The attitudes in this thread baffle me. I guess things are just different when there’s no chance of the snow melting till April. I can’t imagine not clearing snow, because if you just drive through it it freezes solid the next night and then you’re screwed. You’ll need to chip it out or else live with it that way for the next 3 months.
What us this thing you call “snow”? 
I always clear snow and ice from my headlights and windshield (and the side and rear windows, and the mirrors…). However, I have no desire to scratch up all the paint on my car by sweeping off snow. I have yet, ever, to have the snow come sliding down my windshield and obscuring my vision in one solid chunk. And I live where we get a lot of snow.
Again, if the snow blowing off the top of my car is obscuring your visibility, it’s because you’re TOO CLOSE to the back of my car. Otherwise it’s a light dusting at worst, and that’s what your wipers are for.
Not mentioned is the fact that in heavy snow, you can turn your wheels to drive out of the space, and the snow dam prevents the car from turning in the direction the tires point. This is more of a problem the smaller the tire diameter, and wider the tire is. The car just goes straight ahead. Some cars only have four inches of clearance, and they won’t move forward until the snow is dug from around and under the car. Having not shoveled off the snow before an ice storm is always better. You can get the ice off easy, because it’s stuck to the top snow, and not the driveway. I have tossed snow on my windows, when an ice storm is coming. I don’t have to melt the ice layer off the windows and wipes the next day.
I’d never even think about just driving straight through it. Never. Ever. The chances of something happening to my undercarriage may be minimal, but if something does happen the chances of me having to pay a LOT are pretty high. And the chances of me having money to buy a new car are very low.
Plus, on-street parking - aren’t there any other cars around? Don’t you worry about smashing into them? My street has cars on both sides.
I don’t knwo what my engine is, to be honest. I’m a little embarrassed about this. However, I do have front-wheel drive. I had 3-4 feet of snow heaped around my car this morning. There is no way I could have gotten through that mound.
And I second the request to please clear:
Your windows and the top of your car
Your license plate - I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to drive around with your plate covered, in NYS anyway
Your lights. If I can’t see your brake lights, I may not know you’re stopping, and then for sure I will know your plate number when I get out to exchange insurance information if we have have crashed.
I’ve never really heard of anyone just trying to drive through it, to be honest. Maybe in an SUV but not all of us like or need big cars- my car is still pretty small. And I can’t imagine you’d do it with a car slung low to the ground, either, like a sporty type.
As I ambled in the cold to my elevated subway (hows that for an oxymoron) this morning, I saw two cars trying desperately to extricate themselves from the snow and ice. Snow is easy, but ice just keeps the wheels spinning and spinning. Both cars were working on the friction theory - spin enough times and eventually the ice will melt down to street.
I like to clear enough out so that I have some traction. We got snow and sleet, and the ice won’t be melting for a long time. Even worse - giving up your parking spot. Everyone around here works on first come, first serve.
It has happened to me, which is why I now always clear it completely. Do you not get heavy wet snow? That is bound to come right down and sit right smack in the middle of your windshield!
And you don’t scratch off all your paint or anything. :dubious: I have a lovely brush and I just sweep it all off. No scratching happens.
I’ve scratched my paint when overzealously scraping at ice. This light powdery snow was much nicer!
I thought of this thread this morning when I tried to back out of my parking space without shoveling out. It was only about 4 inches of snow, but it was hard packed and stronger than my shovel.
Well, I failed! I couldn’t get enough speed to get my front tires over the snow, and they started slipping. I really didn’t want to get stuck halfway over, so that was a show-stopper. Lucky for me, the plow came around and cleared most of the snow away and I could shovel out what was left.
I’ve always lived with snow. It makes sense to clear the snow off your car windows, hood, roof and trunk. I would never shovel around my car on the street if the snow was not hard-packed to the level of my undercarriage. Often would not on my driveway either if I could get in and out with ease. My neighbours generally clear out the driveway at the first hint of flakes, however, being more Canadian than me. 
They make these neato soft brushes now just for sweeping snow off your car. You don’t have to use that wire one. (And who scrapes ice off the painted part of the car?)
Oh, well then I should bow down to your superior experience. We never get any snow here in Wisconsin, not once in the almost 40 years that I’ve lived here. So what do I know?
No, that’s what your snow brush is for. And you might observe that snow doesn’t just blow straight back off your car. It goes up and to the side and swirls all over the place. (What about cars in the lane next to you on a multilane road? What about cars that are passing you?) It comes off in clumps when it’s wet. And a car covered in snow is harder to see in snowy conditions.
Please don’t make other people have to take extra precautions just because you were too lazy to take one minute to sweep off your car. You can do it while the car is warming up. (Don’t people in MI warm up their cars in cold weather? Start car, sweep car, get in and go.) I always sweep my entire vehicle, including the roof, and it’s a minivan besides. It’s not that hard. A little exercise is good for you.
Oh yes, you do. They’re light scratches in the clear-coat, but they are scratches nonetheless.
