Texas and Icy Roads

It's commonly known that I grew up in Germany. Icy roads, and snow arn't so unusual in Germany. After living overseas, I moved to Utah. Icy roads, and snow arn't so unusual in Utah either. After Utah, I moved to Ohio. Icy roads, and snow are definitely NOT unusual in Ohio either - in fact, it would be more unusual NOT to have them.

However, it IS unusual to have icy roads and/or snow in Texas. So, when the day comes (generally once or twice a year) when there's ice or snow on the roads - the planet may as well stop rotating because everything stops in Texas. Now, we've known that we'd probably have ice and or snow this week - the newscasters and weatherfolks have been saying it for two weeks. Why is it then, that when it actually arrives everyone acts shocked and is totally unprepared?

As lame as it is, I have to include myself with the unprepared. I didn't have an ice scraper in the new car (Her name is Blue Star or Morning Star. Steve calls her Lady Blue. He's wrong.) and had to use my handy Wal-Mart gift card (aka gas discount card) to scrape the windshield yesterday afternoon to go home. It took me about an hour and a half to drive the whopping 20 miles home because everyone drove at a snails pace. People here don't know how to drive on snow or ice. Actually - they do the same thing during a heavy rain storm too.

This morning, the roads were still icy - but there was plenty of sand down for traction. I only saw two major accidents. Man - they were DOOZIES! There was plenty of great parking here at work. That would definitely attribute to the lack of employee's here today.

I've always thought that the traffic accidents were because Texans don't know how to drive in these kinds of weather situations. Cindy (my co-worker) shared something yesterday though that gives me cause to rethink that idea. It's not totally that Texans don't know how to drive in snow or ice. It's that people who DO know how to drive in it don't pay caution to the ones who don't. They drive as if everyone knows how to drive in it, and everyone around them gets freaked out. Makes sense to me.

So, today I drove in, being cautious to those around me - as they learn to drive on ice. There. I did it. I did a good deed. And I made it to work safely. Happy?

~heather

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