The Way I See It

It's that time of year where we forget everything we've ever learned about winter driving in the past. You'd think the lessons learned from years gone by would stick with us, but as soon as there's bare highway in the spring, all things taught in the previous six months just fly out the window.

Even when you have kids, you remember how the first was raised and after the second, those observations and lessons stick to set a pattern for raising No. 2. So, with a skiff of snow or ice on the roads, we tend to forget that unless we want to wear the car in front of us as our hood ornament, we'd best keep a sensible distance from that target. This is also a good time to telegraph your driving intention in advance by signaling your turning decisions, braking inclinations and reduction in speed with the use of all those electric gizmos in the car such as turning signals, brakes which activate brake lights and a speedometer which gives you a pretty accurate sense of how fast you're going. Winter time is not a good time to fly blind. Geese can do it but drivers can't. We're in lack of homing instincts on how to get from point A to point B without having our senses about us.

Now along with using your head for something other than a hat rack, you have to be knowledgeable about some basic principles in science. In early winter, air turns cold but ground is still warm, (debatable if you sit down on the ground and wind up with a good case of hemorrhoids). Basically this means that when a snowflake, which has fallen unmolested to survive its descent through the heavens, will melt when it reaches the ground. In heavy accumulations, this results in a layer of ice or water between your tire and the driving surface. So it isn't just enough that you forgot your common sense in November, you have to contend with some basic laws of physics as well. The said layer of water or ice will have much the same effect on your vehicle as hydroplaning in a rainstorm. Once pavement and air reach the same temperature, this ceases to be an issue.

So, you can't take your corners as fast as you did in the summer or you'll wind up in somebody's living room. You can't stop as fast as normal either and it would behoove you to remember that when pedestrians, (who don't realize they have winter shortcomings as well) bounce out in front of you, they're setting themselves up like pins in a bowling alley. You either have to drive your car and hope you can make it act like a gutter ball to miss the pins or pray that the pedestrian has a guardian angel. Unlike a game of bowling, high score doesn't win; in fact the constabulary takes serious offense in you racking up a high pedestrian count. You need to use your common sense and if you don't have any, well then as comedian Ron White says, "you can't fix stupid".

The way I see it, it's an adjustment to change the use of your vehicle from skate board to ice skate - to go from riding to gliding but we have to and we always manage to despite ourselves. And if we don't? Well then we're probably going to be that hood ornament on someone else's car.