How to Deal with Winter Driving and Why
With the upcoming holidays comes nasty winter weather and road conditions. The snow and ice on the roads is a complete game changer on how you need to approach driving on the roads. Here are some stories of accidents that happened to some of our very own MHS students last winter and how to prevent things like this from happening to you.
Interview with Junior Tyson Maurer:
Q: What happened when you wrecked last winter?
A: ‘So, I was all by myself, I thought I’d have fun, and I started swerving. The car wasn’t going out of control, so I actually swerved a little bit more. I was getting out of control and I thought, oh I can bring this back, and so I let go of the gas and that’s when I went like 5 feet into the snowbank. Luckily, since it was four wheel drive, I was able to back up and get out but there was a divot in the snow bank for weeks afterward.’
Q: Do you think it was because of the slick roads?
A: “Last year if you noticed there was actually for about 2 months there was actually snow caked on top of the road about an inch to two inches thick. It’s dangerous, and front wheel cars have a little bit more of an advantage but the rear wheel have real bad trouble.”
Interview with Junior Emily Curtis:
Q: How did you wreck?
A: “When I was a new driver I was driving to a rehearsal for something and I looked down at my GPS and the next thing I knew I looked up and I’d hit a tree and it was like a little tree so honestly it suffered more than my car did but I was off the road and it was so awkward because I get out of my car and I’m freaking out a little bit and across the street I see all the little neighbor kids watching me.”
Interview with Officer Bovie:
Q: What tips do you have for students driving this winter?
A: “The main one is slow down and leave a little extra space between because a lot of students aren’t aware there’s a code in Idaho that says you’re driving too fast for conditions, which means even if the speed limit says it’s 25 and you’re doing 25 and you rear end someone you can get a ticket for driving too fast for the conditions because the way that code is written is if you’re ever going so fast you can’t stop or control your vehicle you are driving too fast. So technically if you were going 10 miles an hour and you lost control of your vehicle you’d still get cited for it. And most of the wrecks we have in the winter are because people are following too close and they just don’t give themselves time to stop on the nasty roads.’
Q: What advice do you have for parking?
A: “Most times you can’t see the lines on the parking lot so if you just leave the normal distance where you can open the door without dinging the next vehicle. Again, come into your spot slow. The three wrecks I’ve had in the last 2 weeks here have all been students parking on dry roads. They came in too fast and hit the vehicle they were trying to park next to. So when they get wet or icy it’s gonna get a lot worse.“
