Monday, February 27, 2017

How not to drive in the snow - part 1

If you live anywhere where it snows, you'll be used to people driving like dicks because apparently it's just not "the thing to do" to learn how to drive in snow. So people go about their lives, on bald summer tyres, driving as if it was a lovely, dry, sunny day. Texting, doing their hair, eating their breakfast, reading books, surfing their snapchats and generally not giving two shits about anyone else. This is doubly true on snow days and more so around snow plows where people seem to lose their mind completely.
You'd think this would be common sense (but I guess there's nothing "common" about common sense any more): don't overtake snow plows. At the back they're spewing grit, sand, salt and chemicals that will rust your car before you get where you're going, and at the front there's a huge plow with a tidal wave of snow coming off it. In between there's 10 or more tons of angry truck.
Of course the texting, hair-drying, book-reading brigade are entirely oblivious to this with their "me first" attitude, meaning that stuff like this happens.
In the first video we have a typical Utah driver who barely knows what a car is let alone how to drive. Sadly they got away with a spin but happily they didn't kill anyone else in the process:

And then we have this special individual who decides to hip-check a snow plow with his trailer because he's going too fast and overtaking too close on a downhill, off-camber bend covered in ice (why the hell he wasn't in the inside lane I'll never know). Fortunately this plow driver survived but not before being subjected to a 100m sheer drop off the side of the canyon:

The message is pretty simple - leave the plow drivers to do their jobs. The road behind them will be clearer than the road in front. You're gaining absolutely nothing from trying to pass them.

2 comments:

Paul said...

That second video... holy crap! Pleased, and a little surprised, that he lived to tell the tale.
As for the first video, I put more of the blame on the truck driver. What was he doing driving off to the side like that? The car was coming down the onramp to be faced with a truck half way into their lane. They had to avoid the truck and as a consequence ended up in the slush on the side and then losing traction. Yes the car should have seen the truck and yes should have slowed down (not knowing the road/onramp) but the truck has to shoulder some of the blame here.

Chris said...

Plows often have to drive way over the line to move the snow. If you look at the snow he's pushing, it's already off to one side of the road and he was clearing the 'gore' between the freeway and the on-ramp.
Very often the freeway will have 6 plows in formation covering all lanes as each one moves the snow further to the right, then the one behind moves the snow further to the right etc until the back guy (in the position this one was in) finally pushes the snow off the side of the road. This video shows it nicely : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUds1pWKMjs

There's another video that the news showed that I can't find but that white car was way behind the plow to start with and instead of staying behind, decided to try to race him. Poor decision by the car driver.