:mad: Now I understand why so many people in the US buy ungainly, gas guzzling, hard to see past SUVs. It's because our government is short sighted and incompetent.

I used to live in a relatively mountainous part of upstate Pennsylvania, and we'd usually get between 2 and 8 feet of snow per winter. It was okay, because everytime it snowed at all there were plows everywhere, 24 hours a day. If a storm was forecast, all the main roads were absolutely coated with salt in anticipation. In all but the worst conditions, the main roads were practically dry from constant plowing and salting. Yeah it played hell with your car's paint, but you could take a freakin' motorcycle to work the day after a 12" snowfall. The number of big pickups and SUVs on the road was surprisingly small for the area.

Now I live outside Philadelphia, and when I first moved here I was blown away by the number of big SUVs on the road. Well today I found out why. We had a whopping 3 inches of snow on the ground this morning, and calling the road crew response 'pitifully inadequate' would be a tremendous compliment. My drive to work was an absolute nightmare. I'm sitting here typing this because my boss and his boss couldn't make it in. I went 20 miles in two and a half hours on unplowed and unsalted roads, and I saw exactly one plow truck. There were cars off the road everywhere and more than a few banged up vehicles. Even the mini-SUVs, and the Ford Ranger-size trucks were all over the place. I was slip sliding my little FWD Merc. Tracer like a sunofagun, even at 15 mph.

But the two ton and over SUVs were driving around like it was a clear summer day. I can't tell you how many times I got passed while I sat there spinning my wheels.

God knows how many dozens of people were hurt in accidents, how many hundreds lost money from missing work or losing business, and how many thousand are just furious (like me) from having to spin their wheels all morning. All this because the city and county road plans to deal with snow are pitifully inadequate.

Okay, okay, rant done (for the moment). Sorry, I just had to vent to somebody.

sounds like chester county.:D home sweet home

Yup... I live in Chester, work in King of Prussia.

you drive into KOP to work?! what are you some kinda sadist;) seriosly tho whats the weather like in general now. are you getting frequent snow? im asking because im coming back there for christmas,flying in to philly.

It's like that in northeastern PA now, too. I think last winter's lack of, well, weather, combined with budget constraints mean PennDOT's readiness for this has been greatly reduced. That first snowfall we had in October was a nightmare, it was almost nothing but there was literally no response for hours.

I would like to see the end of the use of road salt - cinders are fine for traction but I'm tired of my precious Mazdas being eaten by the salt!

Let's take a trip down memory lane......

It's a crisp January morning in 1999. My wife and I were driving back to the Detroit area after visiting family for the holiday. Everything was going well, until we hit Michigan.

God decided to dump 14 inches of snow on southeast Michigan in 12 hours.

Now Detroit is a large city.....about 1 million. Granted, this amount of snow is unusual for Detroit.....but they do get a fair amount of it. So you would think they have a good snow removal capability......well you would be wrong. The city was shut down for about 10 days. Not because it kept snowing.....but because the city lacked the capability to remove the snow.

Let me give you some perspective. Milwaukee, a city of about 200,000 people has around 350 snow plows. Chicago has around 600. Detroit had 54. That's right....54!!!!! Guess who drove them. You would think people who knew what they were doing......not really. They used the garbage truck drivers. You can see where this is going.

Most residential Detroit streets during that week had 1 (ONE) set of car tracks down them. If 2 cars met in the middle, they were screwed. Most people couldn't even get into the street let alone drive on them.

Oh, and, by the way, what got things moving again is when Detroit asked for help from the suburbs......it only took them 7 days to do so!

So, Familyguy......I totally agree with you!

SUV's? Bah. Why aren't Scoobies more popular? An Impreza (or WRX or Legacy or...) with 4 snows on is an impressive (pun intended) tour de force in the winter.

Originally posted by Grimace
SUV's? Bah. Why aren't Scoobies more popular? An Impreza (or WRX or Legacy or...) with 4 snows on is an impressive (pun intended) tour de force in the winter. Amen. I'd take an AWD station wagon or sedan before I got an SUV.

