How to React in Sudden Bad Weather
You hear about it all the time, there’s been a multi-car pileup along some Interstate due to a sudden thunderstorm, fog or snow. Ten or twenty cars run into one another; it happens over and over. And the sad thing is, it shouldn’t have to happen, because there are things people can do to avoid a collision when sudden bad weather happens.
For example take fog, one of the most accident prone conditions of all. What can you possibly do if you’re cruising down the highway, and then suddenly, just like that, you’re in a dense fog and can’t see much past the end of your hood right in front of you? Well, you can pull off to the side that’s what. It’s amazing how few people actually do this when a fog strikes. People seem to think that they might hit someone or something, or that they can’t make themselves drive onto a shoulder they can’t see. And somehow, this is better than blindly driving into the rear end of the car in front of you? No, the real truth is that sudden fog is never that sudden. Yes, it might seem sudden, but far more often than not, there is some warning before it happens. This is when you should pull off the road, not after you’re engulfed. This is when you should turn on all of your car lights as well, including your brake lights by lightly pushing them till your car stops, and then by leaving your foot there on the pedal after you’ve stopped so that others can see them.
It’s the same way with heavy rain, snow, sleet and slush, or any other condition that causes driving to become dangerous. What you do is forget about getting to wherever you were going that seems so important and pull your car off the road. Remember, it’s impossible to run into something if you are not moving. Granted, someone else may come along and run into you, but you can’t get injured if you get out of your car before that happens. That’s the general rule; if conditions grow so bad that continuing to drive forward is dangerous, than stop doing it. Just pull your car over, park and then get out of that vehicle and get as far from the road as you can; and then just sit there and wait till the dangerous conditions have passed. It’s not that difficult to understand.
The real reason that there are car pileups is because people don’t want to bothered by road conditions or other drivers. They are so hell bent on getting where they want to go that they ignore obviously dangerous conditions and keep plodding along, like sheep over a cliff. Don’t be one of those people. Stop your car, get out, get away, and you’ll be fine.
