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#52 Jan 30 2014 at 8:52 AM Rating: Excellent
The problem is that Atlanta is not flat. Atlanta is rather hilly, with additional artificial hills added in in the form of spaghetti junctions.

The interstates weren't salted/gritted ahead of time. They're also very recently repaved in many places. The snow stuck to the highway, which usually does not happen because the highway remains just above melting temperature from surface albedo. Big rigs and small cars alike could not make it up the inclines, since we don't have snow tires and most cars are not four wheel drive.

So you'd end up with a pile up of sliding cars at the base of every hill, slamming into other cars.
#53 Jan 30 2014 at 9:00 AM Rating: Excellent
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Honestly, the problem is that you guys just can't drive in snow. There's no reason to try and dress it up ("But we have hills!" -- so does the entire Northeastern US) beyond that. Driving in various bad weathers is a skill and you don't have it because you never get the practice. Most cars here don't have snow tires or all-wheel drive either but I still make it up hills.

It's not really anything to be ashamed of or have to "defend", it's just kind of amusing to read about (if you ignore the property and personal damage).
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#54 Jan 30 2014 at 9:09 AM Rating: Good
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Catwho wrote:
The problem is that Atlanta is not flat. Atlanta is rather hilly, with additional artificial hills added in in the form of spaghetti junctions.

The interstates weren't salted/gritted ahead of time. They're also very recently repaved in many places. The snow stuck to the highway, which usually does not happen because the highway remains just above melting temperature from surface albedo. Big rigs and small cars alike could not make it up the inclines, since we don't have snow tires and most cars are not four wheel drive.

So you'd end up with a pile up of sliding cars at the base of every hill, slamming into other cars.

Four wheel drive does't really provide more traction on ice than two wheel drive. The traction control in the newer, specially all-wheel drive vehicles are better on ice - particularly in black ice situations where the ice might be spotty and one or two wheels can get some grip.


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#55 Jan 30 2014 at 9:12 AM Rating: Good
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The interstates weren't salted/gritted ahead of time. They're also very recently repaved in many places. The snow stuck to the highway, which usually does not happen because the highway remains just above melting temperature from surface albedo. Big rigs and small cars alike could not make it up the inclines, since we don't have snow tires and most cars are not four wheel drive.


I know 1 person who puts snow tires on his car, and he's changing form weird low profile sports rims. I've never owned a 4 wheel drive car. We live in a pretty hilly area. There are accidents when it snows, but not that many. As Joph mentioned earlier, it's just an acquired skill. Here in Massachusetts, for instance, we are terrible at lynching people. I mean just awful. We just don't have the experience to draw from to get it right.
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#56 Jan 30 2014 at 9:30 AM Rating: Good
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Smasharoo wrote:
The interstates weren't salted/gritted ahead of time. They're also very recently repaved in many places. The snow stuck to the highway, which usually does not happen because the highway remains just above melting temperature from surface albedo. Big rigs and small cars alike could not make it up the inclines, since we don't have snow tires and most cars are not four wheel drive.


I know 1 person who puts snow tires on his car, and he's changing form weird low profile sports rims. I've never owned a 4 wheel drive car. We live in a pretty hilly area. There are accidents when it snows, but not that many. As Joph mentioned earlier, it's just an acquired skill. Here in Massachusetts, for instance, we are terrible at lynching people. I mean just awful. We just don't have the experience to draw from to get it right.

In Maine we mostly drive slow pretty much all the time. Just to be safe ya'know (and to **** off the massholes).

....and simply gawk at black people.

Edit- you just never know when you're going to get swatted by the swear filter.

Edited, Jan 30th 2014 4:31pm by Elinda
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#57 Jan 30 2014 at 9:48 AM Rating: Good
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Yeah, I'm driving a truck with standard wheels and front-wheel drive. You don't take hard turns in the snow, you don't shift lanes quickly, you avoid slamming on the breaks or the gas, etc.

Frankly, it's just standard "being careful" stuff. Just a heavier form of what you'd do in the early period of a rainstorm, when hydroplaning is a big risk.

And really, the proper reaction to sliding on ice is pretty much the same as hydroplaning. The only difference is that it's more important to steer into the turn, since you'll slide more than when hydroplaning.

I'll happily grant that the sliding part is a skill you just learn through experience. The rest is just a severe lack of higher thought processes.
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#58 Jan 30 2014 at 10:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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Jophiel wrote:
Honestly, the problem is that you guys just can't drive in snow. There's no reason to try and dress it up ("But we have hills!" -- so does the entire Northeastern US) beyond that. Driving in various bad weathers is a skill and you don't have it because you never get the practice. Most cars here don't have snow tires or all-wheel drive either but I still make it up hills.

