me, 17 years old, learning the folly of cruise control

Driver Joined: Sep 25, 2006 Posts: 107

1997

I thought it was all that man... not having to keep a foot on a pedal or watch speed....

so I'm driving 38mph down a road with patchy snow and ice using cruise control, talking to my high school sweet heart in the passenger seat. here's what I THINK happened:

1: hit a lump of ice with the drivers side front tire

2: differential makes the passenger side tire speed up as the drivers side slows down

3: passenger side being the only one on solid concrete, it start the van into a spin

4: van gets almost to 180 before the tires catch and the van shoots backwards into a shallow ditch

5: van hits the back of the ditch at an angle, and the front spins back around the way I was originally going and the momentum pops us back onto the road, in the correct lane, just like nothing happened.

I think we must have sat there just staring at the road for 10 minutes afterwards. The only damage to the van was a slightly bent rear bumper. You could actually see the imprint the van made in the snow on the other side of the ditch as it was spinning.

~I'd like to say that was when I decided to become a safe driver... Laughing

Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 4:38 pm

Great story!
I'm putting it to the home page Smile

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:22 pm

just one correction to the explanation, if I may Wink

When one of the tires goes to the ice, this tire starts to spin faster, because it does not have resistance any more. This does not really matter in your case, what matters is that your car just got a turning impulse strong enough to brake other tries grip...