Winter’s coming so lighten up

A couple of years ago, I’m in the bar at the Kansas City airport with my pals Gary and Jack and one or two others — we’d been to an Indy car race out there — and we’re all talking at once, as is par for the course, about whatever and Gary suddenly jumps up and wails:

“Every time we go away, we argue about this (whatever). Can we not make up our minds once and for all?” I was reminded of that moment earlier this week when we had our annual debate here at the Toronto Star Wheels about exactly when we should publish our Get Ready For Winter issue. This is serious. If we put all of the stories — about driving in slush and snow and how often you should wash your car to get rid of the salt and whether allweather tires are as good or better than winter tires — in the paper too early, like in October when the temperature could still be 20 C on occasion, nobody would read the stuff because it wouldn’t be winter yet. Conversely, it we wait till after the snow comes, which could happen at any time in November, it would really be too late because our message is that you have to get ready for winter, which doesn’t do you, the reader, much good if it’s already winter.

I got a little worried last Saturday when I looked outside in the morning and it was snowing, but it wasn’t cold enough for the stuff to stick around. But I remember thinking, as I looked out my bedroom window: “I’d better bring the winter package up for discussion sooner rather than later because if it’s snowing today, it could be storming by Thursday and we’d better get those stories into the paper pronto.”

Thank goodness it isn’t storming yet, but don’t be surprised if you wake up one of these days and have to go rummaging through your garage to find a brush and scraper and a shovel. Oh, and a container of windshield washer, too.

In the end, we can purchase the correct tires and take the car in for its pre-winter maintenance check and have all the correct things in the trunk — the flares and the tow-ropes and the rest — but whether or not you make it through the winter unscathed is really up to the person behind the wheel: you.

I don’t know whether there was a full moon this week, or what, but for one reason or another I saw a whole bunch of knuckle-headed drivers doing all sorts of knuckle-headed things and if that sort of behaviour continues we’re going to have a terrible time around here once the knuckle-headedness starts being mixed in with the ice and snow.

I know that every time you turn a corner in this city, you run into yet another construction zone. Although most people have adapted, for example, to the mess on the westbound Gardiner during the afternoon rush, it doesn’t mean they’re still not getting frustrated. The excessive speed that results once the bottleneck clears after the Exhibition Grounds can be positively frightening.

It will only get worse once the slush comes. Here’s something else that’s frightening. There were more than 33,000 — that’s thousand — collisions on roads patrolled by the OPP last winter. (Can you imagine what the total would be if you included the cities of Toronto, Mississauga, Whitby and so-on? Scary.)

That 33,000 was about 7,000 more — more — than occurred during the comparable four months the year before. And poor driving behaviour — not bad weather or poor road conditions — was the prime contributing factor, according to the provincial force. Just as distracted driving has passed impaired driving as the No. 1 cause of fatal accidents, stupid driving is now more responsible than icy roads and poor visibility for crashes in winter.

Take to heart what we’ve printed elsewhere in this section about proper tires and automobile maintenance. But the pressure of the pedal on the mettle is even more important.

This winter, lighten up a little, will ya?