"Snow Emergency = Driver Amnesia " a Cincinnati Travel Page by Darkeyedgirl

I hear this from most people inside & outside of Cincinnati; when it snows... correction: when the Weatherman even gives a slight hint that it might snow a quarter of an inch... the city shuts down. People panic. Kroger becomes plugged up with panicked housewives, fearing they will be snowed in for months, buying up all the canned stuff & food for their families.

Schools also panic. They shut down early and don't even call the parents. Some post it on the TV or internet. Others? You show up & find your kid bundled, sitting there having been bundled, for an hour; chaos ensues as confused parents and sweltering, bundled kids try to exit the one-lane road from the school to the 2-lane, congested highway where you have to pray that the chic in her SUV (who owns the road, by the way) won't plow into you because she forgot 1) how heavy her SUV is, and 2) how bigger vehicles take longer to stop, especially, on wet roads.

It's not that I have "4x4 Envy" or anything. I used to own a 4x4, and I loved it. And yeah I was probably one of the nutcases who flies up the merge lane to bypass all the cars taking it easy, or worse, the emergency lane on the interstate, to avoid all the slow-pokey drivers like myself who just happen to not have all that great traction and ballsiness like y'all do.

But I have to wonder: is Cincinnati the only city in the Midwest where the city shuts down and people panic and utterly do that Chicken Little thing, the freaking sky is falling and we're all going to die, when you get 3 inches of snow?

Northern KY got 3 inches. But driving home during the afternoon as the "heavy snowstorm" rolled by overhead, you'd swear it was Judgement Day.

And I was judged, with my slim low profiles, babying the accelerator, as the soccer moms on their cell phones plowed past me, running red lights, so they could hurry up to buy all the canned goods at Kroger. With my drugged-up 14 year old cat in the backseat (dental cleaning; man what a day I picked eh), my 8 year old kid in the front, all the responsibility on my shoulders as I watch in awe as everyone got Driver Amnesia.

It's snowing! How do you stop for a green light again?

It's snowing! What lane am I supposed to turn from?

It's snowing! The sky is falling! There is no more salt left on earth! There will be no more snow plows on earth, either!

Anyway, don't visit Cincinnati during the snowy months. Period. Unless you are prepared to sit in a sea of brakelights & watch SUVs sliding into helpless people because they forgot that bigger things take longer to stop.