Winter sport . . . Ditch Diving . . . a little early this season.
It’s fun going to work on the first workday snowfall of the year. Every year there are those who have sped their way back and forth to work or home during those long summer days without a care in the world . . . there’s plenty of light out and animals are easy enough to see . . . but then that transition time comes when we lose between 5 to 6 minutes a day and that darkness grows across this northland.
These first days of the winter driving season brings about this little game that the Glenn and
I like to call it “Count the Cars in the Ditch”.
Its fun . . . it's free . . . it's mean . . . isn’t it great! All those who blast by you giving you the finger . . . you can just give them that big smile as you slowly make your way by. Winter driving advice . . . the skinny pedal on the right is not the brake. The ones flipped onto their roofs, tires straight up like Roadkill, fetch extra points.
This morning was a new record for me in the ‘short distance’ category. There were four vehicles in the ditch one of which on its side between Muldoon and Merrill Field. But the brief drive between Tudor and Dowling this morning featured eight vehicles in the ditch . . . 6 of them upside down. There were several patrol cars lights flashing in the darkness . . . that familiar blue and red strobes cutting through the semi fog of an early morning. It was almost laughable but the reality sets in that people probably were hurt or worse . . . spilled their coffee. And oh yeah . . . those higher insurance premiums they will now have to pay for zipping past everyone who slowed down to make their drive safely.
Winter driving advice . . . “Look where you want to go, not at what you’re going to hit. If you look at the ditch, you’ll end up in the ditch.”
Last year I noted that red pickups went in the ditch in extraordinarily high numbers. Those who drive the bigger . . . badass vehicles suffer from confidence overdose, is my theory. Or maybe a higher percentage of Alaskans drive macho mobiles because we are so close to the military bases. I tend to think this really has nothing to do with it as there are many more vehicles in the ditch nowhere near the bases. Nobody's calling this science.
People who drive in the ice with cruise control turned on are idiots and probably deserve to be there . . . but as one comic has said, “You can’t fix stupid!” Going up or down a hill, the car automatically shifts gears trying to keep the same speed with the cruise control on. If conditions are really slick, there can be an instant where wheels lose traction, almost as if you'd tapped the gas pedal and you see the speed odometer going wild. This catches drivers off guard. How they react determines what happens next. Usually the next thing you see is the person hit the brake. Things go spinning . . . snow flies . . . and there is that sudden stop.
People need to be aware that four-wheel-drive does not enable a vehicle to stop quickly or drive without sliding which is contrary to popular opinion. Speed is usually to blame, or actually the idiot with the heavy foot but with a few snowfalls the reality of what is to come for the next several months brings about that need to reduce speeds or the possibility of those high tow truck fees . . . whichever . . . there is always that fun sport to fill that dead time commuting back and forth to work.
We may be in for a long winter . . . so having a little fun while trying to dodge the wayward moose that descends into the city might just be that needed thing to entertain us till spring breakup.
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