Had an interesting experience today.

I was driving back after doing some shopping in Asahikawa. The weather has been warmer recently, so the road was mostly dry. I was approaching a sharp curve in the road. When I was about 100 metres from the curve I saw a car coming from the opposite direction. Sideways.

The lady was obviously enjoying the good weather and driving a little too fast. She hit an icy patch on the curve, lost control and slid sideways. When icy patch ended, she was at 90 degrees. Her tires gripped and she flew into the icy wall on my side of the road. Her car jumped up in the air and then rolled over, finishing perched half on its side and half on its roof.

Fortunately, I had time to break so she didn't hit me, but if I'd been there a few seconds earlier she would have cleaned me up too.

There was nobody else around, so I got out of my car and went to help her. Her door (which was facing up now) was locked. I knocked on her window and told her took unlock it. She did, and I opened the door. She was strapped into her seat, upside down, and hanging at an awkward angle. She was pretty stressed out, trying to unbuckle the seatbelt which just wouldn't unbuckle. I asked her if she was ok, and if she wanted an ambulance. She said she was ok and just wanted to get out. After about a minute struggling, she finally gave up and looked up at me. I think she almost wet herself with shock that it was a foreigner trying to help her. She forgot about her predicament and started fumbling for English words. "Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Car.... phone... sorry! Sorry!".

A few minutes later some other people showed up. We got her unbuckled and pulled her out of her car. Then we rolled her car over and pushed it off the road. The middle of an icy road is not the place for an upside down car to be. In fact, during the whole incident, a few more cars came round the blind curve and almost ran into the car.

I got back into my car and took off, leaving it all in the hands of some old Japanese guy who had decided to pretend he was a policeman by shouting orders at everyone. Move this, push that, lift this...

The moral of this story is:

1) It's a bad idea to drive fast on icy roads.
2) It's a good idea to wear a seatbelt.