Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Introducing the Snow Driving Incompetence Belt (SDIB)
A snowstorm is currently threatening America’s capital, which has brought out all the jokes about that city’s lousy drivers. This makes me wonder if there is a narrow zone — a belt, if you will — across the middle of the country where one encounters the most incompetence during snowfall. South of this belt, snow is so rare that it generally keeps people off the roads entirely when it happens; above the line, drivers are — what’s the opposite of incompetent? — competent.
I’d like to ask Ricochet members to nominate their home cities for membership in the Snow Driving Incompetence Belt (SDIB). Here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, we’re very safely in the Competent Zone. Places like Dallas and Tampa are solidly in the No Snow Zone.
I’m guessing the SDIB starts in Maryland, passes through Tennessee (or does mountain weather interrupt the belt?), continues on to Oklahoma, and then veers north to Oregon.
Anyone have a better idea of where to draw the line?
Published in Culture
When my wife and I lived in Knoxville we joked that whoever designed the roads there must have been drunk :)
Well, it was in Tennessee.
I’ve lived in North Carolina and Georgia. The thing northerners often don’t understand about snow in the south is it often turns to glare ice, which can be nearly impossible to drive on, especially in hilly areas. When snowing, it’s actually easier to drive when the temperature is less than 10 degrees F than when it is right around freezing because when its really cold, the snow doesn’t melt and refreeze into glare ice.
That doesn’t stop people in jacked up jeeps from driving 50 mph down the highway on glare ice because, you know, four wheel drive. Unfortunately, four wheel drive doesn’t help you stop, and as a result, I would see more jeeps in the ditch than normal cars.
Other big problems down south, no one has snow tires. All my cars have snow tires (even the all wheel drive car). Two wheel drive with snow tires is better than all wheel drive with regular tires. But when it snows once or twice a year, snow tires aren’t worth it.
Last big problem, they have no snow removal equipment down south. When it snows here, the streets are plowed by morning. I’ve seen contstruction graders (the big yellow things with the blade between the wheels) being used to plow an interstate in North Carolina.
But, I will GLADLY take people driving like idiots a couple of weekends a year in exchange for not having to live through Chicago winters.
Up here in the Mojave Desert we get snow once in awhile. What always seems to happen is the snow is falling a little first thing in the morning – not enough to call anything off – but then by about 9:00 when every kid is in school and everyone is at work they will cancel everything. So then everyone has to get on the road to fetch kids, drive home, etc.
Also, it seems snow is usually preceded by days of rain. When it starts snowing it’s hard to see where the road ends and where the shoulder begins. Going off the road means you are stuck in a bog of mud – at least out of town where I live.
I lived in Dallas for years, back before Global Warming had kicked in to make winters so icy. I drove a Chevy Vega (I know – asking for trouble) back then, and finally realized that every winter, through no fault of my own beyond realizing I absolutely had to get into the office, I was going to be involved in an accident on icy roads, and I just needed to resign myself to it. Nobody ever got hurt, but my little Vega ended up in a ditch once every winter.
Somebody’s gotta drink that moonshine…
Sheet ice does not distinguish between good and bad drivers – no skill in the world can make a big difference to a car that is sliding sideways downhill on sheet ice. When traction conditions get that bad, the safe driver is the one that stays home.
Hey if that was a whiskey or moonshine crack…………..thanks! We resemble that remark :)
Yep, and up in Kentucky they call it stump water.
Exactly. I had several friends from Michigan who went to school here in central VA who ran their mouths about how great people in MI were at driving in snow. They quickly found out driving on the side of a hill is not the same as driving on a plain. Didn’t hear much from them after they had to get towed a few times (one even managed to put his car into a creek).
Using your definition that the “No Snow Zone” is where people [stay] “off the roads entirely when it happens” I suggest that Oklahoma City metropolitan area is on the edge of the NSZ and the SDIB; we have *many* drivers who choose to wait out the snow (most of the time, only about 24 hours).
I consider myself marginally competent in snow-driving (didn’t grow up here), but I will go to great lengths to avoid driving in snow here, just because of the high probability that the few people who are driving in the snow shouldn’t be.
I call your kind “cappuccino cowboys.”
Did he get extra points for that?
