Weather Incidents

[Johnny]

I thought it would be interesting to hear of experiences due to the weather - good, bad or even funny. Perhaps you were caught in a torrential downpour, floods, a blizzard, icy roads or footpaths, very windy conditions, thick fog, or maybe high temperatures. So please add your stories to the end of this one.

I thought I'd start of with a very simple incident that happened to me here in England.

It was about 9 am and I was on my way to work from Watford to London (in my very basic Volvo 340). It's about a 28 km journey and I'm driving southbound on the M1 motorway, the skies are getting darker, it's starting to rain now and you can see from the clouds it's going to get heavier.

I'm in the second lane and starting to reduce speed because of the rain and everyone else is also starting to slow down. Then the heaven's just opened with torrential rain, I increased the window wiper speed to full in order to see, then look in my wing mirror to see if I can move into the first lane. Then something awful happened, the left hand window wiper blade went so far to the left it actually went off the edge of the windscreen (maybe due to the wind).

Because this happened the wiper arm could not return, there was a small crunching sound and both wipers stopped functioning - I was blind in the middle lane. Torrential rain and spray continued to blind my vision, so much so that I couldn't even see into my left wing mirror any more.

My first thought was to get onto the hard shoulder (emergency lane), I could not remember seeing any cars to my left just prior to the wipers failing, so I indicated for several seconds to turn left and then just hoped there were still no cars in the first lane. I'm pleased to say that I made it to the hard shoulder and brought the car to a safe stop and waited for the rain to abate.

I was able to get the car to a Volvo service station the same day for repairs. But I often think that my manoeuvre from the second lane through to the first and then the hard shoulder could have been disastrous, had I hit another car and not been around to speak about it, would anyone have worked out the cause?

[Jachym]

Maybe time for some car upgrade

[Johnny]

Thanks Jachym for that very helpful tip. You'll love this - that car was belt driven - I kid you not. Every couple of years you'd be driving along and then suddenly you'd hear loud clunks as bits of the belt started to disintegrate and fly off. That meant you'd have to get to a Volvo service centre pretty quick to get a new one fitted. Then you'd leave with a look that you'd just been sucking a lemon after they landed you with a £400 bill for the pleasure - a lot of money in the mid-eighties.

[Jachym]

OK, well here is one tip:

http://www.businessinsider.com/lucid-ai ... ord-2017-7