Riding in the snow

[darkemeralds]

A couple of things happen when it snows in a city that doesn't get much snow: there isn't significant public investment in snow-management, like plows and gravel trucks and big union-wage standby crews with bus-tire chains, so the streets remain snowy; people who learned to drive here don't know how to drive in snow, and people who learned to drive in snow go ballistic over the idiot locals' inability to handle it.

(These same people go out of their way to hide their in-migrant status every other day of the year. Me, I'm a native, but I learned to drive in Hawaii: that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. My absolute policy when two or more snowflakes fall is no-drive, no-complain.)

So when we have a completely unpredicted snowfall in Portland, as we did yesterday, the place becomes a giant clusterfuck of insane traffic, accusations of City and DOT malfeasance (graft, corruption, fuckwittery, you name it), foul tempers, car wrecks, and general madness.

It seems that bicyclists were just about the only people getting home in good time last night. I wasn't one of them, me being on vacation and all, but my sister was, and she's one of many cyclists reporting today that it was kind of pleasant, riding home on deserted streets in the bright new snow.

Before it all melted today, I rode Clyde to the grocery store and the coffee shop, just a few blocks, to find out what it was like. It was frankly kind of scary. I didn't have good control and I would not have wanted to be anywhere near moving cars. I might consider studded tires.

But it hardly seems worth it, because we just don't get that much snow...

Comments

[llaras.livejournal.com]

I stay in too. I was fine with driving in snow until a couple of years ago when I almost crashed in a really scary way. Now I hate it.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Amazing what trauma can do to our reality, huh? Sorry you had that experience! But in this instance, avoidance is a not-too-complicated solution, one that I adhere to myself.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

This is why Britain grinds to a halt when there's a couple of inches of snow too. When it happens at most for a couple of days every three or four years it's really not worth getting all geared up for it. Might as well just stay at home and wait for it to go away.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Does it? Grind to a halt, I mean? I had no idea! Yes, the problem here the other day was that we didn't grind to a halt. The snow hit late in the afternoon and everyone tried to go home at exactly the same instant.

I hear a lot of "government should do more!" complaining from the sort of people who always append, "because they take so much of our money anyway wah!" (i.e., the sort of people who don't want government to do anything for other people), and not a damn peep about how there are too many cars on the roads in the first place.

*deep breath* Okay. Rant over. Sorry! Whoops.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

Well, we certainly slow down a lot. Many schools close if they think the roads are too unsafe, and lots of people decide to work from home if that's at all possible for them. But we tend to go into 'Britain in the Blitz' mode, where we suddenly become quite cheerful and rather enjoy the hardship. (Probably because we know it's not going to go on for very long.)

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Your icon! So much love! I think I'll go make a pot of tea now.

[alex-beecroft.livejournal.com]

*g* There is never a bad time for tea :)