Southerners-Here's how us yankees drive on ice - link to video

[old mark]

of a hill in Pittsburg, PA yesterday morning, Jan 18th...;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6249iHSJsKo


My BIL in Texas tells me that Southern folks LOVE to hear us Yankees tell them how we do things up north, so here it is...

(It's always best to stay home if at all possible...)
mark

[Uben]

1. That's a display of amazing skill!

As long as the goal was to do as much damage as possible! Ha ha! I'll admit we southerners aren't good at driving on ice, but it appears no one is. I wish i could say we're smarter and don't try to drive on ice, but we do, and we screw up just as much as northeners do. It's just one of those challenges in life one has to master. I commuted 150 miles a day for 14 yrs. That involved some driving on ice and snow. Snow is not much of a problem, go a little slower, but ice kicks everyone's butt. I never had an incident in all those years, but I saw more than my share of ignorance on ice. I can think of 4-5 times I had to assist people who had screwed up. SHit happens, you get it fixed, and do it again. That's life!

[liberal N proud]

2. There is no hope for any vehicle on hills like that with Ice

I used to live north of Kansas City and ice storms are quite regular during the winter in that area. My driveway was on an incline and if we had an ice storm, I could not leave the driveway until the ice melt had done it's job, you left the car in the garage.

Makes no difference where you are, ice will bring your travel to a stop, one way or another.

[Uben]

3. My driveway is the same

Any attempt on ice would land you in the ditch across the street. In 15 yrs, I have never been in that ditch and I don't plan on starting this year!

[old mark]

4. There really is no good way to do it at all...Whenever possible, stay home...

or drive in the mid-day when it is likely to have melted and before it freezes again. I have been living up here in PA for over 60 years, and ice on roads still scares me. Snow is easy-Ice is impossible.


(My BIL in Texas is a great joker...)


mark

[mmonk]

5. Looks like the ones who have moved to my town mocking

the way we close schools down due to ice. They find out soon enough that salt spraying doesn't take care of it when so much accumulates. It's not like snow where you can gain traction.

[DrDan]

6. I love the letters to the editor in the Daytona Beach paper that begin

"when I lived up north . . . . .". Better drivers, more polite, more friendly. Whatever - always better "up north"

Thanks for that link. Reminded me of why I moved to the south from KCMo many years ago.

[WolverineDG]

9. I grew up in South Texas

home to the "Winter Texans". Many of them were very nice, but as a group, they were horrid. They'd clog up the restaurants at exactly 12 noon & drive 20 mph on the highway, stopping in the middle of the road to take pictures of a damn palm tree. Guess that's okay with folks in Yankee land, but where I'm from, you should be polite & pull over first.

And then the lectures about how we did things all wrong because we lived on the border. :eyes: I even had one (from a blue state, mind you--I saw the license plate on her car) tell me that she didn't consider me to be a "real" American because I lived too close to Mexico & spoke Spanish (somewhat). There were quite a few who always wanted to deal with me because I am (or look, shall we say?) white--lots of digs about Mexicans & how stupid/inferior they were (again, folks from the "up north" blue state paradise where they look down on folks from the South for being racist).

dg

[DrDan]

15. we get the snow birds here around the 1st of January

You can always tell when they arrive by the lines for the free coffee at Publix. Might have been sitting there brewing for 6-7 hours, but it was free.

[WolverineDG]

17. Oh lucky you!

We had to deal with them from Thanksgiving to Easter. And yeah, anything marked "Free" had the snow birds all over it.

dg

[Mopar151]

34. The same people

Drive the same way during "foliage" season in New England.

The bigoted part too.... They'll talk about us "country bumpkin" natives like we aren't even there, and the stuff they tell each other about us is f'n hilarious.

[Le Taz Hot]

7. Dear God,

Thank you for making me born in California where we go and VISIT the snow but not actually live IN the snow. Amen. :evilgrin:

[baldguy]

8. TX doesn't use road salt.

In 2-3 hrs the road crews will have spread salt all over that road, the wreckers will have cleared the cars away, and the road will be drivable again.

