Winter Driving

For the most part I am a fairly careful driver.  (My husband might disagree with this statement.)  I have never had a car accident of any kind involving another car. (I once scraped the side of the car on a cement pilon in a parking lot, but that's a different story.)

I have lived in Minnesota for most of my life.  Hence I have become quite familiar with winter driving.  I understand how my car handles in various sorts of conditions, and I make allowances given what I know.  For example, my current car - a Ford Taurus, tends to swing wide in the back when I make a turn to fast on any sort of slippery road.  It doesn't take much, so I've learned to take the corners very slowly when I'm turning on slippery snow.  I also know to start braking early and often when coming to a stop light. 

I'm pretty cautious on the freeway - I don't go speeding down the roads in the left lane when the weather is bad, but - here's the important part - NOR do I drive like I'm behind the wheel of a horse and buggy. 

Remember, I work at LEAST one hour from where I live.  That's in good weather.  So you can imagine what happens when there is snow.  I am lucky enough to be able to work from home when I need to, so if I know the weather is goinig to be crap, I make allowances. 

Which brings us to this morning.  There was about an inch of snow on the ground when I left for work.  It was snowing very lightly, but nothing to be troubled about.  Often, the highway between my house and the freeway is the worst part of my drive.  I'm not sure why, but it is.  That part of the drive wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible either.  I leave for work before 6, so it's usually dark, which makes it a little worse I think.

I got to the freeway, and that part of the drive was fine.  Relatively dry, clear, no problem.  (That's about 1/3 of my drive).  I took my usual route, which was about as I expected.  The Twin Cities does a bang up job of laying down chemistry to keep the roads wet rather than icy if they can. 

For anyone who lives in this area, you know that if you are on one side of the river and you have to get to the other side of the river, you don't have a lot of choices to get across.  So those roads are generally busier than any road where you could take a different route.  Of COURSE, I live on one side of the river, and work on the other.  So I have to cross the river.  So I don't have a lot of choices about how to get there.  (Unless I drive 30 miles out of my way.)

As I am crossing the river, I get behind someone who a) has obviously JUST driven their car out of the driveway.  Snow was blowing off the roof, the back tail lights were covered with snow, as was the back window.  Real safe, right.  I followed that car to the next turning (at which point I have no other options on how to get to work) and I promptly got behind someone who was driving betwen 15 and 20 miles per hour.  Now the speed limit in this area varies between 45 and 50.  The roads were not bad.  Maybe this person didn't have to drive 50, but 15 - Really!!  If someone is that worried about driving in snow, maybe they should either move, or stay home! 

5 miles behind this person.  15 miles an hour.  Probably 20 cars behind them. 

It's no wonder I'm cranky sometimes. 

On a positive note, it's suppose to finally warm up.  Maybe all of the snow on the first person's car will  melt off, and the second person will - as my Grandpa used to say - Pick up the plow!