Home again, home again...

[altivo]

So I was supposed to go to a meeting in Rockford this afternoon, which fortunately was cancelled due to the weather. The boss called me at home to tell me, in case I hadn't checked my e-mail (which I hadn't, but probably would have in time.) Having no idea how bad the roads actually were, I told her I'd be in at 12:30 then.

I actually got there at 1 pm, after detouring around a closed section of road and slowing down for multiple spinouts and pileups along the road. It's amazing just how totally stupid people can be. How the race survived this long after the invention of the automobile I have no idea. It's obvious that many of us don't have the necessary intelligence to deal with it. Conditions were extremely bad. Where the wind blows across the road, the slush was often piled so deep it would scrape the undercarriage of the car, and my car has a higher clearance than most.

I arrived at work just in time to meet the boss who was coming out to go to lunch. She told me not to go in the back door because she had just waded through knee deep drifts there. So I went to the front door, wading through only mid-calf drifts. The library was packed because the local garden club wasn't bright enough to cancel their monthly meeting. Not long after I got there, the chairperson of the city library board called to tell us we should close. The schools had been closed early, she said, and conditions were very bad on the roads. That's a decision I can't make really, so we waited for the boss to return. After some discussion, she decided to go ahead and close at four, so we put up signs announcing the fact, posted it on our web site, and prepared to push people out the door. (Yes, that's necessary. No matter how many signs you put up on the doors and at the entrance, they still act surprised when you tell them the library is closing now...)

We actually got the place cleared out by about 4:15. I found on the way home that the roads had been pretty well cleared and were just wet, so of course people were driving like total brainless idiots again. I was behind a plow that was slowing at every drift to clear it off the road, so of course some jerk had to tailgate me for several miles, then pass me in a no passing zone and tailgate the snow plow. If there's a hell, I hope it has a nice, unpleasant spot reserved for people who are in such a hurry that they are willing to endanger everyone else on the road rather than wait a minute or two.

The weather forecast still predicts a second wave of this slush for this evening, with an additional fall of up to three inches. It shows on the radar, apparently coming up from the southwest, so we'll see what happens.

Comments

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

It's natural selection :) They will inevitably die from something leaving only the clever ^.^

Like the snow plow guy would've cared XD just stop and reverse.

A friend told me about some truck driver who was tailgating a military vehicle with those high temp exhausts despite repeated attempts to warn the trucker of the danger it ended up melting off the front of the truck and destroying the cooling system XD

[tinbender.livejournal.com]

I was behind a plow that was slowing at every drift to clear it off the road, so of course some jerk had to tailgate me for several miles, then pass me in a no passing zone and tailgate the snow plow.

That's why I hate driving in Illinois. Every state seems to have their own breed of idiot and this seems to be Illinois'. I don't seem to exactly putt around and they always wind up plastered to my bumper. I'll be 50th in a line of cars and they'll still do it, even the cops. I don't get it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I seem to find that particular brand of idiot in every state I visit. It's not peculiar to Illinois. Apparently it's just because I obey the speed laws, which some percentage of drivers simply ignore unless they can actually see a police cruiser nearby. Obviously, anyone who insists on traveling at the highest speed their car can attain is bound to come up behind someone else before long.

The other gem I observed to day is also much too common. Traveling north on a road with many drift zones, I was behind someone in an old rear wheel drive pickup truck. This idiot would push his speed up to 60 or 65 miles an hour, which was way too fast for visibility, let alone the road surface. They he would crash into a drift perhaps eight inches deep and 40 feet long, nearly losing control. He'd slide and wobble all over the road, in both lanes, rear wheels spinning madly, until he came out onto relatively dry surface and recovered. Then, apparently chastened, he would slow down to 35 mph for a while, but long before reaching the next drift, he was pushing his speed back up so that, sure enough, he'd hit the next one at 60 mph and repeat the same dangerous performance.

