Winter driving in Ct. - Rant

[Beer Belly]

C'mon people, what are you thinking ??.....this happens too often, somebody is gonna get hurt. I'm driving down I84, the state trucks have one lane in the middle with some blacktop showing, so everybody heads for that lane.....I'm in my truck, have the ability to safely drive in the slop that are in the other two lanes. So here I am, in the left lane slop passing the line of cars to my right....well, the state guys have this cleared lane zig zag right into my left lane, and here comes that line of traffic right at me....hit the brakes, get a little out of shape, straighten back out without hitting the barrier....geez people, how could you not see me, we were door to door. Now I'm not one of those hot rod, I got four wheel drive show offs, I could be passing these people in my Wife Maxima.....and there is no way you can mistaken that you just switched lanes when you were 20 feet to the right of the barrier, and went to 8 feet of the barrier

 

[firefighterjake]

Winter drivers in Maine seem to mostly fall into one of two camps: Those who are oblivious to the road conditions and think their 4WD or AWD vehicle is unstoppable and so they drive about 15 mph over the speed limit and act as if it was a warm, sunny day in the summer as they pass a line of seven cars stacked up behind the snow plow . . . and those who think the plowed and salted, half bare road is a glare sheet of ice and their cars have bald tires and if they don't keep their speed to half that of the speed limit their car will fly off the road, hit a tree and burst into flame.

Of course there are a few folks who seem to drive cautiously and prudently . . .

 

[Warm_in_NH]

After the big storm 2 weeks ago here in the NE I was driving from NH to CT. On 495 in MA where they got about 24" of snow, the road was bare but the banks weren't pushed back.
The left lane was doing about 75 mph, but the snow bank was covering the left side fog line and was right to the edge of the travel part of the lane. But, occasionally (every 15 miles) the plow veered out a bit so the snow bank would actually be into the travel lane. Made for some very attentive white knuckle driving.
Eventually the guy in front of me caught the snow bank at 75 mph. Holy cow! Wish I had a camera to capture it. Looked like a bomb went off (see video on here of train busting through snow) snow flying everywhere, cars swerving, total chaos.
He ended up stopped in the middle lane, somehow didn't get hit by anyone else. Not sure if it was his in attentiveness or another jog in the snow bank into the travel lane, amazing it wasn't a giant pile up though.

 

[Beer Belly]

those who think the plowed and salted, half bare road is a glare sheet of ice and their cars have bald tires and if they don't keep their speed to half that of the speed limit their car will fly off the road, hit a tree and burst into flame.

Of course there are a few folks who seem to drive cautiously and prudently . . .

I'm thinking those are the people I'm likely dealing with....some are down right scared out of their mind.....probably should of stayed home.....I won't go into the slop if it's bad.....I do drift over to test first, and usually the only one in the lane, or at least 10 car lengths in front of me.....once I pass, I get back in the better lane till I reach the next pack.