We had our first introduction to airbags yesterday.The Discovery is in for a service so I was accompanying Robbie to work in a rental car we'd been given as a loaner as I was going to be using the car later in the day.
Rush hour traffic, plenty of cars, about -18C, beautiful sunny morning, but despite the sun still plenty of treacherous ice either side of the three main lanes.
We're in the fast lane, cars start slowing down ahead, Robbie starts slowing down, wheel catches ice, cut to slow motion effects as he pulls to left to avoid car ahead (good move considering the insurance ramifications!) and we nose dive into the barrier.....pwoooosh....air bags out. The good part - I was holding a coffee and didn't lose a drop! (shows that we weren't actually traveling that fast, thank goodness).
Upshot was we were able to still drive the car so we drove gingerly to work. I managed to borrow a company car for the day - although I had to go sit in a cafe for an hour to both calm the nerves and to let the traffic dissipate. There were more than 100 crashes on the freeway in Milwaukee in the morning, and we saw two others much worse than ours in the 3 miles between our incident and Robbie's work. I don't know how anyone can drive in the frozen tundra without ABS - they must be crazy. The rental car company was all out of cars yesterday because of the numbers of customers with cars in for service/panel work...just one of the side stories of living up here!
Our wonderful Discovery, with it's ABS brakes and big tough outer, is home tonight. Can't wait.
P.S Poor guy - I wasn't the best passenger seat driver...now, I won't be any fun....
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