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Third call this morning to a nearby farm in Denshaw amongst the Saddleworth hills. I know the people personally and have been to this place many times. The road to the farm is a 1/4 mile single track, part tarmac, concrete and gravel lane. All downhill with a couple of gentle bends then a very sharp left turn, leading to a very, very steep incline into the farmyard. So steep in fact that even in summer I get wheel spin when coming back up this stretch.
There was a light snowfall last night, not much but this morning there is a biting cold, icy wind.
Knowing the layout of the lane, I decided to stop at the top to get out and check out the condition of the first part of the surface. I had only just gone two paces when, to my horror the car started moving. the road was like glass. 😯
I frantically grabbed at the door handle and somehow managed to jump in.
I was now of on the scariest ride I have ever had. The brakes just caused me to slide sideways so I just had to drop into as low a gear as possible ( car is an auto) and by steering, braking and praying, I managed to get down the first part of the track until I hit the next steep bit when I was totally out of control, heading for the very sharp left hand bend. Had I managed to get round the bend I would have slid down the very steep bit at high speed and would have been unable to avoid crashing into the farm buildings. As I approached the bend I noticed a small plateau on the right with a telegraph pole in the middle and about 10 or 15 large black plastic covered bales. I decided to head for the bales, if I missed them I would have gone over a 40 foot drop behind them, I swerved past the telegraph pole and slewed sideways, luckily the ground here was very rough and I managed to stop the car six inches from the bales. 🙂I walked the rest of the way down and after I had finished they managed to pull me back up onto the main road with the Landrover.
If this was written rather than typed, it would be very shaky writing indeed.
Jim, aka Timo Makkinen. 😆
Re: Near death experience.
I think I would prefer a manual transmission in such situations. Come to think of it, I don’t know of any situation when I would not prefer manual 😈
Re: Near death experience.
Phidom wrote:I think I would prefer a manual transmission in such situations. Come to think of it, I don’t know of any situation when I would not prefer manual 😈
Makes no difference when there is no grip whatsoever. My last 4 cars have been auto’s, I would never go back to manual. My current car has Geartronic transmission, I can use fully auto or flick the gear lever to manual and flip up and down through the gears as I like.
Re: Near death experience.
Strewth mate that was a close one, get yourself a couple of whiskies down yourself tonight.
I had a similar experience a few years back. I pulled up to give way to someone coming the other way over a narrow bridge, hand brake on lit a fag. I waved at the other driver as he went passed, then noticed that I was moving with the handbrake on. I had stopped on a slight hill which was covered with black ice. The worring part was then to come. I was heading for a side road into the river, at the last minuet I got some grip and drifted into the bridge wall, with great damage to my Hotpoint van. It loked good on the accident form “speed of impact ” was 3 mph. no one believed me.
Good to here you are OK
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