OKay, some of you don’t get it, so I’ll try to use small words.
Remember yesterday, when there was ice on the ground? Well, as far as I know, the magical ice pixies didn’t make it go away last night while the foot of snow was falling. You know, the foot of snow that people are driving on today? Yeah, that sheet of ice is UNDER that snow. Things don’t go away simply because you can’t see them.
What this means, Mr. Pulling Out Right in Front of You, is that neither I, nor anyone else can stop very quickly. We’ll slide. We’ll slide into you. Or maybe your friend, Mr. Walking Right Out In Front of Traffic Cause I’m Cool. I shouldn’t speak for everyone, however - clearly Mr. Riding Your Back Bumper Because You’re Driving Too Slow For Me On This Ice and Snow has some kind of inertial damper system that will prevent him from ending up in my trunk when I have to brake for Mr. Where Are The Lines who keeps weaving all over the road. No, I can’t see the lines either, I’m just following the car in front of me, like everyone else.
People, if you have no need to be out in this, don’t be out in it. I know many of you are on your way to work - that’s where I’m headed. If I wasn’t I’d be at home. If you think driving on snow and ice is fun, go have fun elsewhere. If you think it’s a chance to show the world what an enormous penis you have by driving at 90 on slick roads, please go do it elsewhere. I’m just trying to get to work, I’ve no time for a He-Man Pissing Contest with your SUV.
We hadseven inches of snow yesterday.
And we’re getting seven more now or so it seems.
Which is why me and my son walked to the library.
(to avoid the slippery drivers)
You forgot to mention Mr. Driving-Uphill-with-My-Brakes-On, who was right in front of me on my way to the parking garage this evening.
Yes, Mr. DUWMBO (so close to a perfect acronym!), it’s very slippery and a good idea to drive slowly. But I just don’t understand why you need to brake continuously while driving up a large hill. It makes it very difficult for me to figure out what the hell you’re doing.
This may be lacking in vitriol but I’m actually feeling kind of happy, so never mind.
Hey, Legomancer, you want a really good laugh? Come to Savannah when it snows! The last real snow was in December 1989. We got THREE INCHES (hey, no penis jokes!). I had a rusty old 1974 Beetle with no heater. I had to drive about 5 miles to work. Never got out of second gear. No, I don’t know diddly about driving on snow. Still, I got to work unscathed. Driving past many a sidelined car resting in odd positions on the side of the road. Or in a ditch. Or on the median. Or just lying there in the middle of the road. The whole time I driving, my bad-situation mantra kept playing in my head:
Luckily, I didn’t make a single mistake until I turned into the parking lot at work and slid about 6 feet. My co-workers thought this to be the funniest thing in the world. Well, except when the boss tried to make the same turn at 30 miles an hour and ended up sliding 300 yards down the road!
(4) Be incredibly impressed at the guy walking in freezing temperatures in shorts and t-shirt, because anyone who doesn’t dress warmly in cold weather is really impressive and man o man if only I were gay I would ask such an awesome specimen of mankind to take me right here and now in the hopes that I could somehow pass on his amazing EXTREME genes that allow him to walk in very cold weather unencumbered by warm clothes!
I must relate my favorite foul weather driving story, told to me by one of my coworkers, Bob.
Terrible weather, ice and snow, Bob is driving home, slowly, around 25mph on a 3 lane divided highway. A dude comes flying by him at about 50mph, Bob is thinking “What an ass!” Bob watches this guy all of a sudden wipe out, do a couple of 360’s and come to a stop mere inches from a concrete overpass support.
Bob continues past at his nice little pace, looks over and sees the guy at the wheel with one of those totally shocked expressions on his face, huffing and puffing, trying to gather himself together. Bob chuckles to himself, and continues on his way. A couple of minutes later, guess who goes flying past him yet again at about 50mph? :rolleyes:
I’ll always remember my first time driving in snow
It was late November in MN 4 years ago. I was working in foodservice at college and we ran out of hamburger buns. So the manager of the dining hall gave me a roll of 20s and keys to one of the catering vans.
Now, I didn’t have my driver’s license with me nor was I sure if any Insurance covered me but oh well. It took 30 min for me to get out of the parking space, oh and did I mention that it was a van!?
So I drive to the grocery store (5 blocks away, all resdiental and its dinner time so nobody is out). Well I didn’t really drive I taped the gas once and didn’t stop until I had almost driven through the grocery store’s parking lot.
My worst driving in ice occurred here in Dallas. The new reports were full of “Stay home if you’re not Emergency Personnel.” So my shortly-after-this ex-employer, a large Jewelry chain, called and told me I had to be at work, being the DBA and all. Did I mention I had dial-in access? Anyway the roads were crowded and very icy. Large trucks were sliding sideways down from the crown of the road into cars in the next lane. Cars were spinning through intersections like ballerinas. A very harrowing hour later I get to work, hardly a soul there, much less any users (This was not the P.O.S. system, btw). The following week I was summoned into the V.P.'s office and given a certificate of appreciation for risking my life getting to work. How much? $0.35. A certificate for a free ice cream cup. With an expiration date to boot.