Heavy, wet snow is something we get quite a bit of here in Michigan in the spring. I’ll carefully move that snow off the roof without using a brush. Or I just let it slide down over the rear window. Then I use the side mirrors for navigation until the rear window clears. But I know the difference between that and powder which is just going to blow off the car. And I happily let the powder blow off the car.
Extra precautions? I am asking them to excercise normal precautions, like observing a safe following distance.
If I warm up the car, it’s with my remote starter, so I am nowhere near it while it’s warming up.
Seriously, it’s a tiny bit of blowing snow. It’s not a safety issue unless you’re already a safety hazard on the road.
crazyjoe, that is all we are asking of YOU, is to take normal precautions by sweeping the [checks forum] blankety-blank snow off your vehicle like the rest of us responsible, courteous drivers do.
Ah, so then you HAVEN’T cleared your windows.
Nowhere near it while it’s warming up? Do you just vaporize to enter the vehicle? Does Scotty beam you in? At some point you must be physically present outside the car before you get in it. That’s when you sweep it off. You won’t melt by being exposed to the elements for a minute or so. Really.
A little Googling produces evidence that it’s the LAW to clear your entire car in many states, including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Rhode Island (PDF, p. 43), and New York, and I also found several DOT and police department pages that strongly advised clearing the whole car (Kodiak, AK; Virginia (PDF); Washington State; and zillions of others that I can’t be arsed to post links to. They’re all over the place.
There’s also this gem from an Ontario police department:
So I’d say it most emphatically IS a safety issue, and it’s YOUR responsibility.
I used to drive a Buick Skylark. Dig it out? Fuckin’ waste of time. Hit the gas and nothing short of the iceberg that clobbered the Titanic will slow you down.
I almost have to side with crazyjoe because we in Michigan are just so damned used to people not cleaning our cars that extra precautions for those of behind us are just a matter of course. That doesn’t mean that I don’t curse at crazyjoe when I’m behind him; it’s just that I (and everyone else) accepts it for what it is. Hey, crazyjoe, you can’t accuse anyone of driving to close to you in SE Michigan; you know how we drive!
FWIW, those brushes do put light scratches in the clear coat (but not all the way through it). On the other hand, I don’t drive a show car in a snow storm; a car’s just a machine; even with scratches it’ll last forever; so I don’t care about scratches. I use a big push broom to clean the car in about 30 seconds and then get on my way.
Blowing snow off the back of your vehicle is no worse than driving down a dirt road and kicking up some dust. In fact, it’s nowhere near that bad, as the dust kicked up usually obscures vision much worse than the tiny bit of blowing snow.
:rolleyes: While I don’t advocate driving with the rear window obstructed all the time, it’s hardly illegal or dangerous to drive without being able to see 100% through tthe rear window. That’s why you have side mirrors. Pickup trucks do it often when hauling cargo.
And you won’t be killed by a light dusting of snow from my car hitting your windshield. Really you won’t.
People who don’t shovel out a spot really annoy me.
I live on a street where people park on both sides of the road. A plow comes through, and plows a littl 8-10" high mound of snow outside the tires. You need to shovel that away.
Otherwise, it gets driven over, packed down, frozen and then one needs to parallel park a car over such a thing with limited traction. I have an all wheel drive Subaru, and it’s not always easy for me. Not to mention that when Mr. Non-Shovelor comes home from work, he will still take one of the spots that I carefully shovelled over the icy mess that he left behind.
In short, you shovel your car out because we’re living in a society, here!
Maybe it’s a difference in the population where one lives. Maybe some people can drive merrily off, blowing snow off their roof, without a care in the world except for tailgaters.
Here in Northern Virginia, the armpit of DC, the morning commute is 70,000 cars bumper-to-bumper. “Following distance” just means someone cuts in on you, suddenly – open more following distance (by slowing down) and another person cuts in…open more yet, and soon you might as well be driving backwards.
So, we’re all on each other’s tails. Snow comes off the roof of your car and it’s a problem for me.
But I also wonder about the effect on plowed roads. If everything goes ideally, the roads get cleared before the commute. Then hundreds of thousands of cars roll out, dumping all the snow covering them right back onto the plowed thoroughfare. Is that enough “bonus” snow to add up to a problem? I don’t know how to calculate that.
It seems like the right thing to do is to clear off your car. Sure, you can just let it fall where everyone else drives – it’s easier for you. It would be easy for you to shovel your parking spot and dump the snow into the neighbor’s spot, too – easier than carrying that snow a few yards further to dump it. It’d be even easier to just push an old lady to the ground and take her car. Why don’t we?
Okay, an extreme example. But my point is, “easier for me” isn’t our only criterion for most things. I’ll bet the reason it is in this case is that we haven’t given it much thought.
Sailboat
[QUOTE=Sailboat]
Maybe it’s a difference in the population where one lives. [/quote I think that’s a lot of it. I really don’t care about snow on sombodys roof, as long as they clean off the windows. And we get a LOT of snow where I live.
For the record, my drive into work is on a 2 lane state highway. I rarely see more than a handfull of other cars (going in either direction) for the first 15 miles.