten fed up and just pulled the fuse. So I lock 'em up and go sliding down the road, with the car still slowly yawing about on axis as I go. Just as I was about to stop skidding, I was going completely backwards -- so I let go of the brakes, and with the steering wheel on full lock, the car veers 90 degrees and comes to a complete stop.
Fortunately, because of the hour (12:45 am), there's no one around me, but I see headlights coming toward me about 1/2 mile away. So I restart the car (it had stalled somewhere in all of this) and drive off, none the worse for wear.
Man, it was an ugly save -- but a save is a save. I'll take it. :horsie:
I got off the NJ Turnpike at exit 8 and was traveling east on Route 33 in the middle lane of a divided highway -- it's 12:45 a.m. and I wasn't even a half-mile from the Turnpike, doing about 55-60 mph in the rain, when I noticed a cop on the other side of the road, and he/she was using the A-pillar spotlight to light up something on my side of the road.
At the last possible second, I see something in my lane -- to this day, I'm still not sure what it was, but it was about two feet tall and white. I immediately lifted off the gas and threw the steering wheel hard right; uh-oh, between lifting off the gas and the slick roads, the rear end unloads and comes around on me to the left. (Whatever it was I was trying to avoid, I think I missed it by about 12-18 inches.) My immediate thought is, " :cen: , I can't believe it broke loose on me." I'm dialing in opposite steering and staring at a guardrail. I catch the tail, but it snaps around on me to the right, and now I'm thinking, " :cen: , I can't believe I'm about to stuff it into the guardrail."
Those of you that have experienced a sudden snap oversteer condition know that as a car spins, it spins to the inside -- so as my rear end snapped to the right, it brought me away from the guardrail on the right and back towards the center of the road. At this point, I've got full right-lock steering dialed in, and I'm just sliding straight down the road, sideways. I think, "Okay, good -- I can lock up the brakes and just slide straight down the road."
Waitaminute -- with antilock brakes (ABS), how am I gonna lock up the brakes? Well, I've been having problems with my ABS, to the point where I had gotten fed up and just pulled the fuse. So I lock 'em up and go sliding down the road, with the car still slowly yawing about on axis as I go. Just as I was about to stop skidding, I was going completely backwards -- so I let go of the brakes, and with the steering wheel on full lock, the car veers 90 degrees and comes to a complete stop.
Fortunately, because of the hour (12:45 am), there's no one around me, but I see headlights coming toward me about 1/2 mile away. So I restart the car (it had stalled somewhere in all of this) and drive off, none the worse for wear.
Man, it was an ugly save -- but a save is a save. I'll take it. :horsie:
