Each year about this time, when the first snow threatens,
local police urge caution upon drivers who apparently have forgotten everything
they ever learned about how to drive on snow-slicked pavements last winter and
all the winters before it.
Part of the fun of living on Chicago’s North
Shore was provided by SUV drivers whose sense of entitlement included being
exempt from the same laws of laws of motion that apply to the plebs when they
takes a tight turn on packed snow at 40 miles an hour. Driving up and down the
Edens Expressway was like watching hippos dancing to the Dance of the Hours in
Fantasia, so many SUVs were spinning down the road. For me, watching the SUVs on
the first slippery day became a rite of winter, like going into the Loop to
look at the Christmas decorations.
This article appears in Nov 13-19, 2014.
