Date:         Mon, 7 Nov 1994 9:17:22 -0500 (EST)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Jonathan Dove - VAX Master <JDOVE@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu>
Subject:      Re: Bobo Iceskater

>From: John Ritchie <ritchiej@ucs.orst.edu>

>Anybody else have any good bus-ice-and-snow anecdotes?  None could match the
>snowmobile trails one, but what do other people think about driving their rigs
>in adverse conditions?  (Synchro owners automatically get 10 daring points
>subtracted due to special equipment!) :)

Our old '72 bus, with snow tires, could drive through up to 12-18" of snow
without any problem.  We could pull our friends' cars out of ditches with it.

I have several bus-ice-snow stories but here is the best one.  One year I was
finished at school with the fall semester.  We had to take all of our stuff 
out of the dorms even if we were going to be back for the spring semester.
I also took a friend and his stuff along with me.  He had about twice as much
stuff as I had so we were pretty well loaded.  On the way home a snow storm
had developed and we just got underneath it.  Doing about 55-60 mph on this
highway we had come up to a traffic light.  The snow, about 1-2", had turned
to ice at the light.  I tried to slow down but locked up the rear wheels twice
and still could not stop.  I was running out of room and was going to rearend
the car ahead of me.  Now I am doing 30 mph and closing in on this car when
I pulled off to the shoulder to avoid it.  The shoulder had fresh snow and I
was able to use it to slow down and stop at the light.  I also passed several
people at the same time but at least I was able to stop.

Jonathan
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Jonathan Dove   jdove@gsvms2.cc.gasou.edu
82 Rabbit PU, 83 GTI, 85 Vanagon, 87 Golf
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