Alright OT denizens, let's hear your tales of harrowing survival, near misses, that time you nearly froze your nuts off when you got caught unprepared, 5 days without power, etc. Here's one of mine:

Early 1980's, may have been Christmas break of 1982 or '83, two of my NW Alabama HS buddies decide that it is imperative that we go see our other HS buddy who is in the military down in S. Florida. I believe he was at MacDill in St Petersburg. Today, that is a 10 hour drive. On the roads of 1983, it was more like 14-15 hours, and no Buc-ee's either. So three of us pile into Pat's 1980 Dodge Colt. Tiny little 2100 lb tin box, but great MPG and enough room for three of us crammed in with minimal gear.

Two things to keep in mind - 1. Back then, weather forecasts were vastly more unreliable than today, and 2. There were very, very few FWD cars on the road with their superior bad weather traction, and there were still a lot of cars and trucks running bias ply tires.

We set out with the goal doing the whole thing in about 3 days, with no stops and less than one day hanging out with our buddy. We were young, stupid and bored. Everything was fine going there, and then most of the way back. We were tired, the car was dirty, but otherwise having a good time.

We had no clue we were headed into bad weather until we picked up some radio reports coming back into S Alabama. At that point, we elected to stick to the interstate and dogleg through Montgomery up through Birmingham. Sounded good on paper.

We get just clear of Montgomery, and the interstate is nothing but sheet ice. An 18 wheeler has jackknifed and brought traffic to a stop on one of the very long raised portions of I-65 N of town. One lane starts to move, but we are stuck behind a hearse. On nearly level concrete, the ice is so slick that he can't move. He had slid slightly onto the paved shoulder as he came to a stop, would have had a bit of traction if he had been in the grooves on the road.

The driver gets out, and asks us for help, noting that he is "carrying a load". I'm looking at this likely 6k lb loaded full-size 1970's Caddy hearse and thinking NFW can we move that thing.

I get there first, and think well, what the heck, so I brace one foot on the concrete median divider and lean on the hearse getting ready to push with all my teen might. I had no more than put about a quarter of my 150 lb weight on that Caddy's fender when it just went skittering across the ice from that nudge. I moved it about 2-3 feet, and the driver wasn't even on the throttle yet. My buddies are looking at me slack-jawed, wondering why I had never revealed my super powers to them, but that's just how slick it was. Mick, that friend we've all had who took everything as a personal challenge for him to best, screws up his best "Well that ain't nuthin'" face and goes full retard into a hard push on the other fender, this time nearly straight ahead, and nearly faceplants when the Caddy slides away like a hockey puck. Another nudge from me and the hearse is back in the grooves on the freeway and has some traction, driver takes off with a wave.

To this day, after living in Michigan and extensive winter travel to Michigan, Chicago, and the upper reaches of Minnesota, I have never seen pavement that slick. It was even slicker than the "artificial ice" low mu surfaces that the automakers test on.

Everyone is really struggling for any traction though still, in mostly RWD malaise era cars with crap tires (still a lot of bias ply tires around then), but with FWD and narrow Michelin radial tires, the little Colt does pretty well. It does even better when I have the sudden stroke of genius to drive with one wheel in the grass on the side of the road, which, though iced over like the road, still offers a bit better coefficient of friction just from being lumpy. In some places, this was gravel, which worked even better. We were making a steady 35 MPH toward Birmingham.

All was peachy until we get to this overpass in a rural area that was also a banked curve. Stranded midway across, because he wasn't going fast enough to stay on the banking, was a Fiat X1/9 and its driver. By then, I was driving, and I already had enough competition experience to understand critical speed on a banked turn became REALLY CRITICAL when the coefficient of friction was near 0, so I carried enough velocity onto the overpass to carry us to the other side dead center of the freeway, where we pulled off to the side to go help the hapless X1/9 pilot.

We get back to him, pulling ourselves along the slick road surface with our hands on the concrete bridge guardrail, and quickly show him that he can easily push his car away from the concrete rail (he had stopped as soon as he contacted it) while we pushed the car to the other side. We're almost there, me at the side of the car pushing on the windshield and steering wheel, Pat behind me pushing on the roof, and Fiat driver between the car and the concrete guardrail keeping from getting torn up by the concrete when I hear the distinct sound of mudders, and they're slowing down.

Some helpful guys in a Jeep are crossing the bridge and slowing down leaning out the window to ask if we need help. I frantically try to wave them off even as they start sliding down the banked curve toward us, and Jeep driver makes things worse by braking. He made the fatal mistake of slowing below the banking critical speed.

When it became clear they were going to hit, Pat and I jumped on the hood and rear deck of the Fiat and narrowly escaped being crushed as the Jeep slid right into the Fiat side to side. Fiat driver did not react fast enough though and was hurt badly, probably a broken pelvis, pinned between the Fiat and the concrete barrier.

The five of us, both Jeep occupants and the three of us, were able to get the two cars off him quickly enough. We managed to flag down a 4x4 going through the rural underpass that just happened to be a guy taking his RN wife to work at the local hospital, and he in turn was able to raise a trooper on his CB. Fiat guy was in a lot of pain, but did not appear to have fatal injuries, and there was nothing else we could do so we set out for Birmingham again.

In all, it took us 6 hours to make that normally 1 hour and 20 minute drive from Montgomery to Birmingham. Conditions improved N of Birmingham and we were able to make a little better speed from there. I hate to think how many times we came close to dying in that one trip.