Back when I moonlighted as an airport shuttle driver for the local Marriott, I made a run
( normally 22min down I-69 ) to the airport, already several hours into a major blizzard.
Conditions were degrading @ an alarming rate, and it was questionable if I would be able to make the return trip. The pax was a guy fresh in from TX, who claimed he had never been out in snow; before. I also took on another pax stuck in the terminal, who had been waiting for a taxi for 2.5hr.....and he was going to a competitor's hotel.
WX had become so $$hitty that the view out the van windows downward, sideways, and upward all looked the same gray color ( it was well after onset of the dark ). Was only able to gage approx where I was at in the 4 lane, by barely making out a faint darkening of the Rt side window view, the indicated passing telephone poles.
The deep snow was dragging on the 9 pax van's floor boards, and all that snow plus that coming down in copious amounts....muffled all engine noise from the van. The driving snow was coming diagonally towards the windshield from the Rt front quarter, and I was not only unable to hear the van run... I was also unable to perceive fwd motion !!
I also could not " feel " any input from the deeply snow covered road surface, and forced myself to check and re-check the speedometer.... to provide me w/ the only bona fide
sensory input !
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Not 2mi out from the terminal, I was shocked by a small silver compact that had apparently been traveling just 2ft off the van's Rt side; and neither of us knew the other was there !
All became clear, when the other driver committed to a 90* Left hand turn; immediately in front of the van. I was doing close to 30mph, and to this day..... I cannot explain how
( baring a miracle ) I missed collecting his car, which was full width across the front of the van ! " Pucker factor " was way up now, and I still had 12 mi yet to go.
I don't recall how I found the on-ramp for I-69 North, but made it into the interstate.
I developed a plan to track our progress North, by watching for overpasses as went under them. It was all I could do to make out the very slightest darkening of the view upward, as we passed under each overpass...and I kept count... cross-checking w/ the odometer reading. We were THE only vehicle on the Interstate, or so it felt; since no one appeared from the gloom to try and pass me.
When I believed we had reached the approximate area for the off ramp by the hotel,
I positioned the van farther to the Rt; to try picking up any vibration from the wake-up grooves in the Rt shoulder. The strips could barely be felt, but it worked; and turn off to the hotel was right @ the bottom of the off ramp. I let Tex out, and received a well-earned $10 tip. Then, I ran the other pax over to his hotel, some 2 mi away. I don't recall him giving me a tip. Once back to the Marriott, I clocked out, and made my 22mi + trip back home, in my 2wd car. Neither the van nor my car had snow tires, or chains.
Yeh... a lot of success driving in the snow is rooted in knowing how to.
Then again....sometimes, success is knowing when not to !
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With regards,
357Mag
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