I’m 47. Have had a few scares. One was southbound on I24 towards Nashville. It had been snowing for hours and traffic was moving startlingly fast, and it was dense. The snow had been compacted to a 4” thick ice sheet, and it was like driving over 4” river rock. I was driving a fwd 2004 s60, and we had been crunching through snow for 8 hours at this point. We’re doing about 30 mph on a downhill grade when a RWD challenger in front of me loses it and starts spinning. There’s a semi behind me, maybe 40’ back. I feather my brakes and watch the rear view. When the semi tried to brake, he’d start to jackknife, and he’d come off the brakes, and try again, repeating. he can’t stop. so my lane is snarling, and I’m going to pounded from behind by a semi on a downhill run as we would be hitting a spinning car in front of me. No fun. left lane is also tight, and now moving faster, and i cant get an opening. At the last moment I stomp the gas, shoot the gap, lane change hard left, and try to correct.... figure at worst I’ll beach it in the median, sliding... but somehow, though the rear swung left off the road into the median, those little skinny tires had bite and we held the front end in my lane and straightened out. It all happened so quickly, I’m not sure what happened behind me.
an hour later we drove in awe as car after car (pickup after pickup, actually), were seen piled up on the shoulders from the ice, passengers long since having abandoned them. We kept moving at 20 and made it home many hours later.