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Don’t Get Around Much Anymore

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Today’s post comes from Bathtub Safety Officer Rafferty.

Attention Civillians!

Winter has arrived and if you have any awareness of what it means to drive under icy conditions, please share that information with your neighbor immediately. It may be an awkward conversation because most people who have been on the planet for more than five years think they already understand what a life-changing difference a little bit of ice can make, and yet we as a species suffer from seasonal amnesia.

As a result, we must all regularly re-calibrate our heads in order to deal appropriately with the likely occurrence of a total loss of traction. Too many people allow the reliable footing of late Spring, Summer and early Fall to become their default expectation. This leads to terrible consequences when things go frictionless in November and December.

The moments that pass between the time you start sliding and the time you stop are terrifying!

That’s why I always try to act like a space walker, no matter where I am.

I stay tethered to a stationary object, move gingerly and always operate under Newton’s First Law – a thing in motion stays in motion until acted upon by an external force.

Once you incorporate that idea into your moment-by-moment decision making, it has a profound effect. So before I start out in any direction, I look to see what kind of massive obstacle is likely to stop my progress. Usually I’m not too enthused about the way things will probably end.

So I stand around a lot and wind up not going anywhere, much.

Yes, people say I’m boring, but it turns out that standing still is also an important part of Newton’s First Law! When the first snow falls, staying put is a great survival strategy. You should try it!

Cautiously Yours,
B.S.O.R.

Share some winter driving trips.

59 thoughts on “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”

  1. Oh my, Dale, thank you for sharing the story about Monday morning’s commute with those of us who live outstate! I had not realized how bad the driving was in parts of the metro.
    B. S. O. Rafferty would like one of our strategies – when the snow is really bad, stay home. We live on a gravel road. The township only has one snow plow, so our road doesn’t always get plowed very quickly. Once you have driven to the end of the gravel road, you get to some county roads that also might not have been plowed yet. A couple of years ago, a lot of snow came down on Christmas Eve. On Christmas morning, we “always” drive north to my sister’s for dinner, but we stayed home that year. We made snow angels and played outside and didn’t have to worry about what roads were plowed. Then by the next day, enough roads had been cleared and we could go to visit.

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  2. This should be interesting. If you’ve lived in this area any length of time, you WILL have some winter driving stories, no doubt about it. Here’s how Garrison Keillor describes his morning drive yesterday on his Facebook page: “Drove downtown on slick icy streets for breakfast then to the Post Office to drop a letter in the box which is on a steep hill going down to the railroad overpass. I saw three cars bunched up at odd angles at the bottom of the hill and inched away from the curb and the car started sliding on its own and slid all the way down to a blue Honda and smacked into it sideways. An interesting sensation of helplessness. Exchanged phone numbers with the driver (who had just smacked into the other two cars) and drove home. Thanks to the Honda, I didn’t hit the overpass. Good to be reminded, as winter arrives, that the laws of physics apply to all of us, whether we believe in them or not.”

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  3. I admit it, I’m a wuss when it comes to winter driving. I hate the feeling that Garrison describes as “an interesting sensation of helplessness.” I find nothing interesting or charming about it! Now that I’m retired, I stay off the roads when driving conditions are slick. I still recall vividly one early winter morning many years ago when I was working in the IDS Center, and commuted daily between St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis. Driving conditions were pretty much like yesterday morning, perhaps with a tad more snow, but nothing treacherous by the looks of it. Traffic was heavy but moving at a cautious pace. Some guy, driving a four-wheel-drive SUV, was passing everyone in the far left lane as we approached the intersection of 280. He had just passed me when apparently he hit a patch of glare ice. His car started rotating clockwise, all the while sliding across five lanes of traffic before it stopped in the far right lane having completed a 360º rotation. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. How he managed to not hit anyone in the process of that maneuver I’ll never know, dumb luck is my guess, but I’m pretty sure everyone who witnessed it, including the driver of that SUV, eased off the gas for the rest of that commute.

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    1. Something very similar once happened to me on westbound I-94 on the east side during an ice storm. It wasn’t in heavy traffic, though. I saw headlights facing me on the same side of the median a little distance ahead, and just had time to think, “Well, that’s not good,” and then my car began to slide. It slid around 360 degrees, sort of slowly, and then as it was straightening out in a forward direction, it nosed fairly gently into the ditch.

