Spankboy,
“Pyew-allup”, “Pew-al-up”. SOunds right to me! 
We actually had “rain” down here in Hell-A last week. No accidents on the freeway I was using, but people felt the need to drive 40 miles per hour. Really. I’m all for being careful on wet roads. But 40 mph on a freeway???
Had to laugh reading Phouka’s and Bucky’s posts. So true, so true…
FWIW, I grew up in Cinti., which gets some hefty snows sometimes, but more sleet and freezing rain. And it has hills, folks, does it ever have hills! Now that’s an adventure in driving…
Then I lived for a while in San Antonio. Loved it, but very strange. We got a whopping 1" snowfall and the city shut down. But you’re right; people there know they don’t know how to drive in snow. (Pretty funny; I toodled around as usual and was puzzled by the near-panic reaction. I kept looking outside for mushroom clouds.)
That said, 4WD vehicles in the hands of idiots are awful. (Yeah, I own one and love it. I can haul plywood or whatever, and it’s walked me through blizzards and flooded streets.) But they only give some additional traction (on ice, forget it) and don’t steer quickly or handle speed well. So it’s a classic case of useful tools mishandled by idiots.
So, yeah, having a SUV in rotten weather is useless unless you know the basics: steer into the skid, keep steady speed and long following distance, don’t slow down going up hills!, allow plenty of braking distance, no sudden movements of the wheel, etc.
IMO, we were all better off when people earned an “operater’s license”. It was closer to flight instruction; you had to know basic mechanics and physics of your car and not just pass a no-brainer written test and drive around the block without broadsiding a bus full of nuns.
Veb
As a pilot, I sometimes wish that getting a driver’s license would be like getting an airplane (or helicopter :)) license. I also find myself wishing that cars required a “roadworthiness certificate” the same as an aircraft requires an airworthiness certificate.
But the cost would be higher and it would keep a lot of poor people off the road. Many poor people have to live far away from their jobs because of housing expenses, and adding costs to driving would be unfair to them.
Okay, now a question about 4WD. I’ve only used 4WD in the past when I was offroad or in the snow. Recently I’ve started using it to take off from stoplights or to go around corners when it’s wet out for a little extra traction. Since I have part-time 4WD, there is a caveat against using it on non-slippery surfaces. But “non-slippery” isn’t defined. Can I leave it on all the time when it’s raining? When should I disengage it?
Hey atreal…why dont you learn the f*ck how to curse?
nanner nanner