Here’s the list I promised you. I hope you like it.
TOP TEN IDIOT SNOW DRIVERS
10. Drivers with 3 feet of snow on their roofs to sport the snow-pompadour look (Of course, it’s illegal and the hundred pounds of snow can fly off and hit someone’s windshield)
9. Drivers who pass snow plows, ambulances, fire trucks, and other emergency vehicles into the oncoming lane during blizzard conditions because they’re driving too slowly
8. Drivers of rear-wheel or front-wheel drive vehicles spinning their wheels uselessly as they try to conquer an unplowed steep hill over and over and over again
7. Drivers who spin endlessly at a stoplight in the middle of a snow-covered intersection and create a packed down, tractionless patch of ice for other drivers to experience
6. Drivers of any vehicle making turns on snow-covered streets at regular speed, skidding sideways and just missing the oncoming cars in the opposite lane
5. Drivers of SUVs flying down snow-and-ice-covered roads with total abandon as if it was a sunny day in July
4. Drivers who try to use their Mini Cooper to plow an avalanche of snow in their driveways, only to end up burying themselves
3. Drivers wearing a suit (not snow suit) who dig out their cars with an oar from their rubber dinghy, a frying pan, or ski pole
2. Drivers who clear ice off of their windshields and under their car with a claw hammer, hatchet, or baseball bat (Is it baseball season already?)
AND THE NUMBER ONE IDIOT:
1. Driver of a Miata who, for reasons unknown to God or man, parked on an unplowed street, and then requested friends to push him out so he could relocate to another “better,” snow-covered parking space
These certified whackadoodles and wing-nuts are a danger to all of us and themselves. They’re on the loose everywhere and there are no immediate signs that they will be captured until they damage something or have to have their car towed out of a snowdrift they skidded in to. No doubt, we will continue to shake our collective heads and roll our collective eye-balls when we have close encounters of the idiot-driver kind. It’s probably best to stay in your homes until spring. Cabin fever never looked so safe!
Please let me know if there are other idiots I’ve missed. I know they’re out there.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
THE PUMMEL STORM
In case you haven’t heard because you’re living in Madagascar, over the past week the Washington-MD-VA region was pummeled with 2 major storms and a baby storm with snow totals of nearly 5 feet. We usually may get 5 inches max all winter. For hundreds of years, northern-type people from foreign countries, such as Minneapolis, Buffalo, Syracuse, Fargo, and Phoenix, laugh at us because some of us behave like idiots when any flakes hit the pavement. (Sidebar: Many federal employees in high-rise buildings request their offices be located on top floors so they can spot the first flakes to fall and make a mad dash to the parking lot before the flakes reach the ground. That “snow-flake dash” will be included in the next winter Olympics in Russia.)
IDIOT DRIVERS EMERGE
We have become a laughing stock and our high-density infestation of politicians doesn’t help much. Fully aware of the legions of idiots that emerge during any storm, much less a record-breaker, government officials usually cancel everything to be safe just based on the forecast. In the past, on occasion, no flakes ever fell, to the embarrassment of meteorologists and the decision makers who canceled schools, social meetings, and drug deals. This past week the flakes really fell and the double-wallop storms couldn’t restrain the idiot drivers from exceeding all of our expectations.
SNOW DRIVING
Admittedly, idiots cannot grasp the intricacies of advanced snow driving with just 1 monster storm or a few sissy-size storms under their sweats; it takes a lifetime of bad driving to acquire the proper skills. To give you a flavor of how stupid the drivers in our region can be, I’ve picked 10 examples.
PICKING THE TOP TEN
My choices are from various sightings as a trained observer with especially acute inter-ocular skills to spot idiot behaviors, plus a recent article in the Washington Post by Monica Hesse. I have embellished the truthful descriptions a bit, as you would expect me to do. Maybe this list will enable you to laugh along with the rest of us. Hopefully, even you tropical-type folk with a remedial knowledge of REAL snow, but can identify Hollywood fake flakes, will exhibit a chuckle or 2.
TOMORROW'S BLOG
Since I’ve reached my blog word limit, you’ll see the TOP TEN in tomorrow’s blog. (Actually, I’m still working on the embellishments.) Stay with me. I think you’ll get a kick or 2. (Writer’s Note: English-wise, you should never end 1 paragraph, much less 2, with the number 2, unless you’re a professional blogger. Don’t try this at home either or wherever you go 2.)
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
