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Don't PanicJan 21 '00 Write an essay on this topic.Let's face it, most people are lousy drivers. Winter driving conditions just exacerbate an already precarious and explosively dangerous condition -- lots of people in close proximity to each other each of whom is only somewhat in control of thousands of pounds of metal moving at high velocity. Even on a beautiful summer day these lumps of steel have an annoying propensity to collide. People are concentrating on talking on their cell phones, looking in the mirror to see if there’s something stuck between their teeth where it feels funny, telling their kids “no, we’re not there yet and you just went to the bathroom, can you hold it ’til the next rest area?”, and telling their spouse what a crazy driver that wacko over in the left lane is. Adding some winter road conditions to this mix only compounds the chances for crashes. You might think that really extreme winter road conditions would be the most dangerous, but that’s not what happens. It’s the oh-it’s-not-THAT-bad conditions that cause the worst problems. The first quarter-inch snowfall of the year. That small, inconsequential patch of ice. Oh yeah, I can handle this, no need to slow down. These are the conditions that cause the most problems. When it’s really nasty weather, people slow down. If they happen to “meet by accident”, at least they’re not plowing into each other at 70. What can you do to be a safer winter driver? Drive a little slower (not too much slower, that also causes problems). Stay in the right lane. Back off; leave significantly more space ahead of you than you do in good weather. Make sure that you’ve got plenty of wiper fluid so that it doesn’t run out while you’re eight miles from the next exit. Change your wiper blades every year in the fall. It’s hard to drive if you’re bobbing your head around trying to see through the 60% of your window that’s clean just because the decaying rubber on your wipers is turning the surface of the rest of your windshield into a blurry goo of icy slush. The most important piece of advice is to keeps your wits about you. Concentrate on your driving. Seems fairly obvious, doesn’t it? But haven’t you ever noticed how many people don’t seem to be able to do it? The most dangerous instances of winter driving are during the oh-it’s-not-THAT-bad conditions. Most people out there simply will not be concentrating on driving safely at this point like they would be when conditions were really bad. Those transitional periods are far more dangerous than the more pronounced situations of excellent driving conditions or atrocious driving conditions. A final word of caution. If you get stranded during the winter while driving, stay with your car. Repeat that last sentence several times. It just might save your life someday. I live in Minnesota where every once in a while during the spring thaw somebody will stumble across the three-month old corpse of some poor schmoe who thought that he’d just walk across that field to the house over there.  |
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