If I need that room, I'd get like an Audi A4 Avant. All season traction, good room, fun car. I'd get the scoobie too, but I hate the interior :P

If I had to buy an SUV though... it would be the Volvo. It's the least gas guzzling, drives nearly like a car, has tons of room and features, and is one of the best for the price.

zoom44:
Driving into KOP is no picnic. However, one of the best perks at my job is that I can come and go as I please provided I put in a 40 hour work week.

Not counting snow days, if I leave between 6 and 8 AM it's a 55-1:15 drive. I usually leave for work around 8:40, and it takes a little under 40 minutes... bearable enough.

The weather was fine until this storm. It was fairly warm for this time of year, and we had 2 inches of snow total until now (and that melted in two days). Right now, we have 8 inches of snow on the ground with a little bit more expected before it stops. I couldn't tell you what it will be like for Christmas.

Aesculapius:
Hot diggety damn, I guess I should count my blessings. 54 plows for a million people? From what my coworkers tell me, the problem here isn't lack of plows. Supposedly it's jurisdictional disputes. The state road service, PennDOT, won't plow city roads, and vice versa... so a lot of time is lost because plow trucks are travelling with plows off the ground between the roads they have permission to clear. By the way, I thought your Greek name was spelled without the second 'a'. I must be remembering wrong.

Hercules and Grimace:
The Subarus I saw were, without exception, handling the snow just fine. On the other hand, it seemed like every Audi I saw (and Audi is really popular around here) was having problems. Of course, maybe I was only seeing 2WD Audis because the rest were already at their destinations. But it still looked to me like the Silverado 3500s and F-350s with the AWD had zero traction problems, regardless of their speed. The advantages of having 3.5 tons adding to your friction, I guess.

Snow tires would do wonders in that situation.. An AWD car with crappy tires would get stuck long before a R or FWD car with four proper snow tires.

Umm, who wants to deal with snowtires when they live in an area with annual snowfall of less than 3 feet? Northeast is not so bad, I live in Long Island, and the areas around me and into NYC are always taken care of in the case of snow. I make the drive to vermont and I-95 and I-91 are always cleared. My BMW has no problems with slippage, even if a storm just passed by.

Originally posted by irresistibo
Umm, who wants to deal with snowtires when they live in an area with annual snowfall of less than 3 feet? Northeast is not so bad, I live in Long Island, and the areas around me and into NYC are always taken care of in the case of snow. I make the drive to vermont and I-95 and I-91 are always cleared. My BMW has no problems with slippage, even if a storm just passed by. Same on my Millenia. I just rode out a good 7 inches of snow with Z rated tires on. Granted, I had to be more careful but I was fine... little slippage but I was driving carefully and slowly so no harm done.

Besides there's not more than one day that you can't drive due to inclement weather, and the main roads are always plowed right away, so I don't see the need for snow tires, personally. Maybe if I can get cheap ones on steel rims.... Then I'd do it. But being that I'm broke I'm also stubborn right now :cool:

This also depends on temperatures. Z rated and even "all-season" :rolleyes: rubber gets harder as the temps go down.. At zero Celsius and below I'd rather be on winter tires than on my Z rated summer tires. Even on clean streets.

i've got mine on a separate set of steel wheels

and i certainly don't need them everyday, but they only have to save my ass once.

and i certainly don't need them everyday, but they only have to save my ass once.

Amen to that. I had an Integra GS-R and I bitched about the lack of handling on dry roads with winter tires when first switching to them from from my summer Z rated ones, but living in semi-upstate New York has more than it's share of moments with bad weather. I got caught once with bad ice with those Z-rated tires and it was a complete nightmare. Same goes with the BMW 325i I had. DSC/Traction Control didn't mean jack with a good amount of ice on the roads and Z rated tires. All it takes is once to appreciate the wonders of good snow tires.

Whoohoo!!! And now, I'm a "Senior Member."