It's not really anything to be ashamed of or have to "defend", it's just kind of amusing to read about (if you ignore the property and personal damage).


Actually, no. Snow isn't the problem. Ice is. No one can drive on ice. Driving means controlling the speed and direction of a vehicle. Ice = no traction = no control = you're not "driving".


It had nothing to do with skill. Check the photos. There were plenty of big rigs wrecked. Big Rigs driven by folks with training and years of experience driving through the lower 48 states. Yes, even the "cold" ones.


Granted, there are techniques required to drive in the snow and for when you hit patches of ice, and most Southerners do know the basic "Don't hit the breaks, steer into the skid and gradually guide the car back on track, etc" but there's nothing you can do when the entire road is a sheet of ice. It's simple physics.

I've driven OTR ( Over The Road) for 5 years. I've even lived in Long Island, NY. I've driven through a lot of terrible weather, I've seen a lot of terrible drivers. When it comes to winter driving, the most important thing is road prep, and GA failed miserably.
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#59 Jan 30 2014 at 10:45 AM Rating: Decent
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Smasharoo wrote:
Three inches doesn't even hold up to an afternoon of sledding.

Don't let your wife fool you, you can go all night like a lumberjack if you want to, sport.

My wife doesn't go sledding.
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#60 Jan 30 2014 at 10:48 AM Rating: Excellent
Yeah, I didn't have any really scary moments driving in Brrrr Montana in December when I was up there for a week for work. (The office up there is still kind of laughing at us = they got another foot and a half in the last week.)

But the roads there were properly salted, and the temperature remains so cold all winter that it doesn't melt on the side streets. I was able to drive just fine on the snow (dang that's noisy). But again, it was flat there, for the most part.

I slid down a really steep incline during an ice storm back in 2003-ish. I remembered to steer into the curb rather than slide into ongoing traffic on the major highway at the foot of the hill. Once the light at the base turned green, I threw the car in reverse, gunned it, and slid all the way down to the street where the road had been treated and there was no ice.

After that adventure, I refuse to drive in icy weather around here.
#61 Jan 30 2014 at 10:51 AM Rating: Decent
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Granted, there are techniques required to drive in the snow and for when you hit patches of ice, and most Southerners do know the basic "Don't hit the breaks, steer into the skid and gradually guide the car back on track, etc" but there's nothing you can do when the entire road is a sheet of ice. It's simple physics. .


Yeah, bullshit. People here drive on untreated ice every winter, but shockingly without 1000 car pileups. There's no magic "instant salt" truck that predicts every ice formation during our 90 below freezing days per year.



Edited, Jan 30th 2014 12:15pm by Smasharoo
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#62 Jan 30 2014 at 10:56 AM Rating: Excellent
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CoalHeart wrote:
Actually, no. Snow isn't the problem. Ice is. No one can drive on ice. Driving means controlling the speed and direction of a vehicle. Ice = no traction = no control = you're not "driving".

You know where else they have ice?

Lots of places. You should see the road I drive in to work on every day. It's a couple miles long and unpaved so it doesn't really get treated. Right now it's a solid sheet of ice end to end. I still use it because it takes 5 minutes off my trip.

Edited, Jan 30th 2014 10:57am by Jophiel
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#63 Jan 30 2014 at 11:06 AM Rating: Good
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Yeah, I was making the point about our roads going untreated for a reason. It takes FOREVER for them to be salted, and I leave for work so early it's almost always before the first trucks come through.

It really comes down to not being an idiot. We don't get on pure-ice roads and apply some special snow driving techniques. We go slow and we don't make abrupt changes in speed or direction.
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#64 Jan 30 2014 at 11:21 AM Rating: Excellent
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Actually, until a few days ago the roads around here were shitty because of the extreme cold. Here's a science lesson: salt needs a minimum temperature to be effective as a melting agent, otherwise it just acts like expensive sand and maybe gives a little traction.

Anyway, I'm not saying that no one anywhere else slides around or gets into accidents in bad weather. I said that Atlanta had a disproportionate number of accidents due to lack of experience in driving in that bad weather. I dunno why that makes people defensive.
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#65 Jan 30 2014 at 11:23 AM Rating: Excellent
The few times I have had to drive in ice going home from work when we lived in Tennessee, I always drove incredibly slow, and I stayed out of the tracks left by the other cars. I didn't slide hardly at all, and when I did, it was only a few inches and I never left my own lane.

