One mans opinion on how to prevent another Atlanta

Like I told someone in another part of this forum - We in the South seldom get snow, sorta like a BCS championship up north.

Up here we are use to winters like that. We don't have to be told to stay home.
Looking at the pileups on the freeway you know they were driving much to fast for those conditions.
It's always everybody else's fault.
If I have to go out on a bad day I know to never ever take a limited exit freeway.

Snow?? Ice?? What's that?? OK forget the forecast, let's all just do whatever we want to...

rvjames wrote:
Something about snow/ice makes people (myself included) in the south revert back to the first time they were behind the wheel of a car. The vehicles here are also not prepared for it. Most folks dont purchase vehicles made for winter weather conidtions (no front wheel drive or 4x4). Not to mention the tires, many of the people on the road in the south are riding on nearly bald tires because there isnt traditionally a need for anything else. Just a big mess that will probably never be fixed.

X2
Being an outsider, those in the southern states don't see snow or ice that often. That and the snow they got was similar to what we see in the Northwest wet and falls just at or slightly below freezing and turns almost instantly to ice. I will take snow at 15 to zero, rather than the crud the south got. Cold dry snow has about the same traction as a wet road, not wet ice!

I spent all of my childhood up until I was 21 in the northeast. I consider myself a proficient winter driver.
this last freezing rain storm was a disaster here in Mississippi. The highway department actually dumped beach sand on all bridges and overpasses, along with a good section of I10. They must have not used spreaders because that sand was literally in mounds all over the roadway. Talk about making a dangerous situation worse,try NOT driving off the road when one wheel hits a mound of sand and the others on ice.

Hindsight is always 20/20.
Opinions are like...
everyone has one.
It happened.
Lessons were learned.
Move on.

Us out West wrote:

nelson wrote:
What about people using some common since. Weather predictions are just that perdictions so don't bet you life on it. Foresight is always 20/20,

To much so called 'good' info available now that the use of 'common sense' by many nowadays is not used...maybe they don't know what 'common sense' even is as they rely on others to make THEIR decisions and then get ticked off when things go bad.

:h :S

Amen, the govt. mantra...don't rock the boat and pass the buck.

Old Minnesota isn't immune to poor planning with roadway maintenance, either. Someone over at MNDOT decided that plows aren't to be used while it's snowing and the deicing schedule has changed. I would bet both of these are due to budget trimming. In past time, plows were out at the first snowflake and sand/salt was spread so that intersections and roadways melted out before the storm had finished. Now, most of the secondary roads have sheets of built up ice that isn't going away until traffic or weather does the job.

FWIW, when I lived in Houston there was a local TV weatherman that was so poor on forecasting that they put his talents against a cow owned by a local rancher. Depending on the way the cow rubbed against the fences and moved in the corral indicated changes in the weather. They ran this contest for a month or so and the cow won out handily.

The three major Atlanta stations, the Mayor, the DOT folks,etc, have already said basically the same thing that this guy is saying, BUT...Feelings contrary to what the National Weather Services is putting out take second place. The NWS was wrong this time and the powers to be chose to follow the NWS advice and not the local advice..as the locals tend to "sensationalize" any weather event to the point you want to go into a bomb shelter for the duration and more often than not, they spend the next few days talking about what should have happened instead of what did happen. It is not easy to predict (not perdict) what will happen, else I would win all the lotteries. Lessons learned I think will help in the future.

The use of common sense would fix most things.

Something about snow/ice makes people (myself included) in the south revert back to the first time they were behind the wheel of a car. The vehicles here are also not prepared for it. Most folks dont purchase vehicles made for winter weather conidtions (no front wheel drive or 4x4). Not to mention the tires, many of the people on the road in the south are riding on nearly bald tires because there isnt traditionally a need for anything else. Just a big mess that will probably never be fixed.