      I sat there briefly trying to recover my equilibrium, and realized the headlights I had seen belonged to a car that had spun 180 degrees and come to rest against the guardrail in the leftmost lane. In a short space of time two more cars slid into the ditch behind me. We were all hitting the same ice patch. I didn’t feel very safe in the ditch, so I coaxed the car back up onto the shoulder and drove very slowly away. Would have liked to see if the other drivers were okay, but couldn’t work out a safe place to stop.

      When I spun, I think I went clockwise, too. I wonder if cars south of the equator spin counterclockwise on icy patches….?

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  4. Good morning. I had the experience of turning my driver side door into a escape hatch that I opened to climb vertically out of the cab of my truck. The truck was laying on it’s side after spinning out on an icy curve in the road and going out of control into a field where it tipped over on it’s side. I was not hurt. The truck needed some body work and was able to run again after a mechanic got the oil out of the engine cylinders which had filled up with oil when truck was on it’s. Latter I was in a spin out on another icy road with the same truck, a Ranger pickup. After that I got rid of the truck which was a hazard on icy roads due to the design with rear wheel drive and no weight on the rear wheels.

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  5. A pig on roller skates is the way I heard it described on the radio years ago and it stuck. That’s the sensation. I laugh at others and curse my rotten tires as they spin in the snow. sidewalk deiced sales have made me a winter fan for about 40 years now. Last year was very disappointing let’s hope for a good icy year. Pj get some cleats for your shoes

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      1. That’s good advice, tim, and a very sweet offer, Steve, but Hans bought me a pair last year, so I’m all set. They don’t work real well on the bathroom floor though, and they wreak havoc on the Oriental carpets.

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  6. Snow tires and caution make you a genius as the others are sliding around in the demolition derby we call winter. I bought my first Volvo in 1986 and got them to throw in all sorts of extras as part of the deal. One of the ideas they ad was to add the posi traction rear end for better winter traction. I called back about two months into the deal and complained that the car was spinning out on the slightest of inclines and it was very frustrating. They called sweetness and discovered that they were mistaken and snow tires were a must. II never had another problem with my valve but now I do have the inconvenience if haveing to own an extra set of tires for every vehicle. Expensive but a real need for Minnesota. A coat, a shovel and snow tires it’s part of the deal.

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    1. At least get all weather tires which are a help on slippery roads and can also be used in the summer. I keep a sleeping bag in my car in the winter to use in case I get stranded in a bad winter storm when traveling.

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      1. but if after the winter is over you drive em all summer by the time you get to next winter the tread isnt worth a darn anyway. so you can buy new tires for winter and stay safe then take em off in april you get to inspect your summer tread and see if you are in good shape there too. november 15 and april 5 are the magic dates. if you can get an extra set of wheels so the tires dont need to be put on the rims and taken off thats a great idea. part of the expense of owning a car in minnesota.

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      2. I read that the winter tires are the ones that are fast to wear out and could wear down fast if used year around. All weather tires are made with longer wearing material and will not wear out as fast as winter tires.

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        1. True winter tires come off in April but work way better than all weather in snow and ice in the winter season
          It absolutely means changing the tires
          You could have kept the ranger

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  8. I drove through the Halloween blizzard back in, what was that, 1990? I figure getting home from White Bear Lake to Minneapolis in about 3 hours driving a rear-wheel drive Chevette without getting stuck (until I was in my alley almost to the house where I was living at the time) was a pretty amazing feat. Don’t think I got above 20 mph that whole drive. Same with driving home through the ice storm a couple years back – driving on glare ice with my little Beetle reassured me that the Germans know from traction control. The only place I really got stuck was going up a hill where I had lost momentum (tried going up one way only to have a minivan crossways in the road, so I had to back down the hill and try a different route up…almost made it, but the last 1/2 block was uniquely frustrating – thought long and hard about the ethics about “borrowing” some snow melt from a nearby SA that had the stuff outside and calling them when they reopened in the morning to pay for it…thankfully, I got myself going without resorting to lawlessness). Again, I got home unscathed by being overly cautious, taking the long way around to avoid hills, and remembering my physics…also, being willing to look foolish by traveling very very slowly.