One year, I was going too slow and couldn't make it up the hill to our apartment. Instead, I slid into a ditch off the road, and walked up the hill to the apartment. The next day we got my car.
#66 Jan 30 2014 at 11:29 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
(if you ignore the property and personal damage)

Hey! This stuff employs a lot of otherwise unemployable people!

And I agree, most of driving in snow and ice involves experience and preparation. Living on the north shore of L.I. there are hills everywhere, yet I can plan a route home that will avoid all but one short decline. Of course, you have to crawl all the way home at 5-10 mph and drive a very indirect route to avoid the hills, but the only people I see having issues are the occasional fool who thinks there is no reason for everyone to drive so slowly. Luckily, those idiots mostly wind up on the side of the road, head first into a snow drift.

My wife works an hour's drive from home and last snow storm (less than 6 inches is not a storm) she spent 4 hours on the road, as did a number of my co-workers. I worked from home Smiley: cool, but 4 hours seemed to have been the magic number. Yet, everyone got home safely that night.

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#67 Jan 30 2014 at 11:46 AM Rating: Excellent
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I can't avoid the hills back to my place. Smiley: frown

It's usually only bad here maybe once a year though, we seem to handle the couple inches of snow without too much trouble. There's always a couple of recent imports from California who slide off the road, but it's not the end of the world. Most of the time I think the city shuts down because everyone has decided it's more fun to take a day off than go into work, and snow makes a good excuse. Smiley: lol

Ice storms though, ugh. Nasty nasty. We don't go anywhere in those, you really can't for the most part. The road here aren't really built for those conditions, there's hills everywhere, and an inch or two of ice on those is just awful. Even if you're doing fine, someone else isn't. They'll get suck, or slide halfway up a hill, then everyone behind them has to stop, and no one goes anywhere at that point.
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#68 Jan 30 2014 at 11:46 AM Rating: Good
Atlanta's situation is also largely impacted by the great many people who travel to work on interstates. There really aren't any other routes. The city's traffic problems are a *********** even in good weather. It's too sprawled and too reliant on a handful of major arteries. The mass transit situation is sad. (I only use MARTA to get to the airport.) Real estate in the inner parts of the city where people work is approaching NYC prices in some places, so everyone opted to reside in the suburbs or the countryside and suck up an hour commute or more.
#69 Jan 30 2014 at 11:48 AM Rating: Decent
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Anyway, I'm not saying that no one anywhere else slides around or gets into accidents in bad weather. I said that Atlanta had a disproportionate number of accidents due to lack of experience in driving in that bad weather. I dunno why that makes people defensive.

NASCAR. Seriously, conceding that chardonnay sipping volvo drivers are better at any aspect of motor vehicle control causes massive cognitive dissonance. They might die, Joph. Have some compassion.
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To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#70 Jan 30 2014 at 11:49 AM Rating: Decent
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Atlanta's situation is also largely impacted by the great many people who travel to work on interstates.

So unlike here! Why, there are dozens of effective thoroughfares into Boston that can be chosen to avoid traffic congestion. The city is famous for it.
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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

#71 Jan 30 2014 at 11:53 AM Rating: Excellent
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Thank God Chicago isn't served by a bunch of interstates and suburban/exurban commuters Smiley: wink2
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#72 Jan 30 2014 at 11:55 AM Rating: Good
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someproteinguy wrote:
I can't avoid the hills back to my place. Smiley: frown
We only have hills. My driveway is typically the most problematic of them.
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#73 Jan 30 2014 at 11:58 AM Rating: Good
Smasharoo wrote:
Atlanta's situation is also largely impacted by the great many people who travel to work on interstates.

So unlike here! Why, there are dozens of effective thoroughfares into Boston that can be chosen to avoid traffic congestion. The city is famous for it.


Boston proper is 48 square miles. Atlanta is 131 square miles. Chicago wins at 234 square miles, but CTA kicks MARTA's ***.

Edited, Jan 30th 2014 1:00pm by Catwho
#74 Jan 30 2014 at 11:59 AM Rating: Good
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I take highways/interstates to go grocery shopping.

Welcome to NJ.
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#75 Jan 30 2014 at 12:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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Speaking of, on my ice-road trek yesterday afternoon there was a 20-ton dump jack-knifed on the road. I think he maybe tried to go up the hill too slowly or something and slid back. Luckily for me he left enough space to get around the cab. Maybe he was escaping Atlanta!
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#76 Jan 30 2014 at 12:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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Catwho wrote:
Chicago wins at 234 square miles, but CTA kicks MARTA's ***.

CTA doesn't serve outside the city. Suburban people wanting mass transit into the city have to take Metra rail or the Pace buses.
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