Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

The roads here in Michigan, they are slippery. I've gotten over the "Uh oh, slipping, white knuckles, so scary I may barf" reaction I used to have to my car slipping on the ice a little. Now it's more like, "this is fun" and "good thing there are no other cars around" and I deal with it.

Because it happens.

Multiple times every day.

It's really, really slippery out there.

Sometimes when I slide on the ice, however, I recall two scary incidences where I watched cars fly about the road while thinking, "Dude, this totally looks like I'm watching a movie, but it's real".

No, I wasn't high. I actually think like that sometimes.

The weird thing is that both of these things happened when the roads were bone dry with nary an ice patch to be seen.

First - one day I was driving home from work, and decided to take the freeway instead of my normal back-roads drive home. Traffic was pretty heavy, especially on the opposite side of the freeway, so I was paying close attention to what I was doing and keeping my eyes on the road (which I know you're supposed to do anyway, but I'm easily distracted. Could be why I'm without a car now for going on the 8TH WEEK!)

So, out of the corner of my eye, I see a car on the opposite side of the freeway go sideways. Then I notice that it's right in front of a huge semi that proceeds to HIT the car and PUSH it down the freeway.

(See what I mean about the "dude this could be in a movie" thing?)

I totally would have stopped, but there was a police car pretty much right behind this scene that immediately turned on his lights, so I knew s/he had seen it.

It was totally freaky. Although, I know everyone in the car was all right, because I watched the news that night and the next morning to see if they said anything and they didn't. Which here means that they're okay, because traffic accidents? Big news here. (Like the 200-car pile-up that happened last spring right by my office - it was still in the news about a month ago)

The second freaky-car-related-incident was when I was coming home from visiting my parents one day and this car flew by me going probably 80 in a 55 MPH zone. About a minute later, I see this guy lose control, fly to the left side of the road, then to the right, back to the left, then do a 180 and fly into a ditch.

And I was like, what the hell? Because it was a dry sunny spring day.

Again, I would have stopped (and I did pull over, but then kept going) but he pulled out of the ditch into the nearby parking lot and got out of his car to see what the damage was (it was a lot).

And again, there was a cop right nearby who turned on his lights and went over.

I think that people in Michigan really need to learn how to drive. (And there are plenty more deer-related accident stories - like the woman who hit 7 deer at once. Quote from the attending police officer "She didn't miss any of them" - but those are kind of gross, so I'll spare you)