The Big One is Coming!

[PartyLikeARockstar]

yeah, it's a city thing.

[x88x]

yeah, it's a city thing.

Ah, ok, that makes more sense then. Still rather ridiculous though; I mean, even last week when I was driving home in the middle of the snowstorm, with 4-5" of snow on the ground, the only real problem I had was when I tried to go too fast (shortly after getting on the road and not realizing really what the situation was). ..ok, I also got stuck in my driveway, but snow tires or chains would not have helped me with that...snow tires don't give me more ground clearance. Other than that, as long as I realized that I wouldn't be able to stop/start/turn/etc as well as normally, I was fine. The problem isn't people not having the right equipment, it's people not knowing how to drive in snow. What really got me was during that drive, the people who were being the worst about it; going 5mph down the highway, etc...were always people in big 4wd SUVs!

[DrkSide]

I'm guilty of driving slow in snow/ice in my 4wd truck but I would rather be going too slow than too fast. I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere and anyone that is is asking for problems. It has been over a day here since the snow stopped and the roads are worse today than yesterday. It is almost solid ice underneath a very little amount of snow.

[x88x]

I'm guilty of driving slow in snow/ice in my 4wd truck but I would rather be going too slow than too fast.

Agreed. But when the conditions are fine for me in my low-ground-clearance FWD car to go at least 30mph, and someone in a big SUV is making everyone on the road go 5mph... I just think it's ridiculous when the slowest people on the road are in the vehicles best suited to the conditions.

[DrkSide]

Yea, I agree with you. I try and go with the flow of traffic and just allow enough room between vehicles.

What pisses me off the most is the idiots that try to pass. I get that it is a 5 lane road but the path is only for one lane in each directon and you can't even see where the edge of the road is.

[mDust]

What pisses me off the most is the idiots that try to pass. I get that it is a 5 lane road but the path is only for one lane in each directon and you can't even see where the edge of the road is.

That would be people like me. I keep my vehicle in control at all times. And I will quickly pass anyone that is causing me to lose control or keeping me well below reasonable speeds. I had to pass a lot of people yesterday night because they keep hitting their damn brakes on hills... I wish I could pull them out of their cars and slap them and then tell them "NO! NO! BAD!!". There's no better way to lose control of your vehicle than to brake hard when going down a hill (even with anti-lock) and no better way to not make it up a hill than to slow down... That baffled me the most. "Hey, I might not make it up this hill. I'd better slow down to guarantee I get stuck and force everyone behind me to stop on the hill too!" /throatPunch

I think there should be a separate drivers test for snowy conditions. If you fail it, you walk during the winter.

[DrkSide]

I guess I should have said it a little better. People trying to pass me when I am going 25-35 in the lane that has been plowed and they pile in the other lane going 50.

The hill thing just seems like common sense to me, I saw so many people who got stuck on a hill next to my house it was hilarious. I just watched and laugh.

[Crimson13]

We got slammed. I work for an emergency management agency in our county and just got back a few hours ago from a 21 hour shift. Basically at the county building who was there last night, was there. So only 3 of us down in EMA and then they started to rotate jail guards, sheriff deputies, and dispatchers. That is if the deputies weren't stuck on the roads. At one point we had 300+ pending calls for stranded motorists, and that was just for county roads (we passed calls that were city jurisdiction to that city). That also didn't count most of the deputies that were stuck, DOT personnel and other emergency equipment. The state of Illinois was declared a disaster area and so was our county. We started to get personnel via snowmobile to high priority areas like fire stations and hospitals which helped. But had this been worse, it would have gotten real bad. We had fire stations with only 24 hours of fuel left, we had hospital generators running out of fuel, DOT trucks not being able to make it back to their garages to get fuel.

So overall, it was a hectic night but considering how it could have turned out, it wasn't TOO bad.

[Drum Thumper]

We got maybe 6 inches here in Great Falls Montana. Artic air + eastern slope of the Rockies = -50F with the windchill in some places.

[Luke122]

We were above freezing today.. was pretty nice for a couple hours. I walked around in a tshirt.. pretty big change from Monday @ -41'C.