I’ve been in two precarious situations in hotel vans. Once in Indy headed to the hotel. It’s late night, temps near 20 degrees, and it starts to rain and snow. Our van driver is very new to driving outside of Nigeria (not a joke). We enter the highway at a pretty quick pace and immediately I notice three fuel tanker trucks sliding sideways towards the median, obviously on ice. I’m in the front right seat and just as I am about to point it out we are way out of control. We do at least two full rotations of 360 degrees and end up pointing forward grinding the median concrete. It’s a long van ride after that, mostly spent watching epic slow motion 1mph car crashes and tractor-trailers float by with all wheels locked up.

The second one was late night SMF. We are stopped at a light a short distance from the hotel. A car jumps the median behind us and obliterates the rear end of the car next to us. Both vehicles end up in the middle of the intersection in silence. Everyone in the van is stunned. Van driver gets out to see about help and everyone is fumbling with their phones to get a 911 call going when suddenly both cars are spinning tires and tear out of the area chasing each other down the block. They disappear, and we go to the hotel. Weird stuff.

I wear the belt. Ive also heard the unsubstantiated rumor that insurance won’t pay if you don’t have the belts on...don’t know and don’t want to find out.