1 What kind of grade is that to cause that sort of behavior.  That's an impressive bit of slippage.

2

I have this nightmare a lot: where I'm driving and the brakes are softer than aerogel and the car goes sliding around.

Now maybe I'll get some Strauss as background music.

3

I wonder where this was shot?

I've been on more or less pure ice before, and it was difficult, but not THIS bad.  I managed to navigate around without ramming into every damn thing.  My only guess is that this happened somewhere where they don't usually get this sort of weather, and so nobody had proper tires. (A good set of all-weather tires can get you over the ice as long as you take it slow and don't do anything stupid.)

Other than that, I can't imagine why it would be this bad.

 

4

There's a comment on Ace's site about the location (in Portland):

I recognize that as the intersection of SW 20th Ave. and Salmon St. It doesn't come across well in the video, but both of those streets have very steep grades. Steep enough, actually, that one would have to be a real dope to try and drive down either of them under those conditions.

http://minx.cc/?blog=86&post=212856#c1087240

5

I know those streets well. That's right next to the Multnomah Athletic Club. Portland gets really wicked ice storms sometimes, and those street always rack up a big score when it's icy out.

The Columbia River Gorge cuts a hole right through the middle of the Cascade Mountain range. It's colder east of the Cascades in winter, and sometimes a cold east wind down the gorge meets a warm front right there. The cold air goes under, on the surface, and the warm air goes over, and starts to rain. One time it put two inches of ice on top of everything in the city. It's just about the most slippery surface you can imagine, because it's ice covered with water.

6 That slope next to the Mac club is rather steep.

Long time residents know better than to attempt it after an ice storm.

The person driving the minivan was not actually a SoCal immigrant ... he was a retired Pendleton Woolen Mills CEO. But he was also 86 years old, and it looks like he has about a one second reaction time. By the time he hit either the gas, it was time to stop. By the time he hit the brakes, it was a bad idea ...

7 OMG!  Someone did it!  My friends and I were emailing the same thing to each other when we saw it  "it should be set to music - the Blue Danube works". 

ROFL... Excellent! 

8 Okay, water on ice - that would explain it.  In the video it looks like snow on ice, which isn't too bad.  Water on ice is something that I've seen, but never tried to DRIVE OVER the stuff.  Yikes already.

9 Mr. Pixy, are you in control of Ace's blog?  If so, would you consider making his RSS feed open pages with 'new comment thingy' instead of the old-style comments?  New comment thingy recognizes me correctly, but the other one seems unwilling to do so, hence my comments go uncredited because I'm too lazy to fill in the name every time.

This is particularly annoying because on two separate occasions I said something funny, but now I have no proof.  Life is unfair without new comment thingy.

10 Actually, that particular video was probably of snow on ice. But the camera angle doesn't really make clear that the street there is tilted about 20 degrees. Once you lose control and start sliding, you won't stop until you reach the bottom or you hit something.

11 Mr. Pixy, are you in control of Ace's blog?

Not exactly.  I host it, and do any technical support needed, but I don't control the content or design.  So I could suggest to Ace that he change his feed, and I could make the change if he asked me to do it, but I can't just go and change stuff.

But there is a solution on the horizon: New Comments Thingy is part of the new blogging system I'll be installing at mu.nu next month.  Once Ace switches to the new system, everything will work perfectly.

Trust me. ;)

12 Once you lose control and start sliding, you won't stop until you reach the bottom or you hit something.

s/until/even if/

13 cool, thx much.

14 Thankfully, the Farmer's Market was nowhere in sight.