In TX it would be that way until the end of February.

[blogslut]

21. Huh?

That doesn't even make sense.

I'm from the part of Texas that actually gets regular snow in the winter. Trust me. We use road salt.

[seabeyond]

27. and mccart has been doing a fine job her terms. she has been out there and ready

taking care of things well before crisis. i have been impressed with her. i know she doesnt effect you, but i have noticed how well she does.

bummer this year we havent had much of anything. so very very disappointed.

and silly people making assumptions and proclammations about texas, without a clue

:hi:

[blogslut]

36. True

So far this winter, we've had very little precipitation/snow. According to the Almanac, we'll get more towards the end of this month and into February.

When people ask me what the weather is like in our part of the state ( the Panhandle) I tell them we have four true seasons. I kind of dig it. :hi:

[seabeyond]

37. me too. having grown up in Az and Ca, it was all new to me. nt

[WolverineDG]

10. Dude, we live in Texas so we don't HAVE to learn how to drive on ice

so, really, who's the dummy?

:+

dg

[seabeyond]

12. ha ha. we get it here. hate ice storms more than anything. snow doesnt bother me. nt

[WolverineDG]

16. I know we get ice on the roads

but when that happens, screw my schedule, I'm staying home. Folks here can't handle dry pavement.

dg

[seabeyond]

26. lol. i stay in too. but getting kids to school. upside? they go earlier than te rest, fro sports

so i dont have to drive around other cars.

i do agree. we get more, more often, but still, these huge ass vehicles think they are immune to ice, and it doesnt work that way. i just putt.

[seabeyond]

11. ice is ice whether south or north. nt

[NuclearDem]

13. Differences in reactions...

Me watching the video from 0:00-0:08: WHEEEEEEEEEE!

Driver of out of control Suburban from 0:00-0:08: FUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUCFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

[Jamastiene]

14. Haha

:spray:

:rofl:

I'd say driving on ice looks a lot like bumper cars, minus any control of the vehicle, plus lots of higher car insurance rates afterward.

[NNN0LHI]

18. When the roads are pure ice I keep two wheels on the shoulder

Pretty much the same thing I do when walking on ice. Always keep at least one foot off the icy road.

Can't drive real fast but I usually get to where I am going in one piece.

Don

[Buns_of_Fire]

19. YEEEEEHAW! Tonight! Under the lights! Demolition Derby time!

Atlanta has a few hills like that. Not as steep, but when it snows, the result is much the same. I remember watching the news several years ago when one of the local stations had set up to tape the festivities. (It was some road at the northern end of the city that has a slight curve right at the bottom of the hill -- it was notorious for being a little squirrely, even under the best of conditions.)

Soon, one car came down the hill and, as expected, slid into the ditch. Shortly after, a second car came along, slid into the first car, and bounced into the ditch. Then came a third, which hit the first, bounced off the second, and also came to rest in the ditch. Along came a fourth... And a fifth...

I had a grand old time watching it, sitting in my house with a blender full of margarita juice. (I had skedaddled it out of town as soon as the first few flakes started falling.) Much hilarity ensued.

Karma, of course, noted that and marked me down to spend a winter in Omaha a few years later...

[old mark]

20. I got caught in one of these about 30 years ago...driving 30 miles to work

in my tiny Fiat Spider, crested a slight hill and the giant Buick in the next lane started going sideways. I got off the road completely, saw at least 4 other cars at the bottom of the hill, with the dumbass drivers standing in the road motioning for us to stop!!!
They were lucky no one got killed.

I crossed ofer the median strip and drove past it all on the wrong side of the highway, got to work late anyway because I was too scred to drive at normal speed.

