The Horrid Winter Weather Commute

Welcome back to another Commuter Update! Last time you got to see some of the crazy road incidents from Bhavneet’s commute (and if you missed that installment, go read that one, especially if you enjoy thrilling and crazy! Or if you want to be thankful that you live in less crazy driving location than us 🙂 ). Today, we are going to venture into a snapshot of driving from behind the wheel of Taranjit’s Corolla:

With winter weather always comes crazy drivers. And with crazy drivers, comes even crazier commuting stories. At least for my county. The county I live in just so happens to be situated in the perfect location to always get hit by any type of weather, no matter the type. And we always get it worse than the rest of the state. Go figure! Take this past week as an example. The weather forecast for the rest of the state? A chance of rain, if that. Then, the forecast for my county? Snow, sleet, ice, and freezing rain. Amount of accumulation? 8 inches combining snowfall and ice. What?! Why us? Mother Nature was definitely like why just give them snow. Why not give them a little bit of everything?

Naturally, while the rest of the state was able to commute like normal on Monday, I was restricted to my house. The wintery mix was still coming down, and there was no way I was going to take my small car down the curvy and very hilly roads of my commute to work. That would be like a death wish! No thank you.

Come Tuesday, I had to go to work. I already had one day off. Can’t afford another one. So here I am, driving to work and it is still sleeting at my house, but nothing is happening in the county I work. So in I go. Braving this storm, which I really just want to end. Can’t winter just be over, and while we are at it, let’s skip to summer. Yea. I like that idea. Who’s on board?

The amount of ice that had formed on the trees was causing large branches to break off and fall into the road. Now I am not just talking about small and skinny branches. I am talking about the tree’s entire arms. The branches were the thick heavy ones that were falling. Trees were losing limbs left and right. What did the trees do to deserve amputation?

I was 20 minutes away from work, and my side of the road was slowed down. In my mind, I was like, great another accident. But as I passed the area, I saw three police cars surrounding a bus who had a gigantic branch lying in front of it. Now I was paying more attention to the road than the bus, but either that branch landed in front of it and the bus stopped or the branch landed on the bus. If it was the latter, that would suck. Hopefully, there were no kids on the bus. And hopefully, the driver didn’t get hurt.

If you thought that was bad, you should have been in my car with me for this commute. Now I am about 10 minutes away from work, on a three lane road, and I nearly miss a gigantic, heavy branch falling on my car! Right as I pass the area, not even a split second after I cross, a huge branch comes crashing down onto the road, blocking 2 and a half lanes! Thank goodness the cars behind me stopped just in time. The branch literally brushed the front of one of the cars and fell right in front of it. If it took him another second before he stopped, then who knows what kind of damage would have occurred.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday’s drive was a little better, but my eyes were constantly scanning the sides of the roads to make sure no trees were planning on coming down anytime soon (you can’t fall now, you still have plenty of oxygen to make!). The side of the roads were lined with all the broken and fallen down trees. This storm was crazy!

If you have any crazy stories about commuting in this crazy winter weather, let us know in the comments (or send us an email) and you could be featured on an upcoming installment of Commuter Update!

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