We had our big snow on Sunday.
The roads were absolutely perfect. We left for Mass at 8:00 a.m. Afterwards, we went to the club for breakfast. We got there about 9:45. The "egg" lady said that we were the first to arrive! What??? She said that most people were afraid to drive in "it!" Seriously?!? I told her the roads were totally fine. She said that they were slick when she was coming to work. Now I'm telling you, there's no way! Unless, she lives somewhere outside of Nashville---those roads were fine!
That got me to thinking. Growing up in St. Louis, we got huge amounts of snow every year. We loved it! We spent a lot of time playing in the snow, having snow ball fights, building snowmen and snow forts and ice skating on the lake. We didn't have neighborhood sidewalks that needed to be shoveled. We had gravel driveways that didn't need to be shoveled. We had little---maybe 10-15 feet sidewalks to our front and back doors that needed to be shoveled, but that didn't take much work. Mostly we just enjoyed it. We loved snow days off school. We didn't get many since we walked to school. Mostly the bus riders got off---or we got off if the boilers weren't working.
Here's the thing. Everyone drove. That's just what you did. You couldn't just stay home. In fact, driving in snow was an important thing to learn. Looking back, I can't really believe that my mother let me take the car out on snow covered streets when I had just gotten my driver's permit. In those days, you just had to have a licensed driver in the car. That licensed driver was my best friend, Reenie. So, yes, two, inexperienced 15 year olds got to drive in snow. The thought was, "how else are they going to learn?"
And we did. Don't get me wrong. We did have some limits. We had to be home before dark, because, well, after dark, you might encounter the dreaded "black ice!" No one knows how to drive on that! There's no learning about it. You just try to avoid it at all costs.
Anyway, as a result of my liberal driver training, I am not afraid to drive in snow. I know how to do it. Forget all that stuff about turning in to a slide. Just take your foot off the gas and go with it---don't try to brake too hard or that will make it worse. The biggest factor is speed. If you just take your time and go slow, you'll be fine. And should you slide off the road, just hang in there. Someone will come along and pull you back on. That's never happened to me, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works!
That's what I think about driving in snow!
Snow makes this part of England grind to a halt! The trains stop running as the points freeze, the slip roads to the motorway get so slippy nothing can come up it to get off the motorway or down it to join the traffic, the snow gets compacted on normal town roads so they become like an ice rink. Plus we don't tend to use snow tyres like some other countries do. Because it doesn't happen that often or for that long we don't seem to have much preparation to lessen the disruption, just a gritting lorry out overnight for an hour or so. I hate driving in snow! I once hit a patch of black ice under a layer of snow and ended up doing a 380 degree turn, I had no control whatsoever and it scared me so much, I was SO lucky nothing was coming in the other direction. I am of the opinion that the roads are a safer place if a nervous driver like me stays at home or walks wherever she needs to go!
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