Daniel Workman

Open Letter
2/7/19
English 2010

Dear Snow,

I don’t think you understand the affects you have on us as drivers. Why do you feel the
need to cover everything and turn to ice in an instant? Imagine, people wake one morning for
work in the middle of winter. They leave on time ready to fight the traffic that awaits them. As
they leave their house, they see