the ice storm of 2006!!!

a cloud went by last night dumping about an inch of ice and sleet on oklahoma. as a born and raised upstate new yorker, this "incredible ice storm" is child's play. however, for the natives of the area the ice stopped everything. schools, stores, and even churches closed....pure bedlam. i was one of three who showed up for work today. yes it was a saturday, but in my 24/7/365 business there should have been 11 guys there today. some of whom live in the town where i work, whereas i had to drive 30 miles down the interstate to get there. this picture taken from NewsOK.com brings my point into focus. pauls valley is where i work, by the way, and i passed by this wreck only about an hour after it happened.



i don't mean to make light of a situation where people have died, but come on!!! look in the background.... notice a severe lack of snow, sleet, and ice?!?! how the crap did this commercial driver get his license?? there were about 30 other cars i saw off the road during my drive. i came over one hill into a valley and i had to stop to watch some jackass do doughnuts in the middle of the highway because he was going too slow to make it up the next hill that really isn't all that steep. DOUGHNUTS!! in the middle of an interstate. those who know me know how easily i get frustrated with incompetence. now there was another car in front of me, and because we had stopped, that idiot started doing crazy fishtails trying to start up again now there's two cars doing a dance in the middle of the interstate. i shook my fist at them, told them a politely as i could to join the olympic figure skating team, got my left tires on the rumble strip and breezed by them. interstates are generally straight roads, and I-35 goes straight south.... STRAIGHT!!! that means that unless a deer jumps out in front of you, there is no need to turn the wheel.... at all.... how do these people end up 50 off the side of the highway, car backwards, bumpers falling off and tires flat??? granted oklahoma does not have the infrastructure to deal with ice or snow. they do not have plows or trucks with sand, but still, the physics of driving are not complicated. if you start to slide don't spaz out and slam on your brake, simply take your foot off the gas. period. NOOOOOOO BRAKE! brake = flipping a bus and 2 unnecessary deaths.