Dudes. There's not even an inch of snow on the ground. Not even half an inch. Maybe enough to call it a dusting. It did actually at one point fall enough to just cover all of the road, but it is melted already. Not even enough to go make a snowball, but I just received three (not ONE, but THREE) frantic phone calls from The Curly Haired One's school informing me that "Oh! MY! God! Afternoon kindergarten is CANCELED due to the extreme winter weather so KEEP YOUR CHILD HOME! Do not bring them to school or even leave your house or you will most certainly perish and DIE! Do you hear me, you will DIE!!!!!1!!!!"
Wow. People. You ain't seen nothing. But I get it, I remember when I first moved to Colorado from Washington, I had never seen real snow either. I used to get panicky when it would start dropping fast. I moved there in November, and went on a job interview shortly thereafter. That morning, Mr. Floren had a class and snow was falling-there was probably already four inches of accumulation on the ground. "Um, are you going to stay home and take me to this interview? Classes are probably canceled anyway, right?" I asked my dear sweetly. He looked at me like I was certifiable. "No, classes are not canceled, and I'm not missing a test to take you to your interview," he answered. I stared at him, confused. "Well, then, how am I supposed to get there?" "You drive. Or you take the bus," he said matter of factly.
I then told him that sure, I'd drive, but I had no idea how to drive in the snow and that I would in fact be driving his car, so if I smashed it I was really, really sorry. And that taking the bus would cause me to not want to get naked for a very long time. That changed his mind quickly, and he gave me a winter driving tutorial that has made me capable of driving in even the worst of storms. I would be remiss if I didn't share it with you all.
- Don't be a dumbass. If you truly have no clue how to drive in the snow and don't have the propensity to learn or to use common sense, just do us all a favor and STAY HOME.
- Have confidence, and don't panic. Trust your skills. Freaking out causes you to make stupid, panicked decisions which causes wrecked cars and increased insurance deductibles and smart drivers to be stuck in the backup that your idiocy caused.
- In conjunction with not freaking out-DO NOT EVER slam on your brakes. Tap them lightly, repeatedly, until you are sure you have complete traction, then you may apply them firmly. If you don't have complete traction, the only thing slamming on your brakes is going to do is make you spin in circles, which might be fun and all, but is definitely not going to be appreciated by your fellow drivers. If you need to avoid a car in front of you but it is not safe to apply your brakes, try steering out of the way to the shoulder of the road or the center lane. Also try to shift gears (even in an automatic, you can downshift) to use engine braking to slow down rather than unsafely applying the brakes.
- Don't go too slow. While you should always drive slowly enough to be appropriate for conditions, driving too slow can be just as much of a hazard as driving too quickly. Especially when sight distance is an issue-for example, in Colorado, sometimes the snow will come down so hard and fast and will be blown sideways by the wind that you can only see a few feet in front of you. If you are on the freeway putting along at 15 mph, someone doing a reasonable 30-40 mph may not see you in time and smash right into you. Also, an extremely slow driver is going to back things up, causing more reasons for people to need to apply their brakes and potentially cause an accident. If you are not confident enough to keep up a safe, reasonable rate of speed, please pull off the road.
- Driving a 4X4 does not make you impenetrable to accidents. I would even venture to say that driving an SUV can make people overconfident of their skills and more dangerous. Not to mention that being all wheel drive just means that all of your wheels can be spun on ice, SUV's are notoriously top heavy, and rear wheel drive vehicles just plainly should not be driven in the snow. In my experience, I would take a compact front wheel drive stick-shift car over almost anything else in snowy and icy weather. The handling and control you can get from this kind of vehicle is untouched.
- Keep your eyes peeled for the idiots. They're everywhere. They can even breed now, so please watch out. You can usually see them coming-the mom in the Mercedes SUV speeding along trying to pass people to prove that she is the ultimate Winter Weather
morondriver, the Grandma going 10 mph in the fast lane crying and praying and making the sign of the cross that she doesn't slide off the road into oblivion, the guy in the lifted Ford Explorer that thinks spinning his tires at a green light makes him a bad ass. These are the ones that natural selection hasn't picked off yet, so avoid at all costs.
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