A point is likely to come when we’re not allowed to drive because it’s raining outside. Forget snow.
It is the natural evolution of safetyism as applied to driving.
After all, if it saves even one life. . .
It probably would.
There are more accidents when it rains – or snows – because there is less traction and visibility. More accurately, there are more “accidents” when it rains or snows because some people’s ability to maintain control of their vehicle is reduced by adverse conditions they lack the skill/judgment to compensate adequately for. They don’t increase their following distance between their car and the one ahead, to allow for more time/space to stop when traction/visibility are reduced.
They have not learned to apply braking force progressively rather than abruptly and to steer without jerking the steering wheel, so as to avoid upsetting the vehicle’s stability in reduced traction situations.
A large and growing percentage of drivers have never learned how to countersteer or use the brakes (or throttle) to keep a car under control when it begins to slip and slide, on account of low traction. Chiefly because such skills are no longer taught while passivity behind the wheel is. It is implicit in the array of “advanced driver assistance technology” bundled into all new cars. The assumption is the driver requires “assistance” to perform such demanding maneuvers as keeping the vehicle within its travel lane – and noticing in time that it is time to apply the brakes because there is an object ahead that will otherwise be run into.
People were better able to cope with such demanding tasks as keeping their vehicle within its travel lane and applying the brakes in time when people were expected to be competent to perform those tasks without “assistance.”
Now that they no longer are, they need the “assistance” – creating a need for more of it. Kind of like how those who took the drugs that didn’t prevent them from getting sick now need to take them again (and again, ad infinitum) per the counsel of the people who pushed the drugs on them in the first place.
It will inevitably get to the point that a large percentage of the people who sit behind the wheel of cars cannot drive without “assistance” when it isn’t raining or snowing.
Just as people’s whose immune systems have been wrecked by the drugs they took are no longer able to keep from getting sick without the “assistance” of more drugs.
Well, what happens when inclement weather renders such “assistance” inoperative?
Snow and ice becloud the camera lenses that “see” what’s ahead (and behind and on either side) of the car. When these cameras can’t see – because there’s ice and snow on the lens – or can’t see much and not very far because of heavy rain/fog – then the “assistance” goes the way of a folded up wheelchair. If the person who depended on it cannot walk unaided, he won’t. Just the same, people who cannot drive without “assistance” will be unable to – except the car will keep driving. In the manner of an airplane without anyone manning the controls who is competent to control the airplane.
Maybe the failsafe will be that when the “assistance” does not work, the car will not work. This will present problems, though. Weather can be unpredictable. It might not have been raining or snowing in the morning when people drove to work – or to the store. But later that day, the weather changed – and now it is raining and snowing. This will inevitably happen when people are still in the middle of driving.
The safest course – obviously – is to forbid everyone to drive when it might rain (or snow). Because if it saves even one life.
And we’re all in this together.
Consider that it’s already been done – in that the precedent for it has already been established and has yet to be repudiated. All of us (well, excepting the “essentials,” who had the power to declare themselves such) were not allowed out – in cars or otherwise – when (so they said) there was a dangerous bug about that might cause some people to get seriously sick. It did not matter that those “at risk” were not most people. The justification for “locking down” almost all people – the “essentials” excepted – was that some people were “vulnerable” and for that reason everyone must accept being “locked down” to protect the “vulnerable.”
Just the same, it won’t matter that you don’t need “assistance” to drive when it rains or snows. The justification for locking us all down will be that there are those who do . . . and we are all in this together.
In my area of SW Virginia, beta testing has been under way for years. I live near the Blue Ridge Parkway and it is regularly locked down (the entry gates are closed) when it might snow. How long before the gates come down when it might rain?
After all, it might save a life – and who are we to put others at risk?
That those others could just stay off the road, if they don’t feel “safe” driving on them never seems to be an option. Just as it wasn’t enough during the event that was marketed as a”pandemic” that those who didn’t feel “safe” going into stores (or going into them without a rag over their faces) were not being forced to go into them (or not wear the rag, if they wished to wear it).
It is always necessary that everyone else be yoked to the same least-common-denominatorism, because otherwise it’s not fair.
In fact, because there’s not enough control in it. When people are free to self-regulate, then people are free.
And that’s the problem, you see.
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Pretty soon, Donald Trump will be hawking his digital wares here too.
Must be National Shark Jumping Day.
Doesn’t blend well with your credence. You lack the proper credentials.
However, carry on with the snake oil stuff.
