Enough & stop were the 2 words that didn’t exist in the weather dictionary over the last 7 days. Well everyone on the I-95 corridor or for that matter 110 million Americans who were affected in roughly 20 states will remember the blizzard of 2010. It was nasty & bad. It snowed, snowed & kept snowing. The sad part was the road cleaning trucks came at a very slow rate compared to the speed at which the snow was coming down. Blame it on the ECONOMY. States & cities didnt have enough cash to send out the trucks to clean the streets frequently causing major havoc on the roadways.

So what’s this got to do with the title of the post. It has nothing to with Lincoln’s Head at Mount Rushmore but just a piece of information to all the drivers. Well its to all those folks who wanted to go from Place A to Place B during this bad weather with car’s that didn’t have All wheel Drive (AWD) and tires worn out and spinning in the same place because of bad traction.

Balding and Improperly Inflated Tires (Courtesy Wikipedia)

Over time, tires lose their tread in a process that is generally known as balding. Tires will all wear down over time, although aggressive driving and alignment problems can speed up the process. The tire tread is what allows the tire to grip the road and take away water on a wet road, and a vehicle that lacks adequate tread has a greater risk of [hydroplaning] on wet surfaces. Tires should have a tread of at least 1/16 of an inch, anything less and it is time to replace it. A trick to see if the tire in question has enough tread is to stick a Lincoln penny into the tire tread, with Lincoln’s head pressed into the grove. If the top of Lincoln’s head is visible it means there is not enough tread. Tires that are not properly inflated are also a driving hazard that is magnified in wet road conditions, and are at risk of blowing out should the car go into a skid.

The hazardous part of driving is the day after the storm when dumb drivers with huge snow on top of their car drive at such high speed dumping the snow on the cars following them causing a total white out condition. So everyone please drive carefully and go out only if its needed else work from home like I have been doing.

Some tips for winter driving:

• Check the wind-shield washer fluid in your car & have your car tuned for the winter weather.
• Emergency kit along with couple of bottle of water in case you get stranded .
• Snow shovel, snow brush, ice scraper, Cell phone chargers & an emergency flashlight.
• Emergency contacts no’s of your insurance company in case you get stranded.