I think I posted this here before, but I'm old and I forget shit. Anyway, I'm posting it again.

Portland, OR drivers in the snow. Crashing Volvos. Spilled Starbucks. Plaintive crys for help as the world comes to an end. I love this video.



Gump

And in the end, there's Rob to the rescue!!!

I moved to Portland right out of highschool. This was back when St Helens was pointy. One night it snowed 6" and my friend and I were spinning doughnuts in downtown Portland in a Fiat X-19. It was great! I would get going about 60 and just let her rip. Saw one bus and one cop. Both were stuck. It did look like the end of the world. Town was totally deserted. Fun Fun night!

What is the point of this video??? Stop wasting my time!!!! :wink:


That was actually one of the funniest videos I've seen in a while- thx Gump

Why is it whe the dumb asses of the world see bad weather that is the time when they just NEED to get out on the roads??
Funny as hell though...hope no one got terribly hurt.
WW

There was an even better snowstorm last winter that dropped 16" at one point in town. Carnage.

While living in southern California, I used to herald the driving skills of my home statesmen, but Portland is a different beast. Too many transplants? I don't know. Combination of traffic density and retardation? I don't know. They keep the body shops in business.

What I do know is that it's entertaining to watch. The hill in that video is also much steeper than it appears.

Gump, that was funny. I would pay to rent that room with the "view" during a snow storm.

Looks like downtown Anchorage during the first big snow of the season in the middle of the pipeline boom.....Texans and Okies playing bumper cars--except those pipeliners drove a LOT faster than that.

MTV

Holy s**t!
Don't they have winter tires in Portland!?

Starbucks was beckoning. They have to get out no matter what the weather.

Tim

That's like Denver. I think there are too many transplants from CA and south of the border.

In these guys defense, that place gets nasty. I was putting a head on my Landcruiser in the rain one day and when the temp dropped everything turned to sheer ice. Cars were sliding off the road everywhere. If you have ice with a couple of inches of snow on it, a good breeze could probably move your car.

Funny thing is they will drive on the ice but when it snows I have seen people get out of their cars on the freeway and walk?

When I was stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska I had Florida tags on my 2 wheel drive truck. I had all the room in the world on the roads.

ahh Gump, your a sick puppy dude I lived in Portland for a couple of years and have seen this action first hand. The freezing rain and ice storms can be a real pisser.

I made the turn off of 205 onto I-5 one night and looked over at a station wagon full of musicians and instruments, the car in front of them tapped his brakes and the wagon hit his. I swear when his wheels stopped rolling he gained speed. The first two that hit went to both sides of my truck and I slipped by. I eased over to the edge of the pavement, caught the offramp and went up onto the over pass. When I looked down there must have been 25 or thirty cars still spinning and sliding into each other. I couldn't even stop to offer help cause the traffic just kept on rolling at full speed!

When they closed the roads and told everyone to stay home I could actually cut ten minutes off my travel time due to empty roads.

Shane

That video reminds me of a time visiting Vancouver, BC. Same slick roads. The radio was telling folks not to bother calling the police for accidents unless someone got seriously injured.

tom

Jaerl wrote:Funny thing is they will drive on the ice but when it snows I have seen people get out of their cars on the freeway and walk?

Right! The morons running the school in the valley here will close the schools for two inches of snow that is easy to drive on, but keep it running when we get 1/4" of ice all over.

tom

shorton wrote:ahh Gump, your a sick puppy dude

I am, I am. When you guys heading out this way?

Gump

One night I was rolling east on I-40 out of Amarillo, TX on a cold and snowy night. There was road construction on the interstate and they were detouring traffic off the highway and onto the frontage road. Getting back onto the interstate about 5 miles later, I was following a FedEx doubles rig. As I was following the FedEx rig on the icy road, he started to jackknife in front of me and I started to brake easy (trying hard not to slide into him). He went off to the right shoulder as I tried hard to easily steer and brake to the left, but can feel that I too was slightly jackknifing myself. Luckily I was able to steer away from the FedEx rig, get back striaght and get around him with no incident. I talked to the FedEx driver on the CB to make sure he was OK, and he replied, “Yes, I’ll be fine. Keep rolling and I’ll call for help”. I kept rolling and the roads were getting better except for the bridges! Most all of the bridges to Oklahoma were frozen over. No problem if your not driving too fast and DON’T hit the brakes on the bridge, right? Well, to my amazement, I watch car after car approach the bridges on the opposite side of the highway and hit there brakes when they panic on the icy bridges. I was just hoping they wouldn’t come sliding through the median and hit me head on!!

Another trip, there was a small convoy of us transporter rigs rolling south out of Effingham, Ill when they had one of them big snow storms roll through the mid-west about 5 years ago. This yahoo in a 4x4 pickup was talking all this smack about us slow truckers in the right lane not knowing how to drive in the snow as he’s buzzing by us pretty fast in the left lane. Well, about 4 miles later, guess who’s spun out in a ditch on the median?? The yahoo in the 4x4!!! Needless to say, us truckers got the last laugh!! A few of us had some choice words with him on the CB. We didn’t hear a word back from him (I’m sure he was feeling pretty stupid).

We used to live in Lapine Oregon and the only tv news we got was Portland so knew about the way they drive on slick roads. There were often news video stories with similar bumper car scenes.

When the east wind blows up the Columbia River Gorge in the winter it brings the cold air from Eastern Oregon with it. Just a short distance from the river it can be 10-20 degrees warmer.

One December we were driving home from Olympia. It was 50 F and raining like a cow in Olympia with a forecast in Portland for strong east winds and freezing rain. I watched the thermometer closely as we turned off on the 205 freeway. It started dropping like a rock and as we approached the 205 bridge across the Columbia river it hit 32 degrees. I couldn't believe what I saw on the bridge ahead. The rain was liquid until it hit the surface then immediately turned to ice. The east wind was blowing about 70 mph. As the cars neared the mid point on the bridge the wind would blow most of them sideways and they ended up pinned against to the west side guard rail.

I had studded tires on my pickup so went ahead onto the bridge. The expressions on the faces of the drivers pined to the guard rail by the wind were like "What the heck caused me to wreck?".

The highway through the gorge ahead was closed as it always is when the freezing rain hits so we hoteled up. I had a collie dog and took her out for a walk. We walked about two miles in this rain that turned to ice soon as it hit the surface. When we got back to the motel me and the dog both were incased in about a half inch of ice. She thought it was great fun.

ODOT had I-84 east of Troutdale closed yesterday for freezing rain. They used to leave it open until the pile on bent metal was so big it choked the interstate and you had a 5 mile back up. Then ODOT would say, gosh those people could freeze, what should we do now? The tow and body shops sure loved it. Now they close it sooner.