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    1. Isn’t it amazing how aware you become of hills and even slight inclines when driving on slippery roads? There are some pretty steep hills from the lower West Side to where I live, so I’ve learned the alternate routes around them. My old SAAB is a wonderful car to drive in winter, my beautiful Capri was absolutely hopeless. It refused to climb even the slightest incline when it was slippery.

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    2. i was between marrages and took the kids to the eden prairie mall because the snow was so heavy to walk around tha neighborhood would have been stupid . i gotem a bunch of candy and then dropped them at their moms house and went to my girlfriends house watching the pigs in roller skates all the way up the highway. i knew i was going to be snowed in the next day and was giddy about the prospect of selling my winter stuff. funny how perspective changes the scene. ill bet the snow skiing places were happy too. i remember that the snow that came down first was wet and heavy hitting warm streets then covered by 3 feet of fluff it froze and was difficult to get off the road surfaces because of the way it was layered in the storm and then allowed to sit while we al caught outr breath and tried to figure out what to do. bless those snow plow guys

      then there is my story about being in the san bernadino mountains when it snowed 5 feet in 24 hours and the snow plows pushed the cars off the side of the mountains. the old vw van got dragged on its side for a mile and was never the same pretty little road frau after that. foot of snow in palm springs that storm.
      moral of the story. hang on tight its coming

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    3. I drove through the same ice storm that Anna mentions. I was proceeding down Portland at a crawl and twice my car drifted toward the curb. I was using no gas, no brakes, no steering. That was the most terrifying as it seemed to be happening without cause. I suppose that the slight peak that all roads have where the center is higher than the sides might explain it. I was very fortunate that the time it drifted all the way to the curb, there were no cars parked at that exact spot. If it hadn’t been extremely cold with me in party clothes and 15 blocks from home, I would have left the car and walked.
      Friends had to drive from downtown to St Louis Park and my cousin’s son was riding around on his bike that night. I can’t imagine doing either of those things.

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      1. I drove home from Golden Valley to south Minneapolis. Highway 100 was an ice rink, even with cars and exhaust to help melt things. I wound up getting off at a spot where I went up an “on” ramp…saw other folks doing it, too – so I took the chance. Found out later that the ramps to 62 were blocked totally by cars in the ditch, sideways…probably run into each other, so getting off where I did was a good choice (the actual exit at Vernon/50th was also clogged with cars that had gotten stuck halfway up the ramp). It was getting from that on ramp back up to Vernon that was the problem. Once I was on Vernon/50th street, I was good. Took a detour south at Xerxes to avoid some hills and managed to get behind a sand truck for part of the route (phew). The MTC bus that I saw sideways on 50th just east of Xerxes was apparently still there, and still sideways, the next morning. I have never been so grateful to get home, and never been so terrified that I might not make it.

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  10. Drive slow and drive in Low Gear if necessary. We had an ice storm on Friday, and daughter did a fine job driving on ice for the first time.

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  11. As PJ mentioned, STAY HOME is one tactic but works best if you’re retired or under-employed. A corollary to that for retirees: only take on volunteer jobs where your presence can wait a day if necessary.
    – Learn the back roads to all your routes so you can leave the freeway when some idiot has slid across the five lanes and blocked three of them.
    – Keep more distance than usual between you and the car ahead, when possible. Of course, other idiots will zoom in to fill the space, but keep trying.
    – Put the winter paraphernalia in the car in October [scrapers, sand, shovel, blanket and extra mittens (“choppers!”), chocolate and/or Salted Nut Rolls, gallon of water].
    – You can take out the fold-up sun shade now.

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    1. Don’t forget the jumper cables. Is that gallon of water so that you’ll always have a nice big ice cube for your adult beverages, BiR?

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      1. I like to think I won’t be there that long, but I always get thirsty… and I forgot to mention the Snickers bars, although that falls under chocolate, I suppose…

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  12. I tried to drive from my apartment in Northfield to work in Faribault during the Halloween blizzard but they closed the roads. I had shoveled the driveway all morning long but could hardly keep up. The streets and Highway 3 in Northfield had hard-packed snow on them and it was very rough and slippery at the same time. As I got south of town, near Dundas, I could see flashing lights from a sheriff’s car ahead. It had taken me an hour to get there from my apartment in Northfield (usually a 10 minute drive). I stopped near the sheriff and he waved me back, saying the roads were all closed. It took me another hour to get back to my apartment, where I continued to shovel snow for the remainder of the day and night.

