Is this even real?

[Oreo]

We are a little fortunate here, however, if it starts snowing and someone calls you at work to let you know, most all of the businesses will let you leave immediately in order to get home.

[TaintedAndDelish]

I found this terribly amusing, but yeah, when you consider the disadvantages to not being prepared and accustomed to driving in snow, it sort of sucks the humor out of the situation.

I've made quite a few trips up and down the east coast and found that in the south ( especially around South Carolina and Georgia ) people seem to drive really close to each other at highway speeds and then just jump on the brakes for no apparent reason. If you've driven on i95, you'll see lots of skid marks from panic stops and destroyed tires all over the highway. (It's scary) That sort of driving does not work well on ice and hard packed snow.

[Callie Del Noire]

Yeah I try to keep at least two car lengths (if not more) between me and the next car ahead of me. After having driven thru some areas of the world, like Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Boston it's second nature. Places like Atlanta, Columbia and/or Charlotte it's like if you're not in the guy in front of you tailpipe you're wasting space. And given the sheer mess some parts of the highway around those three states can be, particularly Charlotte, you want more space to react not less.

[kylie]

      It can be partly a cultural choice of the area too...  In my present northern city, we are getting the standard couple inches lately.  But they don't sand the roads or do a whole lot really that I can see.  They clear them, of course, but once it freezes again you have almost a skating rink for pedestrians.  And the motor traffic just drives a whole lot slower than usual.  You usually have to gauge when to slip between the pretty aggressive flow of traffic in order to cross the street...  But now, they are really crawling along for once.  I also hear they don't have snow tires.

      Not sure if it's considered less urgent partly because it's been the holidays here and many people left the city for their country homes.  (Half or more of the businesses simply close, which is not so uncommon for New Year's in East Asia, even major Japanese cities do this.)  But we will soon see...