Atlanta doesn’t just get snow, it gets dripping wet sleet that freezes into ice that covers everything with maybe a light dusting of snow on top.
Atlanta is a city of many steep and curving roads on surface streets and highways. Many assertive, confident northerner transplants discovered to their dismay trying to drive on these roads after an ice storm can lead to your car sliding sideways downhill into oncoming traffic. The imagery of ice storms past where cars are caught on film slowly crashing into one another the evening news keeps many people at home.
Well, these aren’t universal up North. Suffice it to say the situation is different in different places. I have never been to a beach that used this system.
When I went to school in Buffalo I had one of those plus a small plastic shovel in my car from November to April. Many people also drive around with bags of sand in their trunks in case they get stuck.
I’ve never driven in the snow. Ever. It’s possible we talked about it for a few minutes in driver’s ed, but it certainly wasn’t a big issue. Why would it be, if we live in a place it doesn’t snow?
This is the reason I give my coworkers when they ask why I don’t have a car. (Since most of my coworkers live in the suburbs, they don’t quite fathom the concept of public transit.) There are other reasons, of course, but it’s easiest to joke about how everyone should be happier without me trying to figure out how to drive in a Chicago winter.
I was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, which produced enough winter weather to justify having equipment to deal with it, but not enough to make people pay much attention to it. Consequently, when the first of two or three snowstorms during a particular winter hits, it always leads to the family clawing through the various storage areas trying to find the ice scraper.
Since moving to Nashville, I have yet to see snow that actually stays on the ground. In the meantime, however, I have spent two summers in Wyoming and thus I know about living with serious snowfall.