Road Adventures of Ms. Mad Max, and the Madness of local birdies
It's been snowing on and off for several days, and today we had about 3 inches. It's just below freezing so it's that heavy, thick snow that might have you needing people to push to get your car out of the parking space, and everything looks soft and beautiful. This is great winter, not painfully cold, no icy ground. Driving is fine, even fun - as long as you don't have to stop suddenly.
I nearly hit another car yesterday - it was a 70km/h stretch, and I had just been bitching to myself about the slowness of some people through the roundabout, when this big old Volvo station wagon in front of me started slipping. I think they'd been trying to brake and/or swerve to avoid a car standing on the side of the road, and they just kept sliding around, slowing down. I didn't dare try to steer clear because of traffic in the other lane (or, I couldn't get my eyes off the Volvo to check...), and I came about half a metre from catching the Volvo's back fender.
That little nerve tickler just survived, and some stupid woman had not brushed off the four inches of snow lying on her car roof, so when she hit the brakes it all slid down onto her windshield. She was standing still in between lanes (luckily there was a red light so people were slowing anyway), getting out of her car to clear the windshield, and she was looking all, "stupid snow!". I wanted to yell at her. There's a good reason they've recently changed the law here so that snow that falls/blows off your car while driving will be counted the same as goods falling off your car, if it hits another car or causes similar trouble.
And yes, I will try not to drive as fast or as close to the car in front of me while the roads are like this, because even if I were (which I'm clearly not) the God of steering wheels, shit happens. And I really want my next ride to have ABS brakes. But it's fun taking my rear-wheel drive car home at night when there's no traffic!
And just now, as I walked up to the front door at 1.30 am, snow still rushing down,
I could hear a little bird singing like it was springtime!
I nearly hit another car yesterday - it was a 70km/h stretch, and I had just been bitching to myself about the slowness of some people through the roundabout, when this big old Volvo station wagon in front of me started slipping. I think they'd been trying to brake and/or swerve to avoid a car standing on the side of the road, and they just kept sliding around, slowing down. I didn't dare try to steer clear because of traffic in the other lane (or, I couldn't get my eyes off the Volvo to check...), and I came about half a metre from catching the Volvo's back fender.
That little nerve tickler just survived, and some stupid woman had not brushed off the four inches of snow lying on her car roof, so when she hit the brakes it all slid down onto her windshield. She was standing still in between lanes (luckily there was a red light so people were slowing anyway), getting out of her car to clear the windshield, and she was looking all, "stupid snow!". I wanted to yell at her. There's a good reason they've recently changed the law here so that snow that falls/blows off your car while driving will be counted the same as goods falling off your car, if it hits another car or causes similar trouble.
And yes, I will try not to drive as fast or as close to the car in front of me while the roads are like this, because even if I were (which I'm clearly not) the God of steering wheels, shit happens. And I really want my next ride to have ABS brakes. But it's fun taking my rear-wheel drive car home at night when there's no traffic!
And just now, as I walked up to the front door at 1.30 am, snow still rushing down,
I could hear a little bird singing like it was springtime!