PSA: Clean the #@!$ing Snow Off Your Car's Roof
19Think you’re too good to clean all of the snow and ice off your car before you drive? Think your time and comfort is more valuable than the safety of other drivers on the road? This could be your fault:
Yesterday on I-95 Northbound a car in front of me shed a giant chunk of ice from their roof which, although I steered to avoid it, became wedged under my car hindering my ability to steer my vehicle. This was the result.
Luckily the only thing injured in this incident was my car and my wallet. The next victim might not be so lucky.
How would you feel if you found out that ice or snow shed from your car killed or injured someone? Clean your car off before leaving your house. It’s a matter of safety and in many states it’s the law.
I’m out over $1000 to repair this mess and I can assure you that this is no laughing matter.
- 14 comments, 31 replies
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Damn, glad you’re physically okay though.
Glad you’re okay @jbartus. I have a serious issue with fuckers that don’t clean the snow off their vehicles. I had a good size chunk fly off someone’s roof yesterday and hit my windshield. Fortunately no damage was done. Can’t say the same for the guy in this story: http://6abc.com/weather/ice-from-truck-crashes-into-drivers-windshield-on-i-95/1802389/
It’s the law to clean the snow off in PA and NJ but Delaware still won’t pass one. For those that bitch about not being able to reach their roof, I highly recommend a telescoping ‘snow broom’ like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Joe-SJBLZD-Telescoping-Scraper/dp/B008FV5R0Y
@cinoclav it really needs to be the law everywhere. The fact that it isn’t is one of the greater travesties of road safety in my opinion.
@jbartus Agreed. Did you see this story yesterday: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/03/15/snow-car-roof-mass-pike-state-police-windshield/
@cinoclav my insurance agent was just telling me about it. Incredible.
@cinoclav I just use a plastic snow shovel face down to get the windshields, hood, trunk, and roof. Works fine.
@Pantheist don’t use a metal shovel face up – I have 4 nasty scratches on my windshield
@mikibell haha yep, I know how that goes.
@Pantheist I use a push broom.
@mikibell I once cleaned slush off my windshield with snow from the snow pile at the side of parking lot. They also use cinders where I lived (not very effective by the way - the salt works better, that city used both depending on where in the city) so there were some cinders in the snow I used. Unfortunately doing that scratched the heck out of my windshield. I would have thought they were not hard enough to scratch. Lesson learned.
@jbartus I just park in the South.
One day a few years back it was snowing and icy in Dallas but not even freezing here. Driving eastbound on I-20 was like a video game dodging giant chunks of ice that would fly from the tops of 18 wheeler trailers. It was pretty scary.
Glad the only damages were repairable.
ETA: as a Southerner it didn’t even occur to me that this is a problem other than the day the trucks brought ice from Texas. The one or two days every couple of years that we have any winter accumulation I don’t think I’ve ever thought about what happens to the ice on my roof. Thanks for the PSA.
@djslack trucks are brutal. On one hand I get what the issue is there, the things are more than double the height of your average man, so I can somewhat empathize there, but for passenger vehicles it’s unconscionable.
I do think that something needs to be done about trucks. Some kind of brush or something they can drive through at the truck stops or something backed by a legal mandate to use it.
@jbartus Funny, I was thinking about the exact same thing last night and had literally the same thought. There should be truck stops with some sort of squeegee device. Better yet, the tops of trailers should have a heating element that softens the snow along with a device that scrapes it off.
A quick search just found this: http://www.scrapersystems.com/
@cinoclav The problem will always, of course, come down to paying for it. Trucking companies won’t unless they are forced to. Then there’s the matter of what to do about trucks who overnight away from company facilities.
@jbartus That goes back to having systems available at truck stops or weigh stations. Even something as simple as this thing should be a requirement and it’s affordable: http://avalanche-snow.com/bigrigrake/
@cinoclav Yeah but without force of law to require them to do so companies will never invest in those or require their employees to use them.
@jbartus Well, kind of a given that it has to be a national law.
@cinoclav I certainly agree with that.