    I’ve had some white-knuckle drives but no terrible accidents due to winter driving. I guess I’ve been lucky. I tend to be very cautious, go very slowly, keep a lot of distance between my car and other vehicles, and use the gears to shift down instead of stepping on the brake (one of the perks of a manual transmission). I will be investing in snow tires soon.

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    1. I have been considering that my next car might be an automatic (my first) but then I think of losing the abiity to downshift when it’s slippery and to rock to get unstuck (can you rock to get unstuck in a standard?)

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        1. I think so, but I can’t say for sure. The only reason I’d want an automatic is for driving in the Cities. Out here on the windy prairie, I like to have a manual.

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  13. Greetings! Yeah, I got a couple doosies from winter driving. When we first got married, we were driving home from Christmas gathering in Green Bay in a snow storm and had an accident in Shawano (barely an hour away). A 17-yr old totaled both our cars, but we were fine. Just needed some major chiropractic care for a few weeks. Another trip home from from Christmas in Green Bay, when Nick was just a baby and we’re driving in a white-out blizzard. Couldn’t see, so Jim’s driving by memory because we were going directly to his parent’s house in Prescott. All was fine, but I was fit to be tied.

    This is why I hate driving. Just after we moved to Big Lake, I was driving to work at Pillsbury (downtown Minneapolis) on icy roads with an old Dodge. I was going slowly, when suddenly — for no reason — I started doing a 360. No one was close to me and nothing happened, but I was terrified. I pulled over and just started sobbing by side of road, too scared to keep driving. Once composed, I couldn’t decide whether to drive to work or go back home. As I recall, I drove toward work, but pulled in the closest Perkins in Anoka and called in to work. Meanwhile, I sat and decided what to do. Usually, I drove to Coon Rapids to catch Express bus to downtown, but it was probably too late. I’m guessing I went home.

    Most good advice has been given by others — mainly DON’T GO! If you do, go slow and ignore the asses who think their truck or SUV isn’t subject to the laws of physics. Wish I could retire or work from home so I wouldn’t have to stress out every time I drive. Thanks for the reminder, BSO Rafferty!

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  14. Many years ago, Hans and I and a bunch of friends had rented a couple of cabins somewhere near Itasca State Park for a weekend of cross country skiing. It was a great weekend with lots of skiing, saunaing, and feasting in the company of good friends. Sunday, after brunch, when it was time to drive back to the twin cities, it began to snow. When we set out, a light snow had begun to fall; by the time we reached the freeway heading south, all hell had broken loose. It was a complete white-out, you could not see the front of your own car, let alone the tail lights of the car in front. Hans was driving (an old Chevy Nova), how he was navigating, I have no idea. I remember Nancy in the back seat reciting “Jabberwocky” in an attempt to distract us from the fact that our lives were in peril. We made it back without incident, having passed numerous cars in the ditch (most of them overly confident four-wheel-drive SUVs and pick-up trucks). That trip left an indelible impression on me of what winter driving in Minnesota can be like, it’s an experience I steer clear of whenever I can.

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      1. I honestly don’t know what Nancy’s repertoire includes; I’ve never heard her recite anything before or since. Somehow that stuck in my head. I’ll have to ask her the next time I see her what else she might be able to recite.

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        1. Is Nancy someone known to Baboons or was she just one of the friends on the trip?
          Jabberwocky would be distracting but could also be like fingernails on a chalkboard to someone dealing with something so terrifying. I’m impressed that Hans handled both and lived to tell the tale. And I’m grateful that you ALL lived to tell the tale. And that you told the tale.

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        2. Nancy is not someone known to baboons on the trail as far as I know. We’ve just been friends for a real long time (say 35 years). I think Hans was so focused on driving that he paid no attention to Nancy or anyone or anything else.

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  15. Hey all – sorry I missed the excitement. Seemed kinda quiet when I got in last night.

    My tip is… if you are backing out of your driveway w/ snow banks on both sides, close the driver’s side door first!

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