Who doesn’t like icy intersections?

We got about 6″ of snow yesterday, which isn’t a big deal for Minnesota. Assuming that it’s not the first snow of the year, of course. I don’t know how the mind-wipe occurs, but it happens every year when even one inch of white stuff falls from from the sky (and I’m not talking coke that someone flushed down an airplane’s toilet to avoid getting busted by the cops). People forget how to drive in snowy weather and the late news reports 300 spin-outs and an eight-hour drive to make a 10-mile trip home from work.

But that’s here and now. My mom told me horror stories about when she lived in Pennsylvania for a while about 40 years ago, so I’m hoping people have outgrown the practice. (They probably haven’t, but hope springs eternal.) If there was ever any snow on the ground back then, a lot of people had no idea how to handle it. 300 spin-outs at the end of the day would be a happy surprise. What scared her the most, though, was when they were driving on city streets.

If you’ve done a good job teaching your kids to drive in snow, they’ll know to accelerate slowly until the car starts moving. Some of Mom’s friends back there used a different method: gun it until the tires melt the snow, hit the pavement and move you forward. It’s an interesting technique that might work once or twice, but there’s one teensy-weensy problem. Melted snow refreezes. That might not mean much once you’re gone, but I imagine the drivers behind you who can’t stop on the ice, slide through the red light and then into another car sure appreciate it.

So that’s my advice for the day. Take it easy, drive slow and don’t gun it to try to move faster. Even if you need to flush some coke down a toilet to avoid getting busted by the cops.