FORNEY, Texas — As temperatures rise and streets thaw, there are more drivers on roads, and that means ice is also flying off the tops of cars and trucks.
With both a truck and experience living in a New Mexico ski town, Michael Frey spent Wednesday evening driving neighbors who needed rides to doctors’ appointments and work, but on his way back from dropping off a nurse, a sheet of ice flew off the car in from of him and shattered his windshield.
“You can still see all the broken glass everywhere, down on the floorboard, in the cupholder,” Frey said. “No time to react. I had no chance.”
His sister, Christina Frey, was with him when they were in the truck headed back to Forney on Highway 80.
“It was almost like the blink of an eye,” Christina Frey said. “One second, I saw it just off the car and the next it was in the windshield.”
“It was just like an explosion,” Michael Frey said. “Luckily it didn’t come in on us any worse than it did.”
After honking and pulling alongside her, Frey managed to get the attention of the other driver and her info. He said he knew not to brake immediately because of the risk of sliding.
“People just don’t know that the stuff up here is the dangerous part,” Michael Frey said. “Every car I see down the driveways that way and that way has an inch and a half thick sheet of ice on top.”
Frey said a friend already texted him that the same thing happened to him. TxDOT shared a warning Thursday morning to clean off both roofs and hoods of cars and not just windshields.
Frey said living in New Mexico he’s had snow hit his windshield before but never the ice that shattered his car's on Wednesday.
“I just wanted to kind of get it out there so somebody doesn’t have to deal with this,” he said.