The snow has only been with us for a matter of hours and already I’ve had one adrenaline fuelled moment of high stress.
I dropped my children off this morning with their child minder. Her house has a steep block paved drive and around 7:40am I pulled on to it to find Angela clearing her drive with a snow shovel and throwing down some salt. She hadn’t quite got as far as the point where I stopped the car; you’ll understand the significance of that in a moment.
My son and I got out of the car and I started a conversation with Angela about snow and possible school closures. Angela stopped me in mid flow with the urgent announcement that my car was moving.
And she was right; despite the fact that the handbrake was on, the car was slowly moving backwards down the drive. This is the moment that my stress level spiked because my daughter was still strapped in the back of the car, Angela’s drive is walled and the car is only a few weeks old.
I rushed to the car, grabbed the driver’s door handle, pulled open the door, jumped in to the driver’s seat and stood on the foot brake. The combination of the brake pads on the front discs, and the still engaged handbrake on the rear drums, was enough to stop the car’s momentum, which, as I am sure you’ll appreciate, was quite a relief.
By this point, the car’s nearside rear was about a foot away from the wall. Now I know that twelve inches is huge when considered in terms of a certain male appendage, but I tell you, it looked bloody small to me in the context of a near prang!
I started the engine; that gave me back steering and additional electronic assistance, I then moved the car on to the road instead and then unloaded my daughter. Panic over!
Having had a narrow escape, perhaps bizarrely, I had to reflect just how lucky I had been. If I’d just taken the kids up to the front door (like I would do normally), the car would have begun its journey unnoticed and the first sign of a problem would have been the crunch of it hitting the wall. I am so pleased that an insurance claim was avoided.
On the bright side, the event gave me something to write about and the adrenaline surge made me feel almost young again. Don't need to do it again though!
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I dropped my children off this morning with their child minder. Her house has a steep block paved drive and around 7:40am I pulled on to it to find Angela clearing her drive with a snow shovel and throwing down some salt. She hadn’t quite got as far as the point where I stopped the car; you’ll understand the significance of that in a moment.
My son and I got out of the car and I started a conversation with Angela about snow and possible school closures. Angela stopped me in mid flow with the urgent announcement that my car was moving.
And she was right; despite the fact that the handbrake was on, the car was slowly moving backwards down the drive. This is the moment that my stress level spiked because my daughter was still strapped in the back of the car, Angela’s drive is walled and the car is only a few weeks old.
I rushed to the car, grabbed the driver’s door handle, pulled open the door, jumped in to the driver’s seat and stood on the foot brake. The combination of the brake pads on the front discs, and the still engaged handbrake on the rear drums, was enough to stop the car’s momentum, which, as I am sure you’ll appreciate, was quite a relief.
By this point, the car’s nearside rear was about a foot away from the wall. Now I know that twelve inches is huge when considered in terms of a certain male appendage, but I tell you, it looked bloody small to me in the context of a near prang!
I started the engine; that gave me back steering and additional electronic assistance, I then moved the car on to the road instead and then unloaded my daughter. Panic over!
Having had a narrow escape, perhaps bizarrely, I had to reflect just how lucky I had been. If I’d just taken the kids up to the front door (like I would do normally), the car would have begun its journey unnoticed and the first sign of a problem would have been the crunch of it hitting the wall. I am so pleased that an insurance claim was avoided.
On the bright side, the event gave me something to write about and the adrenaline surge made me feel almost young again. Don't need to do it again though!
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