I mean, the forecast is for snow, and ice, you drive anyway.
The road is blocked, you get stranded. You are unprepared for the stranding, not enough gas or food or water….(Or, even, GASP! Terlet paper…OMG!)
Somehow this is supposed to be someone else’s fault and someone else’s problem….
People trapped for over 20 hours in snowy conditions on I-95 in Virginia
Hint: Don’t drive when road conditions are gonna suck. Be smarter than that. When the semi trucks start pulling off en-mass, you might wanna ask yerself why. …
Had the condtions for yesterday been for the kind of weather we are having today, I’d not have gone and driven nearly 7 hours each way, but rather waited for another day when there wasn’t a high likelihood that I would be trapped or endangered by weather.
I’ve been trapped by accidents in winter weather…..and I was always prepared enough to survive easily. If yer not well prepared, you are a sheep, a victim, and expect others to endanger themselves because of your stupidity and shortsightedness.
It’s not like there aren’t many weather apps for phones, tablets and computers that cannot tell you what to expect a few hours ahead as you drive, fer chrissakes. Of course you gotta be smart enough to actually look and use that data.
ETA: 48 MILES of people trapped. Are they too stupid to take the nearest exit and another route? I mean, if you are trapped right next to the actual accident site I can understand….but 48 MILES of trapped people? Could the State not have shut down the highway?
There have been blizzards on I-65 in Indiana and on I-57 in Illinois (about 40-50 miles apart), both North-South roads) and the highway departments of both Illinois and Indiana have no hesitation to close the highways when the conditions warrant it for 50-80 miles. Why can’t Virginia do it?
They would not have had this problem if they had relied on cheap, reliable public transportation like Amtrak.
What?
Oh, they were stranded too.
Never mind.
I can’t speak to the Virginia weather forecast, but here in NC the weather that was predicted when I went to bed was not what I got when the wind howling through the pines woke me up at 6:30 AM. The weather guessers blew it big time around here.
Perhaps. But that does not excuse people who drove into terrible snow and Icing up ahead….It isn’t hard in todays’ information age to look ahead and hour. Nor that were totally unprepared for what happened.
Those that could, bailed quickly. Friend of mine hit the backup, rode the shoulder to the next exit, and hit a hotel.
exactly. He didn’t just wait….
more of the product of govt as mother mentality. every little storm, “call out the national guard, OMG!” but then get in your car an go NORTH in snow/ice conditions?idiots. we need to let natural selection take its natural course again. too many stupid people surviving to procreate more stupid people that rely on govt to tell them when to eat, drink, or take a crap. lazy, stupid, and selfish is no way to go thru life.
It is a constant source of amazement to me how few people have the most basic supplies in their vehicle.
I live in Colorado. It snows here. Sometimes an avalanche will bury a road, and the only way around it (if there is one) may be hundreds of miles.
So in my truck I have a bag. It has two days supply of food, a camp stove with fuel, a pot for melting snow/boiling water, candles, flashlight, some instant coffee, dried soups, a deck of cards, a paperback, knife and fork and spoon, etc.
Add a sleeping bag, a warm pair of socks, stocking cap, etc., and I can – albeit uncomfortably – wait out a day to let the road crews clear the avalanche.
My coworker sees no need for such a bag. I do not understand him.