It snowed today. A lot. The snow was thick and clumpy, like horrible rainy dandruff.
I spent a few years living in central New York, so I learned to drive in snow because I had to. Horrible, lake-effect, windy snowstorms. So, naturally, I have definite opinions about the way the cars around me function on the road during a snowstorm.
My pet peeves revolve around those people who think they're immune to the laws of physics and speed around the streets like it's a beautiful June day. One needs to learn to respect the snow and ice that layer the pavement, especially since salting the roads is not a concept that every municipality around here understands.
My other is about the fearful snow drivers. A healthy amount of fear is OK. Panic that is obvious to all the drivers around you is not. Someone in a Land Rover was in front of me at one point. I have a Subaru, which is a great car, but it wasn't built for roving through the African savannah (a friend who runs tours in Africa swears by Rovers). If I can get up a hill without skidding or sliding, there is no reason that the Land Rover in front of me needs to crawl up it at 15 mph. There was one person in a sedan who really should've just pulled over and let the eight cars behind him/her go. That person became a danger the moment another car tried to pass it on a one-lane road.
Monday, January 23, 2006
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2 comments:
It's even worse when people are so fearful that they pull over in the middle of a road or, beter yet, highway. I can never figure this out. How could you possibly be safer stopped on the side of a highway, when low visibility drastically increases the chances that you'll be sideswiped? And how long do these people plan on staying there? Hours? It's madness.
Yeah, something about snow makes most people forget how to drive and, especially, how to park and act in a parking lot.
In general, people are not very good about recognizing that they might be a hinderance to the people behind them. In the HIghlands in Scotland, the roads are mostly twisty and really only wide enough for a single car (not one car in each direction - ONE car at all). They have big signs that says something like "Frustration Kills" and then give instructions for how to pull over if someone is behind you. It's a pretty decent system.
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