Absolutel WORSE Driving Experience of my life!

Last night I had the worse driving experience of my life. I was driving down the mountain and it started raining so much there was ZERO and I mean ZERO visibility. It was like a fireman hitting the windshield directly with his hose. It was too dark to stop the car and there are no curbs so I would have risked hitting a tree if I stopped or falling thousands of feet to my death had I went too far. Plus since the curbs are so small (or non-existent) someone surely would have plowed me. There were 2 deaths on this road last night. The only choice was to follow the faint lights of the car in front of me and hope they did not drive off the mountain. I was in the middle of a line of about 15 cars all going about 40km. THEN, (ya it gets worse) the window fogs up and I just cannot find the heater controls. This is a road that turns radically left and right every few seconds so complete concentration is needed which made looking down to find the heater control impossible because one small slip and it is goodbye. So I am driving with one hand, blinded by the rain, and rubbing the window with the other hand for like 10 minutes. Finally I was able to get the heater on, and guess what, well, since I have never actually used the heater before it blew all this crap all over the windshield. I have no towels in the car so I am trying to take off my tshirt but that proved impossible. For a while I was looking only through a hole that was about 3 inches. Finally the rain lets up a little and in about 15 more minutes there was a pay booth where I could pull over to relax.

I like driving fast, I have jumped out of airplanes and bungee jumped so it is not like I do not like a little adrenalin. But I doubt I have been more stressed out while driving in all my life. I once hit black ice going 130km and went head first into a concrete wall destroying a Lincoln Continental. My reaction was to get out and kick the door while cursing the government. But last night there was a time I actually started shaking I was so stressed. I had to calm myself down by taking deep breaths because the hand shaking certainly was not helping anything.

I am absolutely never driving down that road again at night time. There is a more modern highway with curbs but it takes a little longer so that is what I will be using from now on at night. That amount of rain is unusual but I do see it about 2-3 times a year here.

I also own a bullet proof Toyota Land Cruiser. That thing is a tank. I probably would have risked pulling it over in complete darkness and maybe hitting a tree had I been driving it instead of the Porsche.

I had been up the mountain on a date with a girl 17 years younger than me and she is in medical school. I finally had just got the first kiss out of her! :dance: So it is all about BALANCE! Weird things happen to me all the time because I live here but the balance of it all makes it worth it!!

One thing I forgot to write. The road has reflectors on both sides and the center line. But the rain was so intense it was almost impossible to see them the majority of the time. The other cars were probably driving completely blind as well but were able to see the reflectors since there windows had not completely fogged up.

There were a couple times when the car in front of me went over a hill top and I lost the guiding light. When this happened I was completely blind for a few seconds. I would then put the tire over the path of the center reflector and listen for the sound as guidance. The feeling of driving like that JUST FREAKED ME OUT. But the girl is nice.

[coreseller]

Glad to hear you made it through fine. I've experienced some moments myself....after you get through them the air feels and smalls crisper, the sky is bluer and so on. Too bad the feelings fade after awhile.

[Frodo]

We used to get rain like that from time to time when I lived in Kansas. I used to commute on weekends between Manhattan (where Kansas State University is) and Kansas City (where I worked weekdays), taking I-70, and I got nailed by storms like that a few times.

Generally every one had the sense to keep moving at a safe rate of speed (maybe 30 MPH). One time, though, some morons decided to stop under an overpass, side by side, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INTERSTATE. It's a miracle we didn't have a massive pile-up, but somehow it never happened. (They started moving before long---one of the first vehicles that had to stop for them was this trucker who was really PO'd, and started laying on his airhorn. They got the message.)

One time that was even scarier, though it only lasted maybe 10 seconds, was when I passed a semi, with trailer, right after we had a tremendous downpour. There was a lot of water still on the road, here and there. I got part way through passing this trucker when he hit a huge amount of standing water, sending this tidal wave across my windshield. Visibility could not have been worse if someone had painted my windshield black. I gritted my teeth and completed the pass, totally blind. Not a real fun experience.

Actually I am still a little bit freaked out. Talking about it with Johnnie Walker was very helpful when I finally got home.

Originally Posted by coreseller

Glad to hear you made it through fine. I've experienced some moments myself....after you get through them the air feels and smalls crisper, the sky is bluer and so on. Too bad the feelings fade after awhile.

[Lordblood]

Yea, it's pretty scary to be in low visibility conditions. One time in the hills of northern California my family was driving around 1 AM when it got extremely foggy. Our little Toyota Camry didn't have excellent fog lights and the visibility was extremely low. Also, because it was 1 AM there were no cars on the road at all (this wasn't an interstate, it was a small highway). Thankfully we got out of the mountains soon and found a small town.

[Lil bastard]

At least you got a chance to use your rear fog light... you did turn on your rear fog light didn't you?