I learned winter driving in a ’72 Nova with a carburetted 350, drum brakes with no power assist and no power steering. Come winter the M50s would come off the rear and the studded snow tires would go on, along with a couple hundred pounds of added weight in the trunk. Not only did I master the finer points of driving through snow and ice but I also learned a few exhibition driving moves.
This seems to be a lost art today.
Don’t comply and nullify.
If even a small percentage of people do this on an ongoing basis, this creeping cancer of increasing authoritarianism stops and is rolled back.
I could see a snow lockdown flying in places that rarely, if ever, get snow; in the unlikely event that they do, it’s perhaps an inch. I’m talking about places like the Carolinas or Georgia. If these places get an inch of snow, it’s like the end of the world!
However, north of the Mason-Dixon Line, in places accustomed to not only getting snow, but getting lots of it, I can’t see this flying. People in Buffalo, Chicago, etc. will say GTFOOH! We get tons of snow every winter, and life goes on.
That’s what I thought they would do about the ‘Rona.
How come the Israeli Defense Forces don’t attack Mecca and Medina?
All they do is pick on defenseless Palestinians when they could nuke holy places on earth.
All those Palestinians must be Jesus or something.
Christmas Day is a good time to nuke the Vatican. You can do it!
Why not?
We’re all diamonds in the rough.
The first practice run for that was the Blizzard of 1978. Connecticut Governor Ella Grasso (D) declared a the first state of emergency and the first ever statewide driving ban during the snow emergency. Atbthe time it was controversial and a talk show hosy on WSTC 1400 Stamford urged people to disregard the ban if they needed to be out. He stated Grasso had no right to unstitute a travel ban. Those were the days. I remember listening to the vroadcast in Feb 78 as a 14 year old kid wanting to get out of school.
Search Winter of 1949 in Nebraska, railroad steam engines were buried in snow. Steam engines on good level railway did go 100 mph. Operation Hay Lift, it was a massive effort to save Nebraskans from certain devastation. The winter of 1965 had areas of the Great Plains with snow depths to the cross members of power lines.
You can make up time in Montana at 95 mph. Trains can move like a bat out of hell.
My dad worked a snowplow on a branch line back in 1976-77, a winter storm left snowdrifts above the snowplow, have to clear the tracks, bills of lading make for the business. You then have a job on the Great Northern Railway. He took photographs, memories, you remember them well.
There can be snow so deep, the drifts on the open prairie are sometimes 15 feet tall and long drifts along shelter belts will be four to eight feet tall. I have a photo of a drift in the farmyard about seven feet tall. Snowshoe time.
Four feet of snow fell in one day in April about three years ago, snow all over hell.
Never forget, many of these people are Driving While Vaccinated. They may have spike-damaged brains, and further impaired judgment as would be expected to follow. Not to mention that at any time, they can stroke out or have a heart attack behind the wheel. The vaccinated are unsafe at any speed – rain, snow, or sunshine.
good point BAC. I am also concerned about people not maintaining their cars not nearly good enough anymore. I take a cursory look at peoples tires in a parking lot, and most are not suitable for running any interstate in the rain. Concerns me enough to do my best to keep my distance from everyone nowadays.
‘Forget snow.‘ — eric
An important historical reason why roads are heavily salted, to the point of destroying vehicles:
‘Late last year [2010], when a major winter storm hit New York City, Gothamites and Chicagoans alike invoked the specter of Michael Bilandic, whose 1979 loss in the Democratic mayoral primary to Jane Byrne is like a ghost story elected officials and public planners tell each other—”plow the streets, or you’ll end up just like Mayor Bilandic.”
‘New York Times chief financial correspondent Floyd Norris learned it from his wife, a longtime Chicago resident: “The inability of the city to get the streets plowed was the major reason that mayor lost his re-election campaign in 1979, or so they said.”
http://tinyurl.com/24jt8wnf
Bilandic’s political defeat became legendary in snow belt states across the country. Salt … and plow … then salt some more, or meet your political doom.
This obsession makes more than half the country highly vehicle-unfriendly. Solutions could be found. But auto makers don’t mind seeing elderly rides rust away.
It’s better to burn out
Than it is to rust
The EeeVee’s gone
But it’s not forgotten
— Neil Young, My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)
The expectation is that you can buy one tire, or one vehicle, that fits every possible scenario. It is up to the road maintenance crew to make it possible for my one-size-fits-none vehicle to safely traverse the thoroughfares. Imagine if the default was “drive at your own risk” and while the DOT would do the best it can to keep the road passible, if you get stuck by not knowing what to expect, that’s on you. Of course because in many cases there are no alternate routes (especially in my neck of the woods), on idiot ruins it for everyone.
