Single word for driving slowly?
I am looking for a single word that means to drive a vehicle slowly, especially in a way that is unexpected or looks out of place eg. blown tire on a highway or race track and carefully trying to drive out of the way. I know the word "cruise" but this has too positive connotations, since you wouldn't use cruise to describe a driver who was cruising slowly away due to being in danger or having damage to their vehicle, since it sounds like they either do not care or are even enjoying the problem.
The only other options I had considered is to add an adjective to the driving eg. driving slowly, or similarly describing the speed of the vehicle's movement eg. vehicle moved at snail's pace, but I am hoping for a better alternative?
Slow moving cars crawl:
MW: to move or progress slowly or laboriously
traffic crawling along at 10 miles an hour
See also this example:
... as the car crawled through a five-mile backup on the New Jersey Turnpike. — Fly Away Home: A Novel
It might sound like personification, but this could work...
limp
to proceed slowly or with difficulty
Ex. The ship limped back to port
Merriam-Webster
In your case, you could say...
The car limped off the track/road.
The car limped down the track.
How about puttering.
Definition
- to move or go in a specified manner with ineffective action or little energy or purpose: to putter about the house on a rainy day.
- to move or go slowly or aimlessly; loiter.
"Putter" is also the sound of an engine running at low speed.
I have heard it used to describe driving slowly. Here's an example
Merriam Webster:
dawdle verb, intransitive
2 : to move lackadaisically "I don't want you dawdling while you making deliveries for Mrs. Ford."— Connie Porter