Driving in the Rain.

[drunkenwildmage]

Hmmm... From the Ohio Revised Digest of Motor vehicle laws.


Driving in the rain or wet conditions takes extra care since the roads tend to become slick. As a result the following is required in these conditions

1) Drive to the conditions of the road. Conditions of the road may not allow you to maintain the speed limit.
2)Turn on your headlights and windshield wipers. Headlights are required in the state of Ohio when it's raining or snowing.
3) Using your hands separate your butt cheeks with one hand on each cheek making sure you have a firm grip
4) insert head.

[Geek King]

People here drive ridiculously slow for rain, but act like kamekazis when the snow and ice flies. Drives me crazy.

[blas]

I wish people around here got the freaking hint that just because it's not officially night time or dead dark out does NOT mean squat.....if it's gloomy and doomy, especially with drizzle/sleet/snow, turn your fucking headlights on!

And the other morning when fog was as thick as pea soup....what are you tards thinking?!

It must be really that bad, because it's been gloom and doom weather here for so long, every Friday I hear the weatherman say "Folks, please turn your headlights on so that others can see you in this *insert fog/sleet/rain/snow*"

[protege]

I could fill up several volumes about the idiot drivers here. Who knew that one little snowflake or raindrop...could turn every road in the damn county into a parking lot. No matter that it's snowed here for the past 300 years, people freak out over it. Granted, we do get some heavy snows at times (3 *feet* one year :eek:), but for the most part, our winters are a bit mild.

Really people, there's no reason to be plodding along at 5mph on a perfectly clear, or even wet road :rolleyes:

Of course we have the other extreme--the people who think that 4WD and SUVs are impervious to ice. These idiots do 90mph under those conditions, and then can't understand why they soon wrap their cars around light poles and/or other vehicles.

[Salted Grump]

<Snip> Granted, we do get some heavy snows at times (3 *feet* one year :eek:), but for the most part, our winters are a bit mild.
<Snip>

Only 3 feet? Wimp.

I admit to slowing down a bit during winter driving, but that's a measure of common sense, plus the fact that my road turns into a black-ice skating rink all winter.

[protege]

Only 3 feet? Wimp.

Actually, 3 feet was nothing. It was the taller snowdrifts you have to worry about...especially when you can't look out your windows :eek: But, either way, when you live or work in the city, it's difficult. Where do you put that much snow?

[AriRashkae]

Of course we have the other extreme--the people who think that 4WD and SUVs are impervious to ice. These idiots do 90mph under those conditions, and then can't understand why they soon wrap their cars around light poles and/or other vehicles.

One of my favorite quotes from one of my husband's uncles?

"Four wheel drive does not mean four wheel stop." :lol:

[Mnemjian]

You guys should see people drive in the rain in Southern California. It's hilarious! Well, until somebody hits something, which happens a lot. Pretty much, as soon as the teensiest amount of water comes out of the sky, traffic slows to an absolute crawl and everybody forgets how to drive. Luckily it only happens about 5 times a year ^^

[infinitemonkies]

I hate snow. It's a big part of why I moved out to Vancouver island from Ontario.
Here in Victoria we tend to get only an inch or two, and it usually only lasts for about a week. A couple years ago, our entire winter was about 2 hours on a saturday morning in december.

This city has no idea how to handle snowfall. If there is even an inch of snow on the ground, it's not uncommon for roads to close, buses to run upwards of 90 minutes late, and a 3+ hour wait to try to get a cab.

However, I love the first day it snows; specifically, I love listening to the traffic report on the radio when it first snows. The Greater Victoria Area has a population of about 250,000, and if we get even 1/4 inch, there will be a minimum of 100 serious collisions/hour for the first 5 or 6 hours. Last year, I went into a sports bar I live near and made bets with the staff about car accidents :)

[otakuneko]

You think Canada's bad. At least y'all get it pretty consistently every year. Try snow in TEXAS. Heck, try any variation of "frozen water from the sky" and drivers here go nuts.

