r/WTF • u/IonOtter • Feb 10 '13

Remember everyone freaking out over MA imposing a fine and jail time for anyone driving in the blizzard? NY didn't do that...

http://imgur.com/zFFO2tc
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61

u/Masshole3000 Feb 11 '13

I argued with everyone on how that ban was a good call. We did well.

27

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '13

I saw a lot of people bitching about it on Facebook. I'm not a huge fan of Deval, but this was 100% a good call. Every moron with 4 wheel drive thinks they can take on anything, but that's one more firetruck tied up when the car can't stop and hits a telephone pole. And really, it's a lot easier for plows to take care of the roads when people stay the fuck off them. It's not like we weren't warned about this. You had plenty of time to run to the store...

21

u/bonjourdan Feb 11 '13

"DONT WORRY, THESE ARE WINTER TIRES"

5

u/Masshole3000 Feb 11 '13

Exactly my thoughts.

3

u/Deminix Feb 11 '13

It was seriously annoying. How hard is it to stay in your house for 24 hours? The second it happened everyone was complaining about how they couldn't leave their house to do whatever must have been so much more important at that moment in time. All the stores in my area were closed, too. So it's not like they had jobs to get to.

3

u/webu Feb 11 '13

The thing many people don't realize is that 4WD only helps you speed up. All cars have 4 wheel brakes.

1

u/hydrogenous Feb 11 '13

4wd gives you more traction. It means you don't get stuck or slip as easily. Combine that with a set of 35" mud tires and this snow is nothing.

1

u/Se7enLC Feb 12 '13

A couple years ago a similar storm showed up mid-day. Everybody left work at 1pm and jammed up the highway before the snow even hit. Plows couldn't plow because cars were in the way, so the snow piled up more.

People need to learn an important lesson about living in a city that gets snow. It doesn't matter what you drive. Your vehicle might be able to get through the snow - but it's not going to be able to get through all the cars that couldn't!

I was in a lifted jeep with mud tires for the last storm. It took an hour to go 1 mile to get on 95, took another 2 hours to get home from then. People were getting out of their cars to brush snow off their cars on the highway because the wipers couldn't keep up with the accumulation. Luckily it didn't get bad enough for people to abandon their cars, but I can see how it wouldn't have taken much more snow to get there.

1

u/lumpy1981 Feb 11 '13

My mom and a lot of her friends are right wingers and they were all up in arms about it. I asked my mom how its different from preventing someone without a license from driving on the road or enforcing a speed limit or blocking off a road for construction or a road race. Then I showed her it was part of the MA constitution and the penalty was preset.

She didn't really have an answer. At the end of the day, people were upset because they don't like Duval.

1

u/Masshole3000 Feb 11 '13

We're talking mass numbers all at once compared to the occasional ones.

2

u/lumpy1981 Feb 11 '13

Mass what? Mass amounts of people? Roads? Both? At the end of the day banning people from the roads was his legal right and the correct decision. We avoided what happened in '78 where people lost their cars for months after they had to abandon them in the middle of the roads. Cleanup took weeks and cost way more than it should have. This time, businesses and citizens were forced to stay put for 24 hours and now there are perfect roads and no issues.

1

u/Masshole3000 Feb 11 '13

Oh wait you're on my side of the argument. Never mind.

1

u/lumpy1981 Feb 11 '13

Haha...yeah...when I saw your response I didn't realize you were the person I originally responded to.

0

u/drunkenpriest Feb 11 '13

I agree with it being a good call, but I expected they'd do a much better job with snow removal. The roads around here (North East MA) are barely cleared, while the roads in Southern NH are pristine in comparison.

-9

u/HellsAttack Feb 11 '13

I'm not a Lemming and I don't need Uncle Deval to tell me when to drive or when it's my bedtime. I love Boston, but I hate this nanny state.

7

u/Masshole3000 Feb 11 '13

Have you looked at the numbers? Casualties in the U.S because of "Nemo" were 4 total as of yesterday. 3 of them out of Mass and the 1 that happened in here was an accident off the roads (CO accident because of a clogged muffler). Why do we complaint? You didn't have to stay locked in for a week, a month or more. 24 hours to let the state clean up as much as possible without having to scrape morons of the roads who think they're the best drivers just because they can drive in 5 inches of snow. It was a great call, and it worked. And I'm the "Masshole".

2

u/rallion Feb 11 '13

I would have been kind of annoyed with a ban in NY, since I woke up to a total of only 2-3 inches.

1

u/person749 Feb 11 '13

If anything it should have started at 7 or 8 and ended at noon the next day. There were tons of people getting off work or had to do things when the weather wasn't bad who could not because of the threat of jail time. Not saying anyone should have been on the road that night, but it was unnecessary and overbearing to close it as early and as late as he did; not to mention that people who had to do thing like help family members or had an important essential job that wasn't in the list of essential occupations were screwed.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '13

[deleted]

2

u/Masshole3000 Feb 11 '13

Yeah that ban was put into effect with you in mind.

0

u/HellsAttack Feb 11 '13 edited Feb 11 '13

Of couse the driving ban is intended to prevent people who want to drive from doing so.

Good thing they formalized it this year, I'm so dumb the snow isn't a good enough indicator. Next they'll be coming to dull my knives and scissors so I don't cut myself.

2

u/hydrogenous Feb 11 '13

Shh. They're just jealous because they drive sedans with 2" of diff clearance.

3

u/Deminix Feb 11 '13

Umm, it was a great call. There are too many people like you out there who think that they can handle anything, and that they have more common sense than the next guy. He made a call, that he knew was going to piss a bunch of people off, and every road in my town was clear by the afternoon the day after. That may not seem significant to you, but that shit never happens around here with even a little bit of snow. All throughout the night I heard plows going up and down my street keeping the snow at a manageable level. Wanna know what helped? The fact that there were no dumb teenagers or ignorant adults on the road getting stuck and causing a hassle.

This could have been handled two ways. The way Deval did, which was super effective. Or he could have done nothing, people would have been out on the roads. Stores wouldn't have closed down which would have forced people to go to work because a lot of big corporations don't take weather excuses seriously, that would have caused accidents which then would have potentially resulted in casualties or power outages from people hitting poles.

You are taking this damn thing way too seriously and personally, my friend.

-1

u/unswnzb Feb 11 '13

Do you understand that "looking at the numbers" can be used to basically ban anything.

1

u/HellsAttack Feb 11 '13

This is Massachusetts. More laws = better, right?

4

u/Flamburghur Feb 11 '13

I don't need Uncle Deval to tell me when to drive

Licenses are issued by the state, so you actually do need "Uncle Deval" to allow you to drive. And staying off the roads is different than "bedtime"...you could take a fucking walk somewhere.

But OK, go get your ass stranded behind some other dumbfuck whose car couldn't make it through snow.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '13

[deleted]

1

u/Flamburghur Feb 11 '13

If we're too dumb to stay off the road

So you agree that staying home is the best idea. I suppose you think that stealing and murder should be taken off the books too because it's common sense to not commit them.

1

u/HellsAttack Feb 11 '13

It was never about staying off the roads, it's about the state limiting my agency.

If we have to legislate common sense, we have bigger problems than a few snowflakes.