How to Not Be the Problem on the Road to Bridger

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you are currently looking at a snow-covered road and your license plate is a different color than the ones around you, please read this. This isn’t a suggestion; it’s a manual on how to not be the reason for a multi-car pileup.

1. Don’t kill your momentum on hills

Driving 5 MPH does not make you safer; it makes you a stationary object. You need momentum to climb a frozen grade. If you crawl, you will lose traction, stall, and force everyone behind you—who actually knows how to drive—to risk their lives passing you.

2. Don’t “halfway” park on the shoulder

If your tires are still on the asphalt, you are still in the road. Stopping six inches off the center line during a snowstorm creates a “crash corridor.” If you can’t get your entire vehicle completely off the road, do not stop. You are not “pulled over”- you are an obstacle.

3. Don’t stop on curves or grades

Never, under any circumstances, stop on a blind curve or in the middle of a hill. I recently watched a bus nearly fishtail into a ditch because an amateur stopped at the apex of a frozen turn. If you need to re-evaluate your life, do it on a straight, flat stretch with a real pull-out.

4. Don’t trust your equipment (or your ego)

“All-wheel drive” does not mean “all-wheel slide.” If you have summer tires or bald all-seasons, you are driving a 3,000-pound sled. Just ‘cuz you have a Suby doesn’t mean it won’t slide off the road. Actual snow-tires work; use them.

5. Don’t ignore the bus

If the sight of snow makes you panic-brake, you should not be behind the wheel. Take the bus, any bus. The drivers are professionals, it’s free, and it keeps your incompetence off the road.