Carl Vertrees

When it comes to winter driving, I’d call myself seasoned and confident. I have more than 60 years of snowy driving experience in Washington, Alaska and Oregon.

That doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few incidents.

We moved to Oregon in the summer of 1969 driving a Volkswagen Microbus. Engine in the rear, good traction. When we graduated to a Chevy station wagon, we bought our first set of studded tires. I don’t recall them being available previously when we lived elsewhere.

I still vividly remember our first Thanksgiving trip to Seattle to visit our families in 1970. It was a very snowy journey across Government Camp, and visibility was extremely limited. I’d have turned around and gone home to Bend, but I was afraid I might back off the roadway into some real trouble.

As we came down the mountain in to Rhododendron, vehicles were scattered everywhere. I couldn’t slow down or stop, so I just aimed the car and fortunately missed everyone. The rest of the trip was uneventful until we were nearly home. As we approached Bend on Highway 97 just beyond what is the Cascade Village Shopping Center and went under the Sisters overpass, a snowplow above threw snow on the highway below obscuring my vision, but no damage done.

Thanksgiving weekend of 1985 was another adventure as a major cold front and snowstorm blanketed the Pacific Northwest as we again planned a family celebration in Seattle. Daughter Julie came home from college in McMinnville, and we made it safely to Seattle without incident in time for a major snowstorm in that hilly city.

Our daughters went sledding with their cousins, and we cut our visit short and returned to Redmond on Saturday to get ahead of the next very cold stormfront. I tried to anticipate any winter issues Julie might have on the return to McMinnville, but on Sunday evening her gas line froze on the Suttle Lake grade, and she was stranded. She was accompanied by Shawn Patrick, whom she planned to drop off in Salem. Shawn’s father, Vern, received the distressed phone call and we went to rescue them.

We failed to get her car started, enduring a little frostbite in the process. So we drove them over Santiam in blizzard conditions in both directions, returning about 4 a.m. to Redmond.

Later in the week when weather had greatly improved, we retrieved her car. Later that winter I was in a freak driving accident in Redmond during a very wet snowfall in February 1986. I was driving my lightweight Nissan pickup truck on Veterans Way, following a logging truck at a respectfully slow speed because of the slick driving conditions.

The logging truck stopped — and I stopped, no problem. Then, unexplainably, the logging truck started backing up, and I panicked! I honked my horn and tried to back up out of his way, but I had no traction. Logs sticking out of the truck smashed the cab of my pickup. That’s when I regretted not having studded tires on that rig.

We continued to use studded tires on our primary vehicles until about 1987 when we acquired our first front-wheel drive car, and since 2006 all of our cars have had all wheel drive. By respecting driving conditions, that has worked well.

As if we don’t see too many drivers running red lights, the infractions seem to increase when there is snow on the roads. Apparently, the drivers don’t think they’ll be able to stop, so they speed up instead. As defensive drivers, we’ve got to check traffic from all directions before venturing through lighted intersections, regardless of whether we have the right of way.

We had a hit and run incident in front of our house on a recent snowy Monday. It was garbage day, and our garbage and glass recycling were poised at the end of our driveway. We heard the impact of a vehicle hitting both of them.

When we went out to inspect the damage, the garbage bin was missing, the glass container was shattered, and pieces of glass were scattered all over the roadway.

I did my best to rake up the debris and neighbors returned our garbage cart after finding it two blocks down the street. Republic Services promises new receptacles soon.

Regardless of your driving experience, be prepared to expect the unexpected during the winter.