About the Winter Weather

Listen up you rust belt ass hats.  Any joker with a pulse and a tank of gas can drive in a foot of snow.  That’s easy.  When it snows a foot or more, it’s like sand.  Pretty much like driving in Arizona.  Your driving skills aren’t superior to everyone else’s.  You’ve just got good road traction, and maybe some snow chains.  It’s not you, dummy.

It’s late on Thursday and before going off to bed I had to get something off my chest, besides another empty bottle of Zinfandel.

I want to dispel the false sense of superiority directed by northerners at southerners and their driving habits in the wintertime.

You laugh and chuckle when you see scenes like what’s going on in Atlanta these past few days, which got hit with two inches of snow and came to an absolute standstill.  Two inches.  There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I’ll let you fill in the punch line.

Let me tell you something.  Anyone can drive when it’s freezing outside and there’s lots of snow on the ground.  Really, it’s quite easy.  I was born in the south, and I’ve never had issues driving in heavy snow before.  You can even drive kinda’ crazy because the snow stops your car from moving much.

Trouble is when it’s about 32 degrees (no lower/no higher) and there’s a very fine mist in the air, perhaps even a few snowflakes, disaster strikes.  It doesn’t matter if it’s Atlanta or Buffalo.  That shit freezes on contact on roads and bridges and everything suddenly becomes a giant ice rink.

Unfortunately, many parts of the south get hit with temperatures right around the freezing point (not -10 below like most of the north), which produce FAR MORE dangerous conditions to drive in.  See, here’s what happens.  I’ll explain.

That little bit of snow and ice, maybe mixed with some rain, goes back and forth between melting and freezing again as temperatures hover around 32 degrees.  And no one who’s driving can see it, especially at night.  It’s like an invisible glaze over the pavement.  All of the sudden, you have to maneuver a couple of tons of metal on top of it.  Well, it’s not easy.  In these stealth conditions, there’s a chance your car is going to end up turned upside down and you’ll be dialing 911 from your cell phone in a ditch.  That won’t happen when it’s 5 degrees and there’s a foot of snow on the ground.  But it sure as shit happens when the temperature’s somewhere around the freezing point and it just sleeted a half an inch.

Do an experiment.  Take a garden house and spray a mist over your driveway when it’s about 30 degrees.  Come out the next morning and try and walk across it.  Ka-boom!  That’s the sound of ass meeting ice and cement.  And I don’t care if you’re from New York or Miami, the result is the same.  Now instead, dump a foot of snow on top of your driveway and make it zero degrees.  Believe me, you’ll make it across the path just fine, albeit with a case of pneumonia.

I saw some traffic statistics from various cities around the country and the numbers pretty much prove my point.  More accidents happen when temperatures are around the 32-degree mark than any other temperature.  This goes for the north and the south.  If someone from Buffalo is driving in October and doesn’t realize that rain earlier in the day has now frozen over a bridge, he’s going to end up skating down the road worse than Tanya Harding.  Same thing with someone from Atlanta in January.

See, the bottom line is this.  The amount of snow has NOTHING to do with driving conditions.  Temperatures have EVERYTHING to do with driving conditions, especially if it’s right around the freezing point.  Furthermore, a little bit of snow or rain is far more dangerous than several inches of snow.

Fact:  The south faces dangerous conditions like this FAR MORE than the north, and therefore, experiences more auto accidents related to weather.

I realize it’s easier and far more convenient to dismiss southerners as yokels who can’t drive in wintery weather.  But the truth lies elsewhere — in common sense.  Case closed.