Ah, bad weather driving stories {rolls up sleeves, rubs hands together gleefully}; let’s see, where should I start?
How about the ninny who was tailgating me down a slippery hill and wouldn’t pass even though the other lane was empty? I finally moved over to the left to let him go by, saying to the guy in the car with me, “I’m going to let him go have his accident somewhere else.” We watched in stunned amazement as he came up to the lights at the bottom of this long hill, tried to slam on the brakes, did a couple of 360’s, jumped the meridian, and slammed into the car waiting to go in the lane 90 degrees from his lane. We stopped and were witnesses to the accident; this was one of my eye-opening experiences as a young adult. We were able to talk to this guy, and ask him why he was driving so fast and tailgating in icy conditions. His response? “I wasn’t over the speed limit.” Even after having an accident, he still didn’t see that he had done anything wrong. Sheesh.
Or how about the time I was walking to work after a huge snowstorm, and was watching fully loaded city buses sliding sideways down the roads?
One good thing about living here (or any other Canadian city) is that nearly every company recognizes road conditions as a valid excuse for not making it in. Most companies will tell you to not even try to come in, and there are no questions asked if you show up three hours late after a snowfall (with a haggard look in your eyes and your fingers locked in the white-knuckled position they just had on the steering wheel for the last three hours :D).
Same thing here in SW Ohio yesterday morning. Sunday night we had rain, then freezing rain then an extreme drop in temperature and snow in the morning.
When I drove in to work Monday morning the roads were black ice with some really treacherous spots. I drove in the right lane going about 55 miles per hour–any faster I would fishtail. The few times I had to use the middle lane to pass slower vehicles, people would tailgate and ride my ass like I was some little gray haired grandma doing 5 mph on the freeway. If I back off a bit to allow extra room between me and the car ahead there is always some asshole who thinks he/she needs to squeeze into that barely one car length space–BECAUSE IT’S THERE.
I have done Ice racing in the past… no studded tires or any of that. Just me and my Subaru… aahh, the Beauty of All Wheel Drive
Anyway… we get a bunch of seriously experienced drivers out on the ice and start racing around… and it’s downright comical. Now… this is ‘professional driver on closed course’ kind of stuff, and it’s still funnier than shit sometimes. What ticks me off is that the conditions can be worse than that on public roads and people drive 25mph faster than we do when racing! IDIOTS! Do you actually think that you can handle this? You are a retard if you think that your 3-ton SUV has anything less than pure inertia when you slam on the brakes. Put yourself in a real car and drive a little slower, moron. Or go back to California where you came from. It snows here… don’t be such an idiot. You will not be castrated at the Winter Driving School.
I’d love to get some of the Giant Penis SUV drivers out on a rally or Ice course racing against real cars. Can you say… ‘wheels in the air’
You know, DNA_Man, I barely even notice the SUV’s in the ditches anymore. Just sigh, and keep on driving my front-wheel drive Sundance, which has never gotten stuck in anything, and doesn’t give me any illusions of grandeur when driving in poor conditions. And what kind of world do we live in where 4 wheel drive is an OPTION on a so-called Sport-Utility Vehicle? That makes as much sense as, well, anything else about SUV’s.
Hey, Angie & I own a Shadow (the Dodge version of the Sundace)! Nice little car except ours suffers from the peeling paint that plagues late-80s and early-90s Chrysler products.
[hijack]What I really can’t understand is when people in SUVs swerve to avoid potholes, especially smallish ones. [/hijack]
Reminds me of when my husband and I were driving to visit my mom after a bad snowstorm the previous night. The highways basically had a few inches of icy snow packed on it, and tire tracks worn through them in each lane. My husband drove under the speed limit but at a decent speed, in the right-hand lane. He looked in the rear view and saw someone coming up fast behind us. The driver successfully changed lanes to the left lane and must have breezed past somewhere just over the posted limit. His problem was trying to rapidly change lanes to get back in the right-hand lane. My husband sensed the guy was going to try something like that and told me to hold on, while he took his foot off the gas and coasted. Sure enough, the other driver tries to jerk over into the right lane, not too far in front of us (well, in front of where we would have been had my husband not been anticipating something), and instead ends up in a 360 spin into the ditch. Fortunately we weren’t hit and kept going.
Of course, even very rainy weather can prove a serious hazard. Once when driving along on the highway in the ‘pouring down in buckets/maybe I should pull off at the next rest stop’ kind of rain, some guy blazed past me in his Geo Metro, doing about 70 mph. His attempt to change lanes quickly sent him into a similar top-spin into the ditch. (Since his car rammed a fence, I pulled over onto the shoulder as safely as I could, grabbed my umbrella, and ran to his car; by the time I got there I saw it was empty and spotted him walking towards a gas station that wasn’t far off.)
[/hijack]