I'm old now, and what used to be adventure is just a pain in the ass.
I stay home in that shit when ever possible.

mark

[distantearlywarning]

22. It was so icy here in the 'burgh yesterday morning

I almost killed myself just *walking* to the bus stop. Seriously, every surface was just coated with about 1" of ice, every sidewalk, everybody's steps, the road, everything. I did eventually make it around the block, but had to take little tiny bitty steps after I nearly fell on my ass and looked stupid pinwheeling my arms while sliding down the sidewalk. It was kind of crazy yesterday. The news said that there were at least 200 ER visits in the city yesterday just from pedestrians who fell while walking and broke something.

[old mark]

23. Here in SE Pa, too-yesterday was a mess. More snow Friday and next Tuesday,

high temps Saturday going all the way up to 18, down to 6 at night.


mark

[Lugnut]

33. It was no picnic here either.

Snow, freezing rain, rain - we had it all.

[raccoon]

24. I don't think so....

"My BIL in Texas tells me that Southern folks LOVE to hear us Yankees tell them how we do things up north"

Haven't you ever seen the bumper sticker, "We don't care how you do things up North?"

:hi:

[raccoon]

25. Thanks for the video. Now I know what kind of business I'll have, if I open one.

I'll have a body shop in Yankeeland. :-)

[pipi_k]

28. Ice is the nastiest thing ever up here

Whatever bad weather events we're likely to get here in NE, the worst is the ice storm.

Two years ago we had one that trapped us in our home for three days with no electricity. The hill I live on is tricky to navigate anyway, but in a big snow or ice storm, it's impossible.

Branches broke...trees came down...

A sanding truck got stuck at the bottom of the hill (a dead-end road)...that's how bad it was

the ice is pretty, but deadly.


In any event, I really can't believe those drivers even thought about going down that hill. Driving on flat road is bad enough.

[Arkansas Granny]

29. Being in the south, we get lots of comments about driving on ice and our apparent

inability to do so. That video illustrates the fact that you might be able to drive on ice, but stopping, well, that's another matter altogether.

[Fumesucker]

30. In the South snow often turns to ice..

It's rare when we have an extended cold snap and what happens is that the warmer roads melt the snow which then refreezes into ice the next night.

[underpants]

31. As a Southerner I was not aware of the "punch the gas and veer towards the sidewalk" technique

:wow:

Glad they taught me something :sarcasm:

Pittsburgh is an ant farm - it's like they just built roads with no plan other than "OOOh I want to go THAT WAY!"
True story. 1998 I was in Pittsburgh to do an inventory. I was staying at one of the hotels that sort of overlooked Three Rivers stadium. The place I was going to inventory was basically at the end of the stadium parking lot. After a highly complex set of directions to get there I asked how I might get BACK to the hotel. Mind you we could see the hotel from where we were standing.

Three locals gave me completely different directions including going outside of the valley and coming back in. Then I asked a guy who made deliveries in the city, he looked at the hotel.... put his hand on his hip.... and said, "I don't think you can get there from here" WE COULD SEE IT!!

I liked Pittsburgh a lot but driving there (several friends have backed me up on this) is chaotic.

[distantearlywarning]

32. Yes, welcome to Pittsburgh

Where you can't get there from here! No, really. You can't. Don't even try. :-)

As a transplant six years ago, the most difficult adjustment was the driving thing. Without fail, we spent the first four years getting horribly lost (to the point of tears sometimes) every time we had to drive someplace we hadn't been before. It was so incredibly frustrating. I love my city, but driving here is a total nightmare.

[underpants]

35. Bumper to bumper 80 MPH through the Squirrel tunnel

or whatever it is called.

A couple of friends have been up there for different reasons and we all remarked at how the locals could possibly get anywhere.

I left out the story about the bridge. I finally figured out how to get back to the hotel and was driving across one of the bridges looking for my exit. Then I realized that the signs are up in the beams. Oh and my exit is... NOW! -->

I did enjoy Pittsburgh.

[Bunny]

38. I had an appointment in Pittsburgh yesterday morning, and boy am I glad

I cancelled it. That is one crazy pile-up.