So the talk of the town(s) at the moments is the impending winter weather, which is understandable. These days, snow has become increasingly rare. I’m no meteorologist so I’m not going to weigh in with any theories on why that is, whether it’s a result of climate change or whatever, but I can tell you one thing: snow is the pits and I personally hate it. There… got that off my chest. I feel so much better. Moving on.
I’ve lived my entire life in the mid-Atlantic area. I was born in Philadelphia and lived the first 9 years of my life there; I grew up in the Baltimore suburbs and lived there for much of the next 20 years, and since then I’ve lived in the tri-state. So I don’t know what it’s like in Buffalo or Toronto or Minneapolis or Chicago or Milwaukee in the winter. I only know what it’s like here, and I don’t think it should come as any surprise to you to know:
It’s not good.
Everyone seems to complain that no one knows how to drive in the snow, and they blame that on one another. And I don’t know that that’s the real problem. I’ve heard that in cities further north, there’s an infrastructure to contend with winter weather, which certainly seems to be true. I suspect that makes all the difference. Now I can’t speak for anyone else, but if you’ve got snow 10 weeks out of the year, you’re going to have to deal with it a lot more than someone who has snow 3-5 days out of the year, as is the case in these parts. The thing is, driving on 3 inches of loose slush is one thing; driving on roads that have been properly treated, salted, and plowed is quite another. It’s easy to drive on roads that are clear. Around here we’re often called upon to contend with roads that are not clear, and so you’ve got people slipping and sliding, skidding and fishtailing. You’ve got what I call “the Immortals,” namely the people who drive 4X4 vehicles, and therefore believe they can drive at normal highway speeds no matter how slick the roads are. If I had a dollar for every one of those people I’ve seen wrecked in the medians… well, I wouldn’t be rich, but I wouldn’t have to pay for my own beer for a few months either.
You’re not immortal, even if you’ve got a 4X4.
Personally I’ve never had a problem driving in the snow. Except that one time; it was late on a Friday night in February of 1999. I spun out in a snowstorm, slid off the road, and continued to slide, helplessly, across some person’s front lawn, eventually coming to rest about 4 inches from a wooden fence. I sat there, silence punctuated by the intermittent slap of my reluctant windshield wipers, wondering if (a) I was going to be stuck on this lawn until the snow melted and (b) what kind of spectacular idiot I was for even being out on a night like that in the first place. I’ll spare you the ugly details but there was a woman involved. I’ve often wondered what the residents of that house thought when they awoke the next morning to find tire tracks in the shape of a lazy figure 8 carved all the way across their front yard. I’m just lucky I didn’t hit that fence. If I had I would have been SOL nine ways to Sunday. Fortunately I was able to drive off the lawn and resume my ill-advised journey.
I’d love to tell you that I learned something from that experience. I didn’t. I was 24 years old and too young and dense to learn anything from anything. The main point of this shaggy dog story is this: winter weather is real, it sucks, and it demands a different state of mind when you’re behind the wheel. When it gets bad we’re told: “stay home if you can.” But judging by the amount of traffic I usually see, no one can stay home. Fine, so you have to leave the house, so do I. When you’re out and about try to remember that the other people on the road would probably not be contending with this crap if they didn’t have to either. Take it easy and get there in one piece. Thanks for attending my TED talk.
