On the Road Again

Over the past weekend I needed to travel about 200 miles to a nearby city and take a weekend course related to my flying activities. The course was fun and hard but it was well worth it. The class I attended is not the point of this blog entry but it provides the reason for my travels.

On Friday night, right after work, I started to drive to St. Louis, MO to attend this weekend class. After I got about 20 miles away from home I drove into a snowstorm that just missed my home area. I quickly found myself traveling along this 70 mile per hour highway at about 30 to 35 miles per hour. The road was covered with about 1” of snow and the wind was blowing sideways between 20 and 30 miles per hour. The blowing wind was causing the snow to drift onto the road surface in spots. Several times I found drifts of a couple of inches already formed across part of the road.

Safety said that I should be not on the road and I seriously considered stopped for a while but I knew if I did not arrive for this class first thing in the morning, I would be out some serious dollars I paid to attend. As long as I had some visibility and the roads were not closed, I continued. Even at 30 miles per hour, I would get their eventually and still in time to get some sleep before morning.

At one point the nice snow covered dual lane highway does a slow “S” turn, first to the right and then to the left. I guess this was to align two different highway sections together. Regardless of the reason for the road design, I was slowly approaching this double curve.

I was safety traveling down the right lane of the highway trying to keep my speed at a safe limit for the weather conditions as I watched a car in the rear view mirror appear out of the blowing snow and quickly approach from behind. As we started into the first curve of this “S” on the highway, this car quickly passed me on the outside lane. I could see it was a small compact car traveling close to the posted speed limit of 70 miles per hour (possible more) with two college coeds inside.

I expected them to slide on the road as they entered the first curve but they did not. We had a short straight stretch of highway before we came upon the second curve of the “S” curve, this time turning to the left. At this point I was several cars lengths behind the coeds as they entered the turn. Their car turned, their path did not. I watched them slid across my lane, across the shoulder, down the embankment of only a few feet and directly into a large pile of snow left from the snow plows. Fortunately the car straightened itself on the shoulder so the car plowed into the snow bank front first. If not, the car may have rolled down the embankment.

I safely stopped by truck on the side of the road, as far off the road as I could get. Fortunately, I had a 4x4 truck and I was able to get far off the road and out of the travel path of other vehicles on the highway. I walked back to the car and asked if everything was alright. They said yes and asked me if I could pull them out.

Well first, I did not have a tow rope (I realized later that I did have one with me). Second, I would not want to try to pull somebody out of the ditch on a highway curve blinded by the snow storm. Anybody could come around that corner, find the same slick spot, and crash through me and my truck thus causing a bigger accident.

I told the girls that I would call the highway patrol. Then the said the strangest thing. They asked me not to call the Highway Patrol. I told them they need a tow truck to get out. They asked if I knew the phone number to a tow company. I did not and told them. They again asked me not to call the Highway Patrol and they wanted me to assure them that I would not. I did not go down to the car, which was quite buried in the snow, but through the window again assured me that nobody was hurt, the air bag did not deploy and the engine was still running. I pulled out my cell phone and they again asked me not to call. I put my phone back in my pocket and I told them I would not. They said somebody will come by and pull them out. “Ok,” I said, and since there was nothing else I could do, I headed on down the highway.

But, as soon as I got into my truck and started down the highway, I did call the Highway Patrol. I called for many reasons. First, their car was in a snow bank and they could not get their doors open (but they could roll down the windows which they did to talk to me). Second, anybody that stopped for help could be in big trouble if somebody slides at the same part. And third, I do not know their reason for not wanting me to call the Highway Patrol but I felt that their insistence warranted that I should call them.

When I called the Highway Patrol I did mention that they repeatedly asked me not to call the Highway Patrol. As I got a few miles down the road I passed a Highway Patrolman heading in the opposite direction at a safe speed with their lights flashing away. Maybe they were responding to the car.

I would like to know their reasons for not wanting me to call but this is something I guess I would never find out. If it was serious reason such as drug possession or wanted people then I may hear about it on the news. Otherwise, I will remember the incident and lock that memory away in my pile of experiences.

Fortunately, after about another 60 miles of travel at about 30 to 35 miles per hour, the weather cleared and I arrived at my destination about 1 hour late, but still with plenty of time to get some sleep before the early morning class time.

After I arrived safely at my destination I was still thinking about the two girls stuck in the snowbank. Then I realized that I knew what there story was, as least I figured out the most likely story. There is a couple of high school girls heading out on Friday night to someplace they were told not to go, especially with the weather report. Now, being stuck on the side of the road, possibly being minors, their parents will be contacted. It is not going to be a good weekend for those girls.