Back down to earth with a bump – 2 to be exact!

We woke up this morning to blanket of about 2in of snow.  While we were having breakfast the snow came on really heavy. I had to go over to the office at 11 o’clock and we were planning to head down the road straight after.  We got into the car at about 12:30 and started on our road home.

The A9 road, which is the main road from Inverness to Perth, goes over the “Drumochter Pass”.  This can be quite wild and is really high up.  As we were getting close to this part of the road the weather was really closing in – complete white out with the snow.  The road was becoming very white, apart from the tyre tracks from the cars in front.

I still was not too bothered, because everyone seemed to be driving quite sensibly, we were all keeping our distance and going really slowly.  Just after the pass, before the dual carriageway, I kind of saw cars starting to break and then go sideways, then there was a pile of cars.  I tried to break, but the road must have been iced over, as the breaks did absolutely nothing.  I tried the handbrake and still nothing.  Even although we had not been travelling fast, we were not slowing down quick enough. 

I was heading straight for a car, who had managed to stop about 5m before the pile up.  My car started to turn at the last minute, but the back passenger door hit their rear bumper (bump #1) and we then hit the crash barrier (bump #2).  We must have been doing 10mph when I hit the car.  Everything came to a stop, and there must have been 12-15 cars all stopped on the road, with various levels of damage.  I recon there must have been 4-5 cars which wouldn’t have been able to drive.  There didn’t look like anyone was injured, people were all out of the cars swapping insurance details.  Some people had ran up the road a bit to warn the cars coming up behind.  While I was watching I could see these cars getting out of control and bumping one another.

We spoke to the driver of the car I hit and got her contact details, and we were able to drive away.  The car had been completely out of control, no steering or brakes - it could have been a whole lot worse – I still shit myself a wee bit when I think about it!!

Mo took a picture of the road after we set off again.  We were the first to leave, so there wasn’t even the black tyre tracks to follow.

My car has some damage all round the car, bonnet, bumper, both drivers side wings, rear passenger wing and rear passenger door.  I have just spoken to the insurance company and they are muttering that it could be a write-off – I really don’t want that.
 
<<10/03/2009 - UPDATE>>
I have just taken the car to the garage and they will be able to fix it!!  It goes in tomorrow.