RK,
When I was a young man, the roads were not cleared like they are now. They got them passable, and then went home. Nowadays it seems they won’t stop until they are snow and ice free, and dry.
Yep.
The insurance industry pressures for this. And road salt. Lots and lots of road salt.
Which eventually rusts out the underside of any car.
Hi RK,
Yup. At one time, there were “swim at your own risk” signs at swimming pools, too. Now you’re not allowed to swim unless there’s a lifeguard there. Even if you can swim.
Yes! traveling with family as a kid. We always had to swim in the motel pool, even if it was at night. I remember they had signs that said No lifeguard on duty.”
When the libs killed God they also killed the notion of an “act of God.” So now everything has to have a root cause, and if it has root cause it means it could have been prevented.
God’s will is no longer a reason.
So instead of a hurricane wiping out a Miami neighborhood being an act of God (or maybe God’s wrath), it’s now a human’s fault. Namely, everyone but the people pointing the dirty end of the stick at everyone else.
At a small lake way back when, one time I was there for some recreation and swimming after work hours, it was not much of a beach, was there to make it a better day. A woman with her son, maybe 12 years old, was there for fun in the sun. I still think of her to this day, come to think of it Those were the days. I digress.
All of a sudden, the word ‘help’ was heard.
I looked towards the water, the kid was hysterical, in fear of drowning, I got there quick in a few seconds, the water was maybe four feet deep. All he had to do was stand up, it didn’t matter, he needed help in the worst way.
Grabbed his arm and had him stand up, everything was okay.
A panicked mind cannot reason, it can’t, it won’t. Has no idea what to do, needs a helping hand.
In the right place at the right time at that time.
It’s a half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown, that’s the way that the world goes ’round -John Prine, That’s the Way the World Goes ‘Round
“Bilandic’s political defeat became legendary in snow belt states across the country. Salt … and plow … then salt some more, or meet your political doom.”
LOL! So true. Here up in my dump of a town, the Town Supervisor was just kicked out on his fat butt with a write in candidate because of two signs : 1) Save Our Dump & 2) Vote Out Becker. There you go. Do not take away peoples’ dump. Oh and plow and salt dem der roads.
That’s definitely true around here, many times after a light snowfall the streets are coated white – with salt, not a snowflake to be seen.
Mike,
Indeed, it often gets piled up around here, and presents more of a driving hazard than the snow does.
I waffle between thinking the leftist elites are total control freaks or just big ass soy boy pussies that are scared of their own shadow.
Hi Mike,
I think it’s often a combination of both attributes. They are fearful people and they hate competent people – because competent people are not afraid (or dependent).
They hate the competent
But their very lives depend on the competence and good will of the competent
The more they know this the more they hate themselves
The more they hate themselves the more they hate the competent, because the competent make them hate themselves and feel inadequate
just another red line in the sand for me. and again, rural folks won’t partake.
I can already see it, a main thoroughfare is ‘shut’ down say between Counties, it won’t stay shut down for long. I can’t even imagine the local LE’s would do it in the first place.
Now in my ‘burb’ area, for sure majority compliance.
There really is no pleasing idiot control freaks.
When I drive 75-80 on a clear dry level road with wide shoulders, marked 55mph, why I’m a “speeder”, a dangerous antisocial criminal who should be locked up and whose rights are somehow privileges graciously allowed by democracy.
If the same road is covered in compressed and polished snow and ice, and I roll along between clear patches doing 25-40, why I’m dangerously slow and must be passed by every idiot in a modern 4wd truck who somehow thinks his ABS and stability control neutralize the simple physics of friction and gravity.
And if I creep along he clear shoulder in a howling blizzard or a dense fog because it’s 20 miles between towns, I’m a dangerous lunatic who shouldn’t be driving and the democracy should put up barriers to close the roads.
Whatever plumbing they were born with, they are pu$$ies. Kinder, kirche, kuche i say. It’s long past time for the pendulum to swing back and the yin and the yang to get back into balance.
When driving on snow, it is important to disable “traction control” on vehicles so equipped. If you drive on an upward grade, quite often “traction control” will kick in and not allow you to go forward. Before conditions warrant, know how to disable traction control on your vehicle. There is usually a button to do so.
