HORRIBLE Crashes in Ft. Worth, Texas...

I grew up driving on snow and ice in Wyoming. In fact, I took my driving test on a really icy day. There's really only one remedy for not crashing and that is to SLOW DOWN! People can walk outside their house, before they even get in their cars, and tell if conditions are right for icing. And, if they can't then they should either not drive at all, or learn how to tell when the conditions are right for icing. There's just no excuse for driving that fast in icing conditions. None.

In Wyoming we had the highest statistics in the country for single vehicle accidents and fatalities. Maybe not so ironically, 96% of those motorists were from out of state. Getting to your destination on time is not nearly as important as getting there in one piece!

Seeing something like that is just horrible.

I lost power to my brakes once, going downhill in icey conditions on a highway, to an intersection that was part of an interchange.

There was a semi-truck with a trailer turning into the intersection.

I could see it.

I drive a 4500 lb vehicle, I was going around 50 mph, downhill, no power brakes, and I could see a tractor trailer coming into the intersection that would have t-boned me.

Within about 2 seconds, I turned on my hazard lights, I shifted into neutral, turned off my ignition, and leveraged my body into the brakes, while pulling my emergency brakes.

I stopped about 15-20 feet short of the semi-truck. The driver and I made eye contact, and I gave him a sigh of relief and a wave. He was wide eyed, but I managed to pull it off.

Some people panic in those situations, I just let instinct take over. I've been driving a piece of junk car for years. I've had all sorts of fun experiences, engine cutting out on interstate 40 going about 70mph, driving over my own bumper as it fell off when I hit a large pool of water on a banked in road, breakdowns in middle lanes, and getting stuck just about anywhere.

I learned a little trick for completely iced over conditions, my Jeep has about 1 foot of clearance, between my undercarriage and the ground, so if the road is completely iced over, I will literally let two of my wheels go over the curb. I'll drive half on the road, half on the iced over grass/ground. In some situations it was the only way to get traction.

My scariest experience on ice was one time driving my Jeep here in CO. I was headed up to the mountains to go skiing and was on I-70. The weather got really nasty really fast and suddenly everything just turned to pure skating rink ice. For those familiar with I-70 going into the mountains, I was right at the top of Floyd Hill when things turned to crap.

I touched the brakes and nothing happened. In front of me was just pure carnage with semi's off the road on both sides for as far as I could see. There were also wrecks in the middle of road. Just from tapping the brakes a single time I started to slide around backwards. From there I just continued spinning in a circle as I slid ALL THE WAY down Floyd Hill. Floyd Hill is about a 3-4 mile long steep downhill grade, and I slid from the top all the way to the bottom, spinning in circles the whole time. I was completely out of control and probably going about 35 mph.

Unbelievably, I didn't hit a single other vehicle on the way down. It was a frigging MIRACLE because there were wrecks everywhere. I almost wanted to hit something or go off the road just so I could finally stop!

I definitely had to sit there for a few minutes once I stopped to calm down (that and clean out my britches)!

Damn, I wish I wouldn't have watched that video.


Being in MI, I know to slow down. I have 2 ways I can get into town, the highway, or a backroad. When it is even a little crappy, I take the backroad, just because I know there will be no traffic, and I can do 30 if I need to.

2 years ago though, I was driving my 4WD on the backroad, and there is one point, where it goes over the highway. This car had been riding my bumper, to the point of not being able to see the headlights. I knew there was going to be a problem on that bridge, so I slowed down even more.
And of course, the car shoots out around me at the crest of the bridge. And sure enough, I watch it start fishtailing, then shoot across the other lane, into the snowbank.
It ended up being my friends 17 year old daughter, and her younger sister. Thankfully they were both ok, but man did she get a butt chewing when my hubby called her dad.
Darn kid!

originally posted by: recrisp
a reply to: KansasGirl
Yeah, it ain't good. I really don't even want to go online and see if there were any casualties, I believe that I witnessed a couple of deaths, at least.

I just saw a story that in the title it said that that 5 dead in Texas crash. (I didn't open it though) So, it was worse than I thought.

I will be surprised if it’s only 5 🥺

a reply to: KansasGirl
I know, I think that too. That's some crazy stuff, maybe it'll make us drive just a little safer thinking of this, otherwise it's just really depressing.