The Perils of Driving in the White Stuff
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If you live in Canada, then you have to know a thing or two about driving in snow. The first thing I know is that I don’t like it.
In fact, I hate snowstorms. When I have to drive anywhere in a snowstorm, I mentally map out the easiest route. That means the flattest route or, at least, the one with the fewest number of hills. I don’t trust my own car to make it up a steep grade and I trust other cars even less.
But there’s an easy-to-spot problem with this answer. How do I eventually get back to where I started? Finding a route back can become problematic. Driving mainly downhill on the way there must necessarily mean driving uphill on the way back. It’s the motoring equivalent of walking against the wind after starting out with what seems to be only a stiff breeze at your back. The return journey can take on a whole new complexion.
That’s why I’m often an unwelcome long-term guest at the home of friends, relatives, restaurants, the bulk food store, the mall, the liquor store or a movie theatre. There’s only so many times one can watch “Sex in the City, the Movie” without running back out into the cold. A couple of times, I’ve asked employees at the liquor store if they could set up an overnight cot for me, but this has always been met with unfriendly gestures.
The other alternative is to drive the long way around to avoid excessive peaks and valleys. This is fine in theory, but it has its own drawbacks. There are parts of town that I really don’t want to visit. Plus there’s the matter of running out of gas or windshield wiper fluid. Either of those events can put a serious crimp in your day, especially if you’re not wearing the proper boots or gloves to trek to a service station in a blizzard.
You’re probably thinking that I’m making too big a deal about driving in winter in Canada. Let me tell you a true story. I have actually been driving along in a snowstorm up in cottage country when I’ve turned on the radio, for a traffic and weather update, only to hear that the highway I’m on has just been closed. That leads me to think, “No wonder I’m no longer able to follow the red taillights of a car in front of me or to judge approximately where I am by approaching headlights.” Instead, there’s just me, bitter cold beyond the confines of my car, a howling and buffeting wind and near constant white outs.
If you have the family with you under such circumstances, the kids think it’s an adventure driving in the white stuff until you’ve yelled at them enough times to convince them that not everybody’s having fun. “Daddy’s got to concentrate on the road,” I say reasonably the first time, then with increasing hysteria as my nerves get more and more frayed.
Snow blindness can do funny things to the imagination. Is that vague shape that I’ve been following at a crawl for ten minutes a Lexus or a BMW with its rear end covered in snow? No, it’s a cow with a bell and how the heck did I end up in the middle of this field anyway?
There are quaint terms for the kinds of weather that lead to the worst driving conditions – snow squalls and lake effect snow storms. These convey an impression of something that hobbits might encounter while questing for a magical ring.
Phooey on that. Spinning my wheels and getting nowhere is not how I want to spend my time. Maybe Mother Nature’s got it right. For December through March, that whole hibernation thing is starting to seem like a pretty good idea.
Alex Carrick
Find Canadian construction-related economic articles in Canadian Construction Market News and in the Economic Outlook section of Daily Commercial News.
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