One must love the nature of weather forecasting. On Sunday night (Feb. 20th), the weather channel said that it was going to start snowing around 12 AM, and deliver around 8 inches of snow. Now I had planned on helping out Ben with his car, so I was going to be out a few hours, but I knew I’d be home by 12. Well, it turns out that the weather channel was wrong.
It start snowing around 8:45 or 9 PM. Much earlier than anticipated. Unfortunately, we were at one of Ben’s friend’s house at the moment when someone said to us that it was snowing outside. At this point we both said, “we gotta go.” He has a Mustang GT with drag racing tires on the back - ie, excellent traction in warm weather or if they’re heated up, but 0 traction in cold situations. So we both wanted to get home quickly, as I had taken out the Cobra, again thinking that I’d be home in time. So we leave, and make it back to Ben’s house without any real incident. We get to his house, I get my stuff together, and get on my way. I get through Eastchester no problem, with some minor slipping down one of the hills, but that was only for a couple of seconds. I pass over Central Ave. no problem. Driving on Tuckahoe Rd. wasn’t a problem. I was able to make it UP Roberts Ave no problem, but that’s where the problems started. Going DOWN the hill was scary.
It was nearly impossible to slow odwn, the brakes were useless. Just kept it in 1st gear and went down the hill slowly. Made it down the hill, and across tht way to the next main street. I turn left onto it, and I’m moving along at around 20 MPH max, because thats about as fast as I can go, and this is with traction control keeping me in a straight line. I had to pull over to the side of the road because some idiot was behind me going like 40, and was trying to pass me. People wonder why there are so many accidents between drivers - most of them have no clue that just because they can get through the snow (this person was in car, btw, not a truck), does not mean everyone can. In any case, I attempted to get back on the road, and could not. I had to turn traction control off, and slide my way back onto the road.
I then turned into another street at which point I was not able to stop for the stop sign - I had to go through it and make the turn right away. That was scary event number 2. I slowly made my way down the hill, and was ok until it came time to turn into my street - I missed the turn. I ended up half on my street and half on the trail thats by it. So I turned back onto the hill going down, made the first curve to the left ok, but then I tried to slow down, and paniced. I was not able to turn to the right to get down the hill, and I hit the guard rail by 710. I thought for sure my driver side was demolished..but my ride was not over yet. I then bounced off of the guard rail, and slid toward the right side of the street. I then ran over the stop sign, and finally came to a stop by the bus stop on the street at the bottom of the hill.
I got out, screaming and cursing, and then looked at the side of the car and said “Oh.” The car has paint scratches on the side of it, and it doesn’t look to go any further than the front 1/4 panel. The driver side door looks ok, and the back is fine. Then I moved around front. “Oh..” not so good. The stop sign broke my front bumper cover, and I literally ran over the sign. So there’s probably some damage underneath the car - my uncle thinks there might be damage to the steering rack. The front driver side rim was also heavily damaged, but overall the car came out pretty good, and I wasn’t hurt. So as I’ve been saying to friends - it could have been much worse.
The plan is to replace the bumper cover, two rims, and steering rack, and then to get the car to a body shop to be fixed up. I found a good price on the wheels, the steering rack doesn’t seem so bad, and I’m getting a price from two sources on the bumper cover. The only real variable is labor charges for the body work - I have no idea how much that will be.

Here’s a couple of pictures:

<IMG SRC=/matt_car/accident/dscf1900.jpg ALT=”Front of Car”>

<IMG SRC=/matt_car/accident/dscf1910.jpg ALT=”Front Fender”>