The following are four true accounts of fellow BYU-I students who have undergone what they consider “pretty scary” driving experiences on the snowy winter roads of Idaho. Here are their stories.

John Stacey, a sophomore from Idaho Falls, was driving down what he knew to be a familiar road in Idaho Falls.  It was about noon at the time when Stacey found himself sitting in his 1981 Ford Ranger (which he has entitled “Papa Smurf”).

He was approaching a city snowplow that was sweeping off the strip of snow in the middle of the road. As Stacey’s Ranger and the snowplow were about to cross paths, an ice chunk, which Stacey describes as “the size of a softball,” fell from the snowplow and came crashing down on his windshield.

Before the shock was over and Stacey realized he hadn’t died, the snowplow was gone.

“I think he did it on purpose,” Stacey said. “Don’t cross paths with a city snowplow; you’re going to lose.”

Jennifer Wells, a sophomore from Othello, Wash., was driving on Rexburg’s Main Street one cold winter day earlier this year.

She said “slushy snow” was clouding up her car windows, making it nearly impossible to see. Wells looked behind her to decide if she could change lanes.

To her best judgment, she saw no cars in her neighboring lane, so she began to turn her steering wheel. But the falling snow against the window had smudged up her view.

A sudden, loud honk that came from the car she missed by a mere four feet caused her to jerk back into her own lane and be thankful that she didn’t get into an accident that day.

Wells gave advice for any driver in the same position, perhaps even driving on the same Rexburg road she was, when there is heavy snowfall: “Be extra cautious. Make sure you check not just once, but twice and signal well in advance before switching lanes.”

Ben Crouch, a BYU-I alumnus, has lived in Rexburg all his life. He has lived through many Rexburg winters and has come to know the city’s streets well.

It was midday and approaching evening when Crouch was making his way back to Rexburg in a car full of 11 people.

It was cold outside and the road had a slick, shiny layer of black ice. Believing that the road was simply wet, the driver of the car in which Crouch was riding took a sharp turn, spinning the car out of control and landing Crouch, along with the other 10 passengers (most of which Crouch said were children) into a ditch. Luckily no one died in the accident, but there were injuries among them.

Crouch gave the warning that “if you’re going to intentionally spin [like in cookies], make sure you’re not going to hit into other people” and also “if the roads just look wet, and it’s cold [outside], it could be black ice. Drive slow.”

Matthew Funk, a junior from Lehi, Utah, was leaving Rexburg one frosty day. As he was approaching a stoplight, making his way to the exit, the light turned red.

Funk tried to stop, but instead his car continued to slide along the frozen road until he had done a 180 in the middle of the intersection.

“Luckily, the cars around knew what was happening, so they had stopped and weren’t going through the light,” Funk said.

His advice for driving on snowy or icy roads: when you start to slip, “don’t freak out.”

Rexburg Police Capt. Randy Lewis deals with road accidents every winter.

Lewis said the biggest reason for accidents on snowy roads is that “drivers speed too fast for the conditions of the road. They’re not slowing down—you just can’t do that on slick roads.”

Lewis also advises to “keep salt or sand if you get stuck, and when you start losing control, slightly pump the brakes, don’t lock them up.”

If a driver does lose control and finds the car slipping, Lewis said to “steer towards the direction the car is sliding” to get their car back on the road.