You are having a Samuel Taylor Coleridge moment here. Hold it for as long as you can. He never was able to finish his ‘Kubla Khan’, but maybe you can finish your eruption (“For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of Paradise”)
Yep I was going to mention noticing a lot of Northerners getting into wrecks down here, possibly a result of their misplaced confidence in their snow driving abilities.
I deserve it, but my truck actually makes several trips a month down dirt roads and across pastures, etc.
As a native of Midland, TX, I can attest to wide-spread poor driving skills in snow & ice down there. It’s usually a non-issue. You learn in a trial by fire situation when you move up north, tho. My last car (VW R) & current car (STI), with AWD all the time plus all-season Conti tires, have been veritable little mountain goats in bad weather, & make a yuge difference – even if just giving a driver more confidence to navigate in bad conditions. I see lots o BMW drivers get stuck often in snow here – I don’t know why anyone up here has RWD vehicles (unless they can afford 2 rides, one for summer, one for winter). Glad this storm is bypassing the upper Midwest all the same – despite what you drive or how you drive, getting around in bad, snowy weather is a giant pain in the arse.
Ann Arbor (where Quilter and I grew up) has hills. Some are steep. I scared the pee out of my driver’s ed instructor by driving down Doty (a street on a really steep hill) during on the road training on a snowy day in February.
I took the hill deliberately (it was a fairly shallow grade on the side I went up) to test what my dad told me about downshifting in an automatic when going down a steep hill. It worked, but I did not go over 10 mph on the way down. (Residential road with a T-intersection at the end.)
Now I look back at it and understand why the instructor was so nervous, but boy it was fun. (And I kept control of the car.)
Driving in snow is one reason I now live in Houston.
Seawriter
I hate front wheel drive cars. I’ve driven RWD cars my entire life (without snow tires until a few years ago). I’ve driven a RWD Miata the last two winters. With snow tires, it goes wherever I want it to go without so much as a whimper (and is a heck of a lot more fun in the snow than a FWD drive car).
We do pretty good here in the Kansas City with the exception of the first snow. The first snow freaks everyone out and they forget what they need to do to prepare their car much less how to drive. The 4X4 trucks seem to think they are invincible and blow by everyone causing panic breaking.
Ice is a different subject. Ice is the great equalizer. No one moves and the ditches are filled. Best to stay home.
He got a lot of laughs from the tow guy. “Boy, you tryin’ to take a shortcut or somethin’?”
Brent, Brent, Brent – a cart path is not a “dirt road” and a golf course is not a “pasture!” (Texans are so precious!)
The first snowfall of the year causes people to forget how to drive everywhere, even in places that get lots of snow. Getting back into the habit of winter driving takes a little while.
Heck, I find people forget how to drive when it starts to rain a little, let alone when it snows.
My opinion is that it isn’t really a line much like the conservative south and progressive north is a myth. Living here in Pittsburgh, I have noticed the biggest factor is actually the vehicles that people drive. A good 4-wheel or heavy vehicle can drive in snow with very little adjustment while a poor vehicle is useless regardless of who is behind the wheel. The line, if you want to create one surrounds our metro areas where, SUV’s, pick-ups, etc. are frowned upon and where busses, bikes and Prius roam freely. More accurately, there are sphere’s of metro drivers that live in snow areas that hate vehicles that are appropriate for their local weather.
Depends. If you put it in a barrel for a few years and we call it bourbon.
I’m not sure about that. FWD and an emergency brake can sure make for some fun times on snow and ice. It helps when it’s a very well balanced car like my old VW GTI.
The snow starts here in 20 minutes. The cars are being put near the top of the driveway, and tarped up.
My kids are seriously excited. Projections are climbing to 30″.
Thank G-d Almighty that my father insisted we get a generator with automatic kick-in – otherwise Shabbos would be very cold and miserable indeed.
You guys stay safe! We got hit two days ago and currently its snowing all around us but only rain here now. Supposed to change to snow around 7 pm here in the valley but only 3″ or so. Nashville is currently getting plastered. lol
So, has anybody else thought, “See, even God Himself wants this government shutdown!” (This is in jest of course)
I thought growing up in Missouri made me hot you-kn0w-what in snow. Then I realized it is hard to drive in the stuff when no one scrapes it off the road.