“First time it snows, people forget how to drive”.
My question is, does this mean
It has been my experience that people are driving around on essentially clear roads at 20 MPH (#2) but I think most people say this to mean everybody drives fast like fools, crashing into each other (#1).
It’s usually the second; the point of the phrase is that drivers are tentative and overcautious as they get used to driving on snow again.
Yeap.
Around here, they are creeping about like a 16-year-old taking Mom’s car out on their own for the first time.
In the Twin Cities, it was #1.
I would probably mean #2 if I used the phrase, but the actual reactions are pretty evenly split around here. I’ve been known to characterize the factions thus:
Lunatic: “Huh. I dunno what to do in this stuff, so I’ll just drive like always. Ooh, a curvy overpass–better slow down to 65.”
Panicked: “Wet stuff fall from sky. Ug scared! Ug hide behind wheel and drive like blind turtle!”
Fortunately, we don’t get much snow here. Unfortunately, they do pretty much the same thing when it rains. I think about half the population of the metroplex ought to move to the Sahara.
In LA you could say the same things about rain.
#2 And, in Chicago, no less!
And I *do *say the same about rain, because people drive the same stupid, tentative overcautious-and-then-suddenly-aggressive way. It doesn’t help to creep along at 15mph and then suddenly make a darting left turn from the right lane. Either we need to get some new tires, or y’all need to learn to drive. I don’t particularly care how fast people go, but I would appreciate it if they drove *predictably *and followed traffic laws and lane customs.
In my neck of the woods, it is the unfortunate combination of #1 and #2.
You got your creepy-crawlies sharing the road with the nutjobs - seemingly always with crappy tires - merrily speeding along at 10+ the speed limit in a snowstorm. The concept of winter motoring is fairly simple - drive to conditions. A little sloppy wet snow on a (relatively) warm road is most definitely not the same as black ice on that same road at zero degrees F.
I’m just glad most of my commute time is during off-peak traffic hours here (5-6 am, and 3-4 pm).
Actually for rain, it’s a good idea to take it easy on the first day of rain(assuming you live where rain has a definite season).
Grease and oil residue builds up during the dry months and the first good rain creates very slippery conditions compared to how the roads are after a few rainfalls.
And in New England’s flyover state, the drivers are so shitty it doesn’t really matter what’s falling from the skies.
Definitely both #1 and #2 here. The panic-stricken and the crazies are all on the road at the same time.
Here in San Diego, too! (If anything, slightly more desert-like than LA.)
Yes! People who don’t adjust to the new conditions, and people who over-adjust!
Also, here in the southland, after a long drought, oil builds up on the roadway, and so the first rainfall makes the freeways extra-slippery.
Where I am it’s the same every year; the first snowfall results in a landslide of accidents. The most common reason reported by the police is that people don’t give themselves enough braking distance.
We have winter driving conditions four to five months of the year. You would think people would get it after a while.
Same where I grew up in West Texas.
Yeah, I would say that too, myself. I feel it’s more of #1 myself. I actually prefer it when people are overly cautious in rain and snow. That shit’s slippery and people seem to forget it on the first snow. Going way too fast for conditions, following too closely, etc. Just two days ago I missed being T-boned by a semi-truck by about a 1/2 second after it went skidding into the intersection at a light that had been red for a good 5-10 seconds (so it wasn’t an unexpected stop.) If it had been driving properly for conditions, it would not have been an issue. It wasn’t technically the first snow, but this Chicago winter has been pretty much snow-free. Snow makes people drive like morons.
When I use that phrase, I mean a combination of 1 and 2. You get an often fatal combination of bozos in pick-up trucks zooming past slower traffic and then spinning out in the intersection and the creepers who are scared to move at all. I much prefer driving on the highway during bad snow just because you at least avoid people having to stop and start for intersections and coming at you from different directions.
For me it would more mean the second, and it also happens in the rain (despite our normal 40+ inches of annual rainfall).
The first is a problem where overconfident people become a potential detriment to others.
Definitely #1. As Leaffan said, on the first snow day you have a bunch of people sliding into each other, and that’s not due to driving too slow!
Around here it is a blend of #1 and #2. People creeping along very slow with others getting frustrated and passing the creepers and wiping out as a result.
In the rural area I grew up north of Minneapolis, I’d say more #1. Crashing into other people wasn’t so much the concern as spinning out/being forced into a ditch and stranded. Mix in people coming up from Minneapolis who really don’t know how to drive in the snow and it was game over. 