[Andara Bledin]

You guys should see people drive in the rain in Southern California. It's hilarious! Well, until somebody hits something, which happens a lot. Pretty much, as soon as the teensiest amount of water comes out of the sky, traffic slows to an absolute crawl and everybody forgets how to drive. Luckily it only happens about 5 times a year ^^
My take on it? The first drop hits and it's all, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling" and everybody turns in to Chicken Little, losing what little common sense they started out with.

My ex was driving me to the Urgent Care center (bronchitis, not fun) and it was drizzling out. Just enough to get all the oils to the surface of the road. We were stopped at a light and got to watch some moron speed by on the right, completely fail to stop and slam into someone turning in front of him. Flipped the other car around and into a light pole. I'd have stayed to be a witness, but I felt like utter crap, and it was pretty obvious that neither car was going anywhere.

^-.-^

[Mnemjian]

My take on it? The first drop hits and it's all, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling" and everybody turns in to Chicken Little, losing what little common sense they started out with.

:roll: That's pretty accurate I think!

My mom calls that oil slick that comes to the surface of the road when it rains "Darwin's lil' helper."

[ADoyle90815]

My take on it? The first drop hits and it's all, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling" and everybody turns in to Chicken Little, losing what little common sense they started out with.

^-.-^

That's true, I think that when the first drops hit, the IQ points of many drivers drop several points to where they forget about the oil slick that's now exposed.

[EricKei]

I never could understand why people can't seem to drive properly in the rain here. I live in a town where -- at least, Pre-K -- it rained EVERY SINGLE DAY in some part of the city from about May through August every freaking year.

[mharbourgirl]

Actually, 3 feet was nothing. It was the taller snowdrifts you have to worry about...especially when you can't look out your windows :eek: But, either way, when you live or work in the city, it's difficult. Where do you put that much snow?

Dunno about anyone else, but we dump it in Halifax Harbour. :)

Don't arsk me about the psychotic snow plow drivers who think mailboxes are speedbumps and street signs are targets. :p

[TheSHAD0W]

Here in the desert, we've had periods with no rain for more than 6 months. Over time, the little drippings cars release build up in the asphalt. If we're lucky, we get the usual isolated thunderstorm or monsoon that does a good job of quickly rinsing off the road. But on the rare occasion when, after all that time, we only get a sprinkle... You'd think it was winter in Canada and black ice was on the road. Cars all go sideways. I'd be hysterical if it weren't for the carnage.

[protege]

Dunno about anyone else, but we dump it in Halifax Harbour. :)

Here though, even with 3 rivers...there's really nowhere to dump it. Dropping it into the rivers actually makes the problem worse--we usually get massive flooding in some areas when the thaws come :eek:

[Shalom]

Dunno about anyone else, but we dump it in Halifax Harbour. :)

Several years ago, New York City had several days in a row of snow, and it piled up to where they couldn't figure out where to get rid of it. Eventually they loaded it into dump trucks, backed them out on a pier and dumped them into the East River. This got the environmentalists all up in arms. "How can you dump that in the river, it's all full of salt from the roads!" until someone in the city government eventually pointed out that the damn East River is made of salt water to begin with. This shut them up.

(Not technically a river, it's a tidal strait connecting New York Bay and Long Island Sound, both of which are salt.)

I read in a railroad history book how the Canadian railroads dealt with snow in their yards during the steam era. You can't plow out yard tracks with a snowplow, because all you'll accomplish is to just bury the next track over. The Canadian National had one of their master mechanics cobble up an apparatus which scooped up snow, melted it with steam from the locomotive, and pumped it into a tank car. When that was full, they ran it out onto the nearest bridge and poured it out into (or onto) the river, then went back for more. This machine would just go back and forth, back and forth, from one end of the yard to the other, all day long during the snowstorms.

The Canadian Pacific took the easier way out: any time they had an empty gondola or hopper car going south, they'd fill it with snow before dispatching it. By the time that car got back to its home road in South Carolina or wherever, it had all melted and they were shut of it...

[Chromatix]

I don't know what they do with the snow in Helsinki, except that I've seen lorries (of the kind used to move rock and gravel) loaded with the stuff and presumably heading somewhere. But there's plenty of places that it *could* go, including the Baltic Sea or any amount of countryside.