For the life of me I just don’t understand the stupidity of people when it snows.  I have been a courier in and around Salt Lake City for the last 13 years and every year I see the exact same things.  With today being the first significant snowfall of the year on a work day there are more than a few things to look out for and to seriously consider.

Since it’s a regular work day, that means that just about everybody is on the road.  From what I have seen so far today, I’m shocked to see that very few people have learned much of anything from past winter driving experience.

For some reason people seem to think that they’re invincible because of the vehicle that they drive.  Shockingly enough, this is not the case.

I’ve seen at least a dozen trucks off to the side of the road because they have bounced into the walls.

No matter how good your vehicle is, it won’t protect you from stupidity on the road.  For some reason people assume that when they drive a big fancy truck that costs like $50,000 that they will be protected no matter what they do.  This is also clearly a misnomer.  Operator error can make the best of things not work properly.

One thing that always gets me is that people think that they can just break at any time and they will be just fine.  That to me is the cause of most accidents in the snow.  For me as a courier I try the best I can to never break in terrible conditions.  The reason for this is because I have no idea what the traction is like underneath me.  If a situation arises for me to slow down all I do is take my foot off the gas and hope that I can slow significantly that way.  If by chance I do need to break I’ve already given enough space where I’m able to do so without having to slam on the brakes.  I pump it like I was taught in drivers ed. so that I can slow down without actually slipping on the ice.  This technique actually does work most of the time, but for some reason very few people put this into practice.

There is a reason most people can’t or won’t do that however.  That is because they are driving so close to everyone else that they don’t have the time necessary to do so.  This is a horribly unwise practice no matter the time of year.  If you are three feet behind the car in front of you and they have to brake for some reason then you will have absolutely no shot at avoiding an accident.

For me, that just doesn’t make sense because my goal when I go out on the road is to get to where I’m going safely and efficiently.  With that in mind, in weather like this speed is not your friend.  The faster you go the harder it is for you to stop.  I feel like there would be a lot fewer accidents out in weather like this if people just thought a little bit and drove substantially more defensively.  I’m not saying that you need to drive five miles an hour at the first sign of snow, but at least use some common sense.  If you need to get somewhere by a certain time and it’s snowing a lot maybe you should plan to leave a few minutes earlier than originally planned.

The next thing is the road needs your full attention.  It’s not just like any other day for those of you who multitask while you drive.  This is clearly not the time of year to do so.  Food needs to be put down, books and newspapers need to be set aside (if you are ever stupid enough to think that this is a wise practice to begin with) and cell phones should not be in use while you’re driving in weather such as this.  Trust me it will make it safer for all of us.

All we need to be a little more cautious a little more wear and understand our vehicles a little bit more and we’ll make the roads much safer place in bad weather.