The White Stuff....

[juliebata]

I got lucky yesterday. We had a howling snowstorm that was in full swing during afternoon rush hour. My winter driving skills are adequate, but I always get a little nervous when the roads are slick. I'm blessed with a commute of less than two miles from home to office, but there is a VERY steep hill halfway between them. I almost didn't make it down yesterday on my way home. You could hardly see a thing, it was practically a white-out. I must have been going all of three miles an hour, and I could feel the back end of the car losing control and heading sideways. I had an impatient FUCK in an SUV right on my bumper, hounding me to go faster. God, he pissed me off! I'm sure his traction is just great, and he can drive down a steep, slippery hill as fast as he could on any other day, but I sure as hell can't!! My heart was pounding when I regained control and made it to the bottom of the hill in one piece. Damn arrogant SUV drivers....
-Juliebata

Comments

idiots in snow

[rdkeir.livejournal.com]

coming home last night, I crossed Regent Street at a crosswalk. Traffic was endless in both directions, creeping along, which did not prevent one driver from getting extremely angry and rolling down his window to yell at me because I had dared use the crosswalk to cross in front of his creeping vehicle.

This morning, people were ripping down Dayton St. as though it was a warm dry summer day, not a day of blowing snow covering patches of ice.

SUVs in bad weather

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I remember the last time we had a big snowstorm and the traffic was really bad during rush hour. I didn't have to drive to work, so I listened to the news reports. Apparently a bunch of SUV drivers kept driving like they would on clean, dry roads, thinking that four-wheel drive cancels out the poor road conditions. Uh, nom it doesn't work that way. Apparently there was a spate of spinouts in the fast lanes all over town: SUVs going too fast and losing control (think bumper cars). Fortunately, everyone else was driving carefully enough that the spinouts didn't turn into big pileups; mainly the SUVs themselves were damaged, not the people inside.

I'm really, really glad that you were careful and didn't let that obnoxious driver goad you into driving less safely. What a twit.

[stealthpup.livejournal.com]

Damn arrogant SUV drivers.

Yup yup yup. In general, they seem to think that "SUV"="tank".

I mentioned, in a comment on someone else's LJ, that my current Honda has been hit 3 times: once while the car was parked and I was away, and twice by a mom in an Explorer "being distracted" by her kids. Not quite the same thing as driving hell-bent for leather, but I think it's indicative of the illusion of invulnerability SUV and minivan drivers get.

duh!

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

SUV = "can get going easier from a stop on a slick spot"

SUV does NOT = "better able to stop when going too fast"

Their BRAKES aren't any better than ours! And in a lot of cases their TIRES aren't either!

Argh.

Incidentally, when it was about 5 degrees out last night and the wind blowing like the devil, there were people skating at Garner Park!