Stay Safe Out There, Peeples!

5 Responses to Stay Safe Out There, Peeples!

1. Chris Peterson says:

   November 30, 2019 at 5:43 pm

   I miss having a ringside seat when “Snow Happens”, sitting out on the deck at the plaza house in Nevada City. Very entertaining.

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2. George Boardman says:

   December 2, 2019 at 1:55 pm

   I have a hard time understanding why people who have lived here all or most of their lives don’t know how to deal with snow. I recall a storm several years ago where people just abandoned their cars on the streets and then complained later when they got tickets.

   I’m a flatlander who had rarely driven in snow when we moved up here in 2000, but I learned that going slow and applying a little common sense got me where I was going in one piece. Why is this difficult to figure out?

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3. Steven Frisch says:

   December 13, 2019 at 6:48 am

   Good question George.

   I am reminded of the quote by Charles Bukowski, reinforced every day on Nevada County social media, that “the problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubt while stupid people are full of confidence.”

   Every year I see the same confidence when people put chains on in the middle of the road, cars that pass me going uphill in 4 wheel drive end up in snow banks on the downhill slope, and some poor schmuck who does not heed warnings or common sense is lost for days on a back road never seen by a plow in the winter.

   And yet every year I stop to warn, lend a shovel and hope for the best for the Stolpa’s.

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4. George Boardman says:

   December 13, 2019 at 2:46 pm

   Another contributing factor is all of the safety technology in today’s cars–stabilizing systems, 4-wheel drive, sophisticated braking systems, etc.–give some drivers the idea they can defy the laws of nature when they drive in bad weather.

   The seasonal ads on TV show all kinds of expensive cars being driven effortlessly in snow with no pavement in sight. How hard can it be?

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5. Chris Peterson says:

   December 14, 2019 at 9:25 am

   Not meaning it in any pejorative way, I’ve always found people who ask why folks have such trouble driving in the snow to be somewhat ignorant on the subject. Having driven in snow in many states and a few countries, it is seldom the same, even if geographically.

   Snow can be wet, dry, powdery, clumpy, frozen hard, or light and fluffy. Driving on it can be like driving through deep mud, driving on the crackling surface of an ice sheet, or driving on a soft blanket. I’ve driven on snow in the upper peninsula of Michigan, with it’s 20-mile-long straightaways through endless forests, at 60 mph on packed highways of dry snow, but also not been able to even get to my car sitting in my driveway because the snow has become a sheet of ice that no one can drive, or even walk, on.
   I once drove a military Jeep in Mersin, Turkey in a snow storm and wasn’t able to move more than a few feet because the snow was like Elmers glue.

   So, whenever anyone asks why their neighbors, wherever they are, are having trouble driving on snow, it makes me wonder how, or why, anyone would even ask such a question. I would think that, the more experience one has with snow storms, the less one would ask that question. There is a great saying about the hubris of “a little knowledge” that directly applies to how far that and a gallon of gas will get you in a snow storm.

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