Driving in Snow: Not Gonna Go No Mo

Reader Contribution by Shirley "rodeo" Landis Vanscoyk
Published on March 10, 2010
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I am not good at driving in snow. At least I am honest about it, or at least aware of it. I think people who think they are good at driving in snow aren’t aware that luck has a good deal to do with not getting stuck in a ditch, probably more than skill. And you could have a four wheel drive, 4,000-pound vehicle with traction lock front and back, an 18-inch clearance, chains and studs, and somebody driving a 1983 Bonneville with bald tires will come around a corner, slide sideways and mess you up. Or not.

But back to me. I have had two fairly serious accidents in the snow. The first one was in a 1977 Chevrolet Chevette. The only explanation I can offer for the following sequence of events is that I was young. You see, I was on a mission to find a copy of the Delaware yellow pages, so I could find a talent agent in Delaware who had hula dancers. I was trying to start a public relations/events business (which was as doomed as my trip that day), and I worked myself up into such a lather about locating those dancers that I got in the car during a terrible storm and drove the twenty miles down to my Mum’s to get the book. This was way before the internet. I don’t remember why I had my one year old Irish setter/golden retriever mix puppy next to me on the front seat. On the way home, a tractor trailer jackknifed in front of me on a four lane highway. I slid into a guard rail instead of the tractor trailer. Because this was before seat belt awareness, I smacked my head sharply into the steering wheel, enough to see stars.

My head hurt. A lot. And I was scared. Really. When the cops and emergency workers arrived, I had my hand pressed against my forehead. The policeman told me I had to move my hand so he could see how badly I was hurt. I explained to him that I could not remove my hand, or my brains would shoot out all over the dashboard. He explained that if I was that badly hurt, I wouldn’t be able to tell him that. Well, that made sense. I removed my hand and I didn’t even have a knot or a bruise. That was embarrassing.

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