By Nicole Mitchell
Living in New Hampshire, where we get an average of 3 feet of snow each storm, you would think people would know how to drive in these conditions since they last half the year. But no. This is false. Every year there are thousands of accidents in New Hampshire because people think they are invincible in all weather with their SUVs. However, if you look on the side of the road as you are going by, most of the cars off the road are the SUVs or the little cars that have tires from the 3 years ago with absolutely no tread left on them.
These drivers put every single person on the road in danger including themselves. In today’s society we have been raised to think we are the best and nothing can stop us. They clearly forgot about Mother Nature. Why people think they can outrun her beats me, but they try to every year. Most people who grow up in New Hampshire tend to stay because of all the seasons and the dramatic changes so its not like they do not know how to drive in this weather; they do, they just don’t think.
Now that the snow is finally starting to fall, people should be preparing their cars for the weather changes. The smart ones do, the ones who think they are invincible do not and the one who cannot afford to freak out.
Most of the accidents that happen on the road during winter are due to common knowledge no-no’s, like do not tailgate in a blizzard when you cannot see 5 feet in front of your car. If you do so, then you are just asking to get into an accident. Why would you want to tailgate someone in the first place? All that’s going to happen is they hit their brakes, you will not be paying attention, and it will ruin your entire car by slamming the front of your into theirs. Your radiator or engine or any other components attached will be severely damaged. Then you have to pay for both cars to be fixed! It’s just asking to spend money and when you add the slippery snow or black ice, the probability of this happening increases by at least 75%.
Finally once these tailgaters have had enough of following you so closely and freaking you out, they decide to jerk the wheel to pass you and everyone knows that the snow collects down the middle of the road (because that is the one place people do not drive). So when you change lanes you have to drive straight through it and it is normally the most dangerous part of driving in a snowstorm. Most SUVs couldn’t care less and fly over to the other lane and lose control of the top-heavy contraption. This is normally when every single driver starts freaking out, some stop paying attention to the road, some start yelling, but either way every one slams on their brakes so they do not become part of the accident as well and give that one car space to regain control. Some drivers can handle it and do regain control. Some can’t handle it at all and the road become a bowling ally, and this one car takes out as many cars as possible in the shortest amount of time before they go into the ditch or wrap their car around a tree.
This also happens when people do not realize that going eighty miles an hour and a snow-covered road is a bad idea, because as soon as you touch the brakes you have no traction or control and you are pretty much hydroplaning over the snow and hitting your brakes just turns your tires from snow boots to ice skates with rockets attached.
While theses things normally happen on a highway, other things happen in towns and cities such as not realizing that you have to speed up before you reach the snow covered enormous hill in order to get enough momentum to make it up. It’s like trying to climb a wall: if you are at a dead stop while in front of a hill you are not going to go anywhere. Most drivers are too afraid to step on the gas while going up a hill because they believe slow and steady wins the race: in this situation, that’s not the case. Most make it up a fourth of the hill and just slide backwards hitting everything possible on the way back down. Some drivers decide it’s a good idea to turn the wheel once they stat to go down and put themselves into a spiraling death ball that is flying down the hill.
Another good one is when people “forget” they are driving in a nor’easter and slam on their brakes to make a turn, not realizing that cars do go sideways on ice. They forget that they need traction to turn and that even though they turn the wheel and the tires turn, when they are on ice its pointless because nothing is going to happen.
Although these are all very common things drivers in New Hampshire do, my all time favorite is when it’s a whiteout outside, and there is so much snow, all you can literally see is white. And people don’t turn their lights on! It’s even better when they are driving a silver car. It’s like, are you seriously driving down the road in a snowstorm without your lights on? Are you trying to kill people?! In the winter, drivers look for lights in order to see cars because it can be so hard to see things in a snowstorm.
Yeah, accidents are called accidents for a reason, but most of them are because the drivers honestly believe they are invincible and do not consider the conditions and use common sense. This winter, lets try to decrease the number of accidents and fatalities by reading up on driving safety tips for winter, and lets work together to avoid accidents. People need to take others into consideration while driving. You do not own the road and you have no reason to believe you do. Lets make this holiday season a fun, happy and safe one for everyone this year!
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