@djslack In areas where snow is common, some trucking companies install trailer brush pull-throughs. I’ll try to find a pic. When we were stuck on the East coast during storms we ended up with a good 3 feet of snow on our trailer plus a full inch of ice from the freezing rain that preceeded the snow dump. Put us something like 8,000 pounds over gross when we hit the weight station. That was an experience.
I don’t know how to add a picture buy here’s the link. Pic is about a quarter of the way down the page:
http://www.bluffmanufacturing.com/durasweeper.aspx
Thank you.
It’s like some stupid idiots think it’s funny to drive around with a foot of snow on the roof?
AHHHHH!!!
I’ve been hit by large chunks of snow. Quite a few years ago, my wife was driving to work & a big chuck on snow/ice fell from the car roof in front of her. The chunk wedged under the car and jammed the throttle linkage full open. She slammed it in neutral, but the icy conditions and a racing out-of-control engine was a bad mix. She headed for the first long driveway & shut the engine off. Luckily, she only had minor damage and she was unhurt.
@daveinwarsh glad to hear your wife was able to find a safe resolution. That’s scary stuff! Good head on her shoulders too it would seem!
So I went by the dealer. I’ll find out more Tuesday when I get it on the lift but for the parts I know I’ll be needing it’s going to run me over $700 before getting anything painted.
Great. Yet another thing to freak out about while driving in the winter. I hate driving anyway, so adding this to the list of reasons why is not cool.
Super glad you’re safe though!
That must have been some chunk of ice to prevent you from steering… Are you sure you didn’t just serve to miss it and lost control?
@medz it only has to be big enough to catch the undercarriage, and if you have a car with low clearance, it isn’t hard. The friction would be enough to mess up steering and it’s not hard to do body damage to a newer car.
@Pixy but wouldn’t it get pulverized before it lifted the car? The car has more mass… Like physics or something…
@medz I had already started to swerve, that set my trajectory. What I was rendered unable to do was recover from the swerve in any way. I’ve been driving in snow for over a decade, know what I’m doing in the snow, and even went to Skid School when I was on my learner’s permit to learn how to drive in exactly this kind of situation minus the ice chunk under my car. It’s possible that given enough time the car would have pulverized the ice, may have done even, but if so by the time it mattered I was in the unplowed right lane headed off-road.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thankfully, you are okay. It could so easily have gone the other way. People laugh because I keep my snow gear in my car year-round (and we usually only get about 5 days of snow a year), but it means I have it.
People just don’t think.
@Pixy Notice the overpass? Imagine if he’d shed the ice 500 feet sooner.
I have always hated it when I see idiots with snow on their car but this experience has lit a new fire.
I always clear ice or frozen snow. Never clear powdery snow.
@bdb always clear all snow. Leaving a plume of snow behind you to blind people, stick to their windshields, and coat the roadways that the plows have gone to so much trouble to clear is not safe or responsible in any way.
@bdb powdery snow is the easiest to clean. It brushes off.
Sheet ice scares me more than flying snow.
So NYS is trying to pass a law to require snow removal.
I thought it was another stupid NYS Nanny State law requiring common sense.
Reading the anecdotes and seeing the pictures (what are you, living World of Tanks for real???) maybe I’ll reconsider.
@edgriebel you should. It shouldn’t have to be a law, it should be common sense, but clearly people are too stupid to understand the impact of their laziness upon other motorists. Back it up with a $1000 fine and maybe they’ll get the hint.
I live in MA so I hate it when I see cars covered in snow. Makes me want to chuck an ice ball at their windshield.
@sushiboy write our state legislature. I will be!
@jmoor783 thanks for adding fuel to the fire.
@jmoor783 12/30/15 That’s a shitty way to end a year.
Seconded. About 10 years ago, my Dad and I were driving down to South Jersey after a snowstorm, when a huge chunk of ice fell off the back of a tractor-trailer and into the windshield of our minivan.
Right in front of my face.
The windshield cracked, but held. I called 911 while Dad overtook the truck and forced it to the shoulder. The truck driver was pretty blasé about it. The New Jersey state trooper who came to our air was a lot less blasé
@sanspoint how does one go about forcing a semi over?!?!
Glad you were safe!!
@jbartus Very carefully.
@sanspoint I’ll just bet.