I was glad to be behind him, and you can bet I hung way back. Meeting someone like that as oncoming traffic is one of my worst nightmares.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It's a failure as natural selection. These same people seem to start reproducing themselves while they are still in their teens. Even if they manage to kill themselves before age 30, they've often left behind a trail of half a dozen or more offspring.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Ah but sometimes you get clever kids from dud parents...and the other way around too.

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Gah! There too? I totally agree, I don't know how the human race survived the advent of the automobile... Today and yesterday there was a wreck at the same exact spot, the exit right after the one I use to join the highway in question. Now, that in itself doesn't bother me as much except make me wonder more about the stupidity of our race, but what does piss me off is that the only reason, in both cases, that traffic was backed up was because people fricking stop in the lanes to gawk! Ahhh! It makes so angry! Then, I decided to come home by the post office, get to the post office, there is another wreck! And I almost get involved in this one too because the freaking wrecker waits until I get almost right to him to decide to pull out of the turn lane he was sitting in and start driving! I was royally pissed when i got home. We should revoke the licenses of stupid people. It would reduce the number of cars on the road by 98%, reducing greenhouse emissions, protecting the environement, reducing the need and price for gas and oil, and protect the lives of those of us innocent, good, inteligent drivers.

And yeah, I hate large vehicles (like bus and semi size) because they think they're invincible and don't care if they pull out in front of you or whatever other oddity they can come up with! *fumes*

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

"I seem to find that particular brand of idiot in every state I visit."

Confirmed for this state, I witness this happen at least once everytime I'm on the road, and it's not like I drive 15 under the limit or something either.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

For the library, do you have some loudspeakers or the like to broadcast messages through the library for all to hear? Probably telling them that you're closing, and anyone who hasn't left in five minutes, or at least come to the front desk to check out their books, WILL be locked inside for the duration of the night would do some good. It'd be worth a shot.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We had that in the last place I worked, but it was big. Five floors in fact and half a million books. Where we are now, it isn't needed because the entire library is one floor and almost all visible from the main desk.

The real problem is that people just don't pay attention. I am able to put a message on the computer screens, a pop up that says "Library is closing in fifteen minutes, please finish any printing or save files now" and they will just ignore it and go right on past closing until we kick them out. Now I make the computers actually shut down at fifteen minutes before the normal closing time because it's the only way to get people out of there.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'll let you in on something. Revoking licenses makes no difference. That's the primary means of "enforcement" here in Illinois. No matter how bad the driving or how much damage someone does, they almost never go to jail. Not even for repeated drunk driving. Instead, the state takes their license away. And you know what those people do? They just keep driving without any license. It makes no difference to them at all.

If they get arrested for driving with no license, they just get a fine imposed and then they claim bankruptcy and refuse to pay it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

And both of those cases tend to disprove natural selection, don't they? It just means that intelligence is not genetic.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider.

A male and female goose (gander and what is female for a goose?) have been hanging around the mill and it was so sad to see them covered with snow, yesterday. Too bad they arrived a bit early for the weather conditions.

Guess you are stuck with having to drive in this and deal with the crazies since... I am not ABOUT to go out in this and take you on your daily trips. Perhaps in our imaginations we can take a flight on a WARM, SUNSHINY day under clearblue skies and avoid all that junk.

Imperator your loyal mount (weather permitting) ;]

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ummm, no. I wouldn't want you to fly with me in the slop we had yesterday. Talk about wing icing! We'd have come down looking like a frozen ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins. It would have been a good day for that hot tub, though.

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

And people wonder why I hate mankind in general...

[octatonic.livejournal.com]

I do find your work ethic and your determination
both things that reccomend you highly as an individual.

Glad things worked out at least.

And yeah, every time theres a bit of snow theres at
least a few idjits here that think "My truck can
handale thiiiiIIIII AUUUUGH!" and I drive by slowly
in my little car and call triple A for them. Doh!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's really a small percentage who are this bad. They just make it unpleasant for everyone and are very visible about it.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

What I just don't get is the way they never learn from it. Chances are the same idiots will be in the same ditch the next time it snows.

[octatonic.livejournal.com]

*eyes the ruts and nods*

Yep.