Glad you made it safely home, and next time instead of trying to get your shirt off to wipte the windshield, have her take her shirt off... all for the cause of course

[socratic]

I feel for you cartagena. I had the same thing with when I went on vacation once with a couple of young lady friends. For 10 - 15 minutes, it was sheer horror as I couldn't see a thing. Torrential rain. Rental car. Tried high beams, windshield wipers at high speed. Couldn't see a thing.

I was too afraid to pull over as I couldn't see the side of the road and I didn't want to risk getting rear-ended by a semi.

Speaking of semis, I don't know how they did it. Maybe they were reckless. Maybe they were experienced in driving in torrential rain. Maybe the fact that they were higher up helped with the visibility. But THEY WERE WHIZZING BY ME AT FULL SPEED, freaking the hell out of me.

I was flipped out for a while that night. Like cartagena, I am not necessarily perturbed that easily. I have done some wild things in cars that I won't talk about in a public forum. But this was easily the most scary.

They lady friends? They didn't even notice anything was out of the ordinary. They were sitting quietly or chatting idly while I was white-knuckling it.

Cartagena, we need pictures. Without pictures, there is no proof this actually happened!

Next time turn on your AC...not your heater.

[schnellman]

Not the most dangerous, but the strangest event I've encountered while driving. One cool morning I left Austin heading south to San Antonio on I35. All the windows were rolled up and the AC was not on. Apparently I drove through a warm front about twenty miles down the road. I was cruising at about 75 with little or no traffic. Apparently I crossed into a warm (humid) front because every window instantly and completely fogged up. I was suddenly blind at 75mph. The highway was straight so I was able to pull the car over and wait for the AC to clear the windows. I understand the chemistry involved, but that doesn't help when you're in the middle of it all.

[Bobiam]

These can be scary cars when in bad weather or bad traffic.

About the fogging.....it's dangerous to try to get your shirt off to wipe a windshield while driving!!!!! Next time ask the girl (who is 17 yrs younger than you) to remove her's instead. I know....you were panicing and just didn't think of this technical opportunity.

[DANMKII]

Reading your post almost gave me an anxiety attack. I'm glad you made it out ok. Safe motoring, Dan

[turbo23dog]

What, no pix?

[husker boxster]

Karma, dude. Put the baby back in the crib.

[E Kaplan]

Good thing your seats are Porsche Chocolate Brown color.

[Gent]

Originally Posted by husker boxster

Karma, dude. Put the baby back in the crib.

Hey now. The Rule about minimum age for dating is "half your age plus 7". Could be a 30 ish year old med school student and a 47 year old writer. Totally valid, and more power to him.

[Topless]

Originally Posted by husker boxster

Karma, dude. Put the baby back in the crib.

+1

Glad you are ok Cart. Sounds like a good ol' Texas flood (5+ inches /hr). We don't get those here in Calif. but we do get sudden pea soup fog. Just as hairy scary if you drive into it on a tight mountain road..

[husker boxster]

Originally Posted by Gent

Hey now. The Rule about minimum age for dating is "half your age plus 7". Could be a 30 ish year old med school student and a 47 year old writer. Totally valid, and more power to him.

No problem with that scenario, but unless Cart is fibbing about his age in his profile, the oldest he could be is 37 which would make his med student friend 20. Hopefully he's at least 35.

Plus I've seen several of Cart's pictorals with his various "assistants". I'm not banging on Cart - if he can score the young babes, more power to him. I'm just saying this may be a sign from above. Experience tells me you generally only get 1 warning. Karma dude.

[Paul]

Originally Posted by bmussatti

Next time turn on your AC...not your heater.

An even better solution is to push your defrost button, it will clear the windsheild in about 20 seconds automatically.

For the record I am 38 and the new medical student is 21. This is not considered too unusual in South America but I know some of the North Americans here might think it strange, but, hey, do I care? ha ha ha...the photos I uploaded with the girl in my Porsche in the mountain was 18 and 1 month when I met her. :dance:

I was alone in the car when the rain started. In this climate there is just no need to turn on the heater so I simply did not know where it was or which way to turn the buttons. In daylight I can now see how simple it is but when you are making huge turns every 2-3 seconds in complete blindness it is a different reality. I realize now I should have turned on the AC but that too would have been hard to find.

Now that I have had a few days to think about it I compare it to Russian Roulette but the trigger was being pulled every 2-3 seconds. I never knew which corner I was going to wipe out on but I was certain I was going to. That is why it got so stressful. But I think with Russian Roulette you get to drink some vodka? I had drank one shot of rum before I departed and was thinking how much better it would have been if I had 2-3 shots. If I had a bottle close by I would have been opening it with my teeth.

Also on a different note I realise that I just might be the worse driver in the world. My new Land Cruiser weighs a ton since it has bullet proofing. I was never taught how to use the transmission to slow down a vehicle and am now trying to change my old habits of stepping on the clutch and brake at the same time. I almost lost the brakes on it yesterday!

Anyway, life is all about balance! I was here until 3:30am last night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m3qxkDQDOs which makes it all worth while.