Milwaukee's First Snowfall (the negatives)

[Gregory]

The negatives are being put here in the CA.

A lesson can be learned here in our city of Milwaukee. How to drive in snow. It's a great lesson because it can be applied to nearly all situations in life.

"You're never better or more important than anyone."

This is the first and most important step to driving in the snow. And it doesn't matter if you have a 4 cylindar featherweight car or a 2 ton disel sport utility.

Yet every year we deal with those who commute from the South who are used to big things, fast things, and important things. It's only naturall that they would think that they themselves to be big, fast, and important. Also, we deal with new generations of drivers who are inexperienced and quite frankly, showboaters.

There are so many needless deaths because of this. And i'm not referring to those who died who were described in the paragraph above, i'm referring to the innocent bystandards who could not escape the danger that was caused by those in the previous paragraph. And it's not just in the snow, it's in all situations all year 'round.

If I could give a message to the world, it would be the first step in learning to drive in the snow. I'm making it my new year's resolution to remember and excersize this step in all that I do.

And for those who come to visit or commute to our city and bring your big, fast, and important practices I have this piece of advice. "Leave the kids at home, infact drive alone. Go to highway 32, drive to you get to Lake Drive, turn east, and just keep going". Better for you to get your narcissistic fix as a suicide article than a vehicular homicide article.

[Moon Princess]

Been in the situation of being the bystander and it wasn't snowing.

That's why life is so precious yet a game of chance.

[Grey]

Before the advent of seat belts, front and side-impact airbags, rear-view cameras, auto-braking, motion sensors, etc., one could argue people were safer drivers because, psychologically, they knew that if they were not careful, there wasn't much to protect them. By that same argument, today's drivers can reason, falsely or not, that the technology can make up for a lack of driving skill, rather than enhancing (in my opinion, unnecessarily) their control of their vehicle. One way to look at it, at least, though the statistics (sources per request) indicate that, proportionate to the number of vehicles on the road, the number of MVAs per year in this country is up considerably from what it was ten, twenty, or fifty years ago.

Personally, I know just as many self-described "safe" drivers that are nearly as much a menace to other vehicles on the road as the people considered "reckless," if not more so. The problem here in Georgia is that good ol' Southern hospitality, where it makes sense to come to a complete stop in a travel lane to let someone merge or even turn into said lane, the twenty cars suddenly braking behind you be damned. Or my personal favourite, traffic coming to a screeching halt because of a funeral procession. I can count on more than one hand the number of MVAs I've personally seen as a result of police-escorted funeral processions.

Winter driving can be alot of fun, in my opinion. It presents at least a touch of a challenge in some cases, particularly around motorists unfamiliar with driving in such conditions. While I was stationed up north I was the Off-road and winter driving instructor (per my duties as Flight Safety NCO) and had alot of fun teaching the kids from the southeast and particularly southern California how to handle an up-armoured HMMWV in the snow, slush, and mud.

[Moon Princess]

I love technology, but it's technology along with the dumbing down of society that has made personal responsibility and common sense nonexistent. That applies to more than driving.

Then there's very helpful technology people think they are too good to use like blinkers (turn signals). I'm not a friggin' mind reader. Though it can be just as annoying to go down the road with someone who leaves their blinker on.

Ever notice people drive even more stupidly in parking lots than on the road...o.O