During the Great DC Area Snow Nightmare it did indeed take me 6 and a half hours to get home. I felt better about it once I heard some folks took as much as 13 hours to get home!
For what I was able to observe myself, the problem was 100% the people who were out there who had no business trying to drive in the snow. The conditions weren't that bad! It was snow, not freezing rain, in fact it was above freezing the whole time. Snow has sort of a grainy consistency, so in some ways it is like driving in sand. Once cars have driven on the snow, it packs down into an somewhat of an ice-like quality, but it is not ice, it still has a certain graininess. Yet even before there was much accumulation, cars ahead were stopping traffic because their tires would only spin on that. These people simply had cars or tires that were unequal to this mild challenge. This would usually be on a slight grade, but sometimes on no grade at all! Desperate to keep going, they would wind up in the middle of the road stopping traffic. I did not see one accident. Outside of sheer congestion, of course, there just seemed to be this one problem!
To tell you the truth, I didn't know you could even buy tires today that are so useless in the snow that even front-wheel drive vehicles would get stuck like that.
One can only hope these drivers now know and will all stay home next time.
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3 comments:
Good luck with that! The locals have been doing that since the dawn of time. One of the am radio duos used to say when the forecast was for snow w/in 24 hrs, "beat the rush,abandon your cars now."
former (thank God!) resident
~L
I don't miss that but not because of personal commuting problems. I hated it because of the staffing problems that it creatd at work. And then the Fed's senior managment would always make it worse with poor HR decisions. I understand that they did it again this time. Louise will be amused that Sr. officials blamed the poor timing of the release on a bad forcast from the NWS! Too bad you cannot ride the Metro to work.
-F
I helped a lot of drivers get through my intersection near my house during rush hour. one thing that all but one had in common: low tread on the tires. that one just had a terrible tread pattern.
I've thought about making a blog up about it, a "how to drive in the snow". maybe I still will. but it's also "you can lead a horse to water...".
people who shouldn't be driving in the snow usually don't know that they shouldn't be driving in the snow.
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