🚀 go-pugleaf

David Barts writes:
>In pnw.general you write:
>>Some of these people who talk about how they ``know how to drive in
>>snow'' (and by extension, most everyone else doesn't) and spin yarns
>>about how they made it through snow-covered passes without bothering
>>to put on chains remind me somewhat about those general aviation
>>pilots who brag about how they know how to fly in thunderstorms, and
>>how they do it all the time.  True, you can fly into the side of a
>>level 3 cell and come out the other side none the worst for wear.  But
>>you can also fly into the side and come out the bottom; and even
>>experienced pilots do so.
>
>Translation:  "Hi, I'm from California and I'm here to tell all you
>folks who learned to drive in the Rockies and the Midwest how to drive
>in the ice and snow.  Trust me."

Translation: "Hi, I'm not a PNW native, but I want to be cool just
like you PNW natives.  Like you, I am bigoted and prejudiced but oh so
politically correct.  So I will bash `Californians' -- even if they're
not really from California -- so I can fit right in with Emmet Watson,
the True PNW Native!"  [It's curious how real PNW natives rarely play
the California bashing game.]

Get a clue; I'm not from California.  I lived there a few years,
that's all.

>I learned to drive in Northern New Mexico (in a town where a "big snow"
>means they announce on the radio station that you should move your car off
>the street because if the snow buries your car the plow might not see it
>and run into it by mistake), and I found the comments by the poster from
>Wyoming to be practical, easily understandable, and right to the point.

Don't confuse situation avoidance with the skill to get out of a
situation once it exists.  Also, don't fall into the trap of believing
that snow driving conditions in Santa Fe or Cheyenne (or at the
passes) prepare you for snow driving in Seattle or Boston.

Am I advocating performance driving schools?  Yes!  You'll learn more
in a couple of days at a performance driving school than you will in
all your seat-of-the-pants experience.  That is, if you're not too
stubborn when they make you unlearn some of your dearly-held SOTP
truisms.