We finally got some snow this weekend, just when everyone’s traveling to the mountains for Christmas. Back in the before times I’d probably be venturing to Blackhawk this weekend to eat, drink and flirt with the waitresses. But since COVID the places don’t have the same appeal as they used to. And with the massive increase in Californian expats I70 is unusable on weekends, even when there’s dry pavement. Add even a little skiff of snow and Vail Pass becomes a parking lot. Doesn’t help that CDOT still hasn’t figured out that the new arrivals have no experience in snow and continue to plow the way they did since the 1980s.
Colorado has the “Chain Law” for commercial vehicles and the “Traction Law” for passenger vehicles. When CDOT puts them into effect, usually on Vail Pass and up to the Eisenhower tunnels, drivers are required to have suitable gear to drive through the mountains. Anyone who’s been here for a while already had proper equipment, but the refugees have no idea what they’re in for, and don’t prepare mentally for what it’s really like. So laws are enacted, and they still wreck, and the passes are still closed, and CDOT doesn’t plow.
Shame that, since I really enjoy driving in snow.
Hi RW: Colorado has the “Chain Law” for commercial vehicles and the “Traction Law” for passenger vehicles.
You know you would have to be pretty stupid to not already be doing that in the winter.
https://www.codot.gov/travel/winter-driving/tractionlaw
The thing is, there are towing companies in Silverthorne that make thousands of dollars a day just running between the tunnels and town. People underestimate the threat because they’ve been told “all season” tires are good enough.
DK what the solution is, but I know for sure it isn’t more laws. Maybe if the powers that be didn’t cry wolf so often people would take it more seriously.
I wonder, if one were to “accidentally” cover the camera/laser with tape, would that turn off most of that safety crap (lane keeping/lane departure/automatic brakes) without having to punch buttons or navigate menus every time?
On my 2016 Cherokee, the safety stuff stays off between starts. The only thing that always requires toggling off is ASS.
RK, if ASS is a button you have to push every time. Try a paperclip. Worked for my f150.
I’ve driven in all sorts of weather from high winds, heavy snow, freezing rain, fog, ice fog, -50s, +90’s, you name it and the most I ever had was decent winter or summer tires and ABS brakes (heated mirrors would have been nice though). Driving to the road conditions can save lots of problems.
The one thing to remember when driving in heavy snow is to keep moving or you’ll have a hard time to get moving again even with snow tires. If you are getting heavy snow all the time consider chains.
Eric:Just as people’s whose immune systems have been wrecked by the drugs they took are no longer able to keep from getting sick without the “assistance” of more drugs.
Drinking coffee with friends I hear about people getting terminal cancer in their 50’s more often; but my friends don’t seem to see a connection to the vaxx. As for the plague my friends tell me they know people who got all the good doctor’s shots (apparently 7 now) and are always getting it. Strange world we live in.
Have fun and stay ornery and try to have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
If authoritarian governments implement climate lockdowns, one thing they might do as well is reimplement face diaper mandates, except this time, instead of claiming that it’s necessary to “Stop the spread of COVID”, they’ll say it’s necessary to “Stop the spread of CO2”. I read this past week that “scientists” are now claiming that human beings, just by BREATHING, are causing global warming.
What next, will these psychopaths also wish to charge us carbon taxes for every time we breathe, or perhaps even kill any pets we own or kill people who refuse to go along with their demented ideas? They’re already attacking small farms all around the world, including here in the U.S. The time for mass refusal to comply with absolutely insane diktats these sociopaths come up with is now.
we raced karts on dirt and i purposely set up my sons kart to be on the loose side so he would become a better driver
In more remote stretches of I-80 in Nebraska, I saw the gates on the freeway entrances as far back as 15 years ago. Being from Florida, I figured that the gates probably served a legitimate purpose to keep the clueless off the road during blizzard conditions, but the location was far enough out — North Platte — that I doubted anyone but locals would be on the road during the most brutal Winter weather.
Nebraska is also home to The Archway, a perpetually failed museum spanning I-80 featuring a really innovative design which I can’t help but believe is a prototype for … something. The Legend is that the structure came from an engineering company staffed with former Disney Imagineering employees and the state rolled the building into place overnight after the appropriate supports were constructed and primary structure fabbed in a separate location.
Pre-pandemic, another Archway was planned for Texas on I-35.
The optical systems feeding the “assist” features include an IR camera, but really bad weather would render the system useless. I’ve learned that RainX will interfere with the IR on my Camry, resulting in “Camera failed” messages appearing on my dash.