I headed to work today a little after 8am. A little bit later than usual, but I was slow to get moving this morning, plus by waiting until then, it is starting to get light. I got to within 15 minutes from work, and I felt the steering start pulling to the left. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I slowed down to about 40mph and turned the music off. I was just getting onto I-865 from I-65 in Indy, and as I went over the bridge, there is a very un-smooth connection on the bridge. At that point, the car really took a bump, and I knew something was wrong. As soon as I got to a safe point, I pulled onto the hard shoulder and got out. Back of car - fine. Front tire on drivers side - completely blown apart. I’m not even sure all of the tire was still there.
In the -16 weather, I hopped back in the car, and called Evan. Then I called AAA - for 20 minutes. Then I called Evan back, saying all I was getting was a busy signal. So I tried again…when AAA finally answered the lady said, "It should be less than 120 minutes and we are making people actually on the roadside a priority." WHAT???
I called work, explained what was going on, and then turned the heat and the music up. I sent a few emails from my phone, called Evan a couple of times and waited. 2 hours later, a AAA guy turns up, changes my tire and within 10 minutes I am on the road again. For real, if the tire would have been on the other side, I think I would have braved the cold and done it myself. However, the AAA man was head to toe in Carharts and thick gloves. I don’t think he felt the cold.
In the 10.5 years I have been driving, I think I called AAA twice. Once for a dead battery after a 2 week vacation and once when my car died and I had them tow it to the garage that took my car for free.
Since moving here in July, here is what I have faced with my car:
2nd August - buy car
end August - hit a deer and totoal the car
1st Sept - buy a new car
5th Sept - spend $700 on a new battery, brake pads & disks & other stuff
10th Sept - ball joint breaks - call AAA
1st Dec - slide off the road in an ice storm & hit guard rail
Car spends 2 weeks in the shop
23rd Dec - spend 6 hours sitting on I-465 in an ice storm
14th Jan - miss work because of snow & cold temps
16th Jan - blow out a tire
No one warned me that in this kind of weather the slightest thing can blow out a tire. So, my question is this. How do I make a reasonable decision about whether or not I should go to work. All the local schools closed, but my office was not. Was it safe to go to work? Should I have stayed home, even though the roads were safe, but it was approximately -16 Farenheight? How do you decide? After the fact, people said, well maybe you should have stayed home, but how do you actually make a decision? I’ve not really spent any winters in Indiana, so I really don’t know. I made the best decision I could based on the fact that the roads were safe. I think I would always choose going to work, over not going, so how do I decide when my responsibility rather than my sense is taking over?
My conclusion is that I need to move somwhere where it never gets colder than 60F or 16C!
