TiPb Give Away: Ice Road Truckers for iPhone, DVDs for You!

[Rene Ritchie]

Ice Road Truckers (free - iTunes link) is the iPhone app counterpart to the harrowing HISTORY Channel show of the same name.

Now since the iPhone app already free, they can't exactly give that away, can they? But what they can do is offer you the chance to get some of that hardcore extreme trucking action on DVD with the Ice Road Truckers Season Two box set, On and Off the Ice, and Most Dangerous Episodes!

Want 'em? Have a US mailing address? Then hit reply and give us your best ice, road, or truck story!

[cjvitek]

Ice Story? Well, that would be just trying to teach a friend of mine to drive a stick shift...but unfortunately doing it in the middle of winter in NJ, in an ice-covered parking lot. As I was trying to teach her the delicate nature of downshifting, we lost control, spun out (I think it was probably only about 1 spin, but it felt like 340 rotations). Finally we came to a stop, and decided to call it quits for the day...and forever, as it turned out. No more interest in learning to drive a stick shift. Or the time when I was driving with my uncle, aunt from NJ to TN for Christmas. It was snowing, and we were on the highway in stop and go traffic. At one point I stopped, but the car didn't. I used the steering wheel to slightly turn off the road, and watched as we slowly slid towards the highway railing. We finally stopped about 3 inches from the railing, but I remember just sitting there, watching as it was happening, not being able to do anything to stop it.

Road story? Lots of them. Like the time I was driving from TN to OH, and the road was long, straight, and flat. I looked down at my spedometer to find I was going 86 MPH! Or the time I was driving home in the rain, took a turn to quickly, spun out in a neighbors yard narrowly missing hitting any trees or anything else that could damage the car. Or the time I was driving to college with my father, and we were talking about trying to find a guy with a radar detector to follow. Some guy passed us, and we were just about to pull out behind him, when all of a sudden the car behind us started flashing lights...it was an undercover cop, and he pulled the guy with the radar detector over! We spent the rest of the trip trying to figure out how to identify an undercover police car.

Truck story? When I was in Florida, I was driving back from a doctors appointment for my daughter (she was in the back seat). It was stop and go traffic, and there was a large truck behind me. Traffic started to go, so I went, then it stopped, so I stopped. The truck behind me didn't, and slightly rear-ended me. I started silently cursing (something you learn to do quickly with a child in the house) when all of a sudden he rear ended me again! I looked in my mirror, wondering what the hell was going on! As I was watching, he rear ended me again! Visions of various trucker horror movies and action movies popped through my head and I wondered why this trucker was trying to kill me! I honked my horn, and when we later got out, he said he didn't see me. I would have thought the hitting something not once but two times would have prevented him from speeding up for the third collision, but he said he wasn't even sure he hit something.


Chris

[Farmdreads]

I was once playing in the snow and I found a baby wooly mammoth buried in the ice. After I dug him up, I realized it was just our cat, Lucky, who had been missing for a few weeks.

[Alli]

Driver's Ed, mid 1970's, 20 miles south of the Canadian border in upstate NY. Our driver's ed teacher taught us to control the car on the snow by taking us out in the country (it was mostly all country back then), having us speed up to about 50-60 and slamming on the brakes. If we were too delicate on the brakes, he would slam for us on the nice little instructor brake.

So one day the braking (breaking?) point came a little too close to a ravine, and the entire car went over the embankment leaving one student (not me, thank goodness...I was in the simulator that day!) seriously injured.

At my 20th reunion, the driver's ed instructor showed up and asked how many of us had moved south to avoid his instructional tactics with future generations.

[Hakala]

My ice story: after three hours of chiping out 6" thick ice from a twenty five foot driveway and hurtling it off in the woods, I returned indoors exhausted ready to sleep the week away only to see on my local news channel, a huge, I'm talking 24 hour huge snowstorm followed by a sleet(snow/rain) storm. Great. Approximately 8-12" snow+sleet(wet)=heavy, heavy, slush/snow. Yes, of course, that night there were freezing tempuratures. Yes, I was repeating the same days work in about two days. Feel. The. Burn.

[puquak]

I spun my car 180 degrees on a freeway interchange. Sitting the wrong way between two lanes of oncoming traffic, waiting for a chance to turn around is not very fun.

[slb14]

Hmmm, how a about snow?
In high school, my girlfriend's father called my mom:

"Mrs. B?"
-Yes
"I went out to the driveway and found your son's name written in snow!"
-OK?
"It was written with urine"
-OK, but boys will be boys you know...
"Fine, but it was written in my daughter's hand-writing!"
-Click.

[ktoone]

With 2 preschoolers, getting in and out of the car can be a bit chaotic. We were in downtown St. Louis. Well, actually, the "cool" part of St. Louis, loading up after dinner. My husband had his usual armful of leftovers, waterbottle, diaper bag, etc, and we both set to putting the kids in opposite sides of the car. A Rastifarian dude and a couple friends sauntered by as we were wrapping up, and they were just sort of hanging out, watching us. I was disconcerted by it, as they looked a bit stoned.

After we were all in and getting ready to pull out of the tight parallel spot, the Dude waved frantically at us and I rolled down my window. He came towards my son's door, and reached up... pulling the leftovers off the top of the car. I laughed and thanked him as I took it, and he reached up and pulled the waterbottle and diaper bag off the top, as well. My husband was beet red. We thanked him profusely and again tried to leave, but he stepped into the parking place and out into the street to stop traffic so we could get out. It was hilarious!

[slb14]

OK, an ice story now.

Before basketball games in high school, we used to go out and fill the car with booze (trunk)
One day we were out in the farmer's field - doing donuts on the frozen ponds.
The 1976 Cutlass Supreme suddenly dropped, and stopped.
We had to roll down the windows to climb out.
The ice had broken.
It was only about 16" deep, but no way to get the car out.

We hitched to town, booze in the backpacks, and made it to the bus just in time...
Watched the game, and then friends drove us to the farmer's field.
We were all pretty tipsy now, so a bunch of us got out - mostly football guys - and proceeded to rock the car and lift it until we told my girlfriend to "gun it"!
She did, but my glove got caught under the rear bumper, and she dragged me 1/4 mile behind the Cutlass, through the snow, and over the corn fields.

Finally stopping, I got uncaught and proceeded to laugh so hard, I wet myself.

Common thread in these stories?
All true, crazy 70's life, growing up in PA!