Flashes of Panic

It wasn’t quite as dramatic out here as it apparently was in Boston. We got about a foot, give or take (depending on where in the drift you measured.) A. and I tromped around on snowshoes Sunday morning as the last flakes fell, watching people poking their noses out and starting to shovel and snow-blow. The part nobody is mentioning is that in addition to a heaping ladle-full of snow, it’s also damn cold. Nothing is melting; if it’s not scraped up, it’s getting packed down (or blown to where you scraped it up.)

Yesterday, I had a longwinded post started detailing my adventures driving back from Worcester (one of those interviews.) To condense it, we gambled that we could get there, talk, and get back before the roads got bad. We lost; the roads got bad faster than I’ve ever seen before.

I got my driver’s license at the height of a Maine winter, so I’m fully appreciative of the unique challenges of driving in snow. I learned (formally and, uh, informally) how to use both transmission and brakes to control my speed, how to handle a car in a skid, and how to avoid being a car in a skid. I learned to feel when any of my wheels weren’t gripping the road. As a consequence of all this, I drive with a pretty high level of confidence. (That doesn’t mean, “fast.” The First Rule of Driving in Snow is that you do nothing quickly. You don’t turn quickly, you don’t accelerate quickly, and you don’t brake quickly. In order to avoid braking quickly, you don’t drive quickly.) (The Second Rule of Driving in Snow is to give a lot of space to drivers who don’t know the First Rule.) (The Third Rule of Driving in Snow is to stay the &$%# off the road if you can’t follow the first two rules, for whatever reason.)

I had the opportunity to ride with Brent last night, and he underlined the point; like me, he drives a relatively lightweight two-wheel-drive vehicle, but his Minnesotan experience gives him the confidence to take it where it needs to go (though he’s a bit more willing to let it skid than I usually am.)

On my way home Saturday night, I saw two cars which had obviously spun out on the side of the Mass Pike. Both were SUVs, presumably four-wheel-drives and presumably meant to be Good In Snow. One was nose-to the snowbank; the other was completely turned around, and the passengers looked quite shaken.

The lesson: Good In Snow is not something you buy. It sits in the driver’s seat.

Now Playing: Counting Blue Cars from Pet Your Friends by Dishwalla