Living in the Northern climates allows us to experience what few in the South ever get to enjoy. Sure living in Florida....it rains hard enough to slow cars to a crawl, the winds rip shingles off the roofs sending them like Frisbees rockets though pool screen, Dallas and Atlanta get black ice....even a rogue storm can paralyze Southern states because of the lack of equipment.
In the North we have the first snow jitters....people have driven on snow and ice for years...but the first one is always special. Buckle your seat-belt check your air bags.....they whiz by like it was smooth dry pavement!
I watched one intersection for 15 minute and seen 4 fender benders. Nothing significant...just bruised egos and dented cars. You could tell who was going to get hit....it was like an arcade game only you didn't have to put in any money!
They would zoom up to the lights and hit the brakes as though it was dry....and slam, crunch, thud. A couple got out of their cars....they were really nuts...slippery and looking over the damage like they were going to send in an adjusters appraisal.
The ditches we lined with people thinking they could be the one that make that little move to get ahead of the next guy.....and the twirled gracefully off into the ditch. No real harm no injuries other than maybe pride and the spouse they face when they get home.
The innocent ones are the real losers in this type of driving event. Many are cut off, spun off into the ditch having no choice. You can only hope someone got the plate number of that bat-mobile. Or the ones sitting at the light and bam! All of our insurance premiums go up over this type of driving. I drive my big Avalanche during these events. They can hit it but the likelihood of injury from cars is minimal. The injury from a semi.....well let's just say you can not prepare for that type of collision.
I sat at an intersection in the service on a lawn chair during a ice snow event in Alabama....watching the Southern drivers whack each other. Less than an hour there were 10 collisions. Being raised in the North we expected the driver to be novices and they were.
Every year we can count on the same scene repeating itself until we have had a few days of driving on the ice and snow.
Does your area have something that bring out the crazy in drivers?
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