On Tue, 4 Feb 2014 23:34:55 -0500, "Mike Marlow"
wrote:

John Grossbohlin wrote:
"basilisk" wrote in message
...


What most southerners could really benefit from is rudimentary
driving lessons, for instance yesterday there was a little over an
inch on the roads, it's cold enough that it is a dry blowing snow
over some pack ice on the roads. People drove in the ditches by the
tens of thousands. I don't understand it.

Last Wednesday morning one of those drivers got stuck on the railroad
tracks just north of Gainesville... the AMTRAK train I was on hit the
car shortly after the driver abandoned it. Net result was a tow
truck was needed to pull the car out of the front of the train and we
had a 2 hour 20 minute delay... I saw thousands of abandoned and
trapped cars... 3-5 lane wide parking lots that went on for mile
after mile! Glad we skirted most of the problems... ran into some
closed roads though as so many cars were abandoned that they were
blocked to further traffic. Crazy!

I've seen similar types of congestion in the south where they just don't
have the equipment to deal with this kind of storm. To be honest, our
drivers up north are getting more and more stupid as the years go by. We
see way more foolish stuff that people up here should just simply be aware
of, but seemingly are not. I guess it just owes to the dumbing down of
people. We don't see the same kind of problems since we are in the snow
country and we at least do have the equipment to deal with it but we seem to
be growing a newer and newer crop of stupidity.
Well, I was supposed to go out to the airport for my weekly "hangar
lunch" at noon, but the white crap was coming down pretty good - and
it was that grainy crap - not nice soft flakes - which made the roads
slippery as goose ****. The pick-em-up has snows and posi - but trying
to get around the corner from Weber Street to Columbia in Waterloo
the truck wanted to go straight ahead whether I had the brakes or the
gas on, and regardless which way I had the wheels turned. The snow
bank stopped me. Then I had to stop again when there were about a
dozen vehicles trying to make it up the grade in 6 inches of snow - I
went all the way up the hill crosswise, and decided to just go home
(another 2 blocks on the level) instead of another 10 miles of country
hills and curves.

Sometimes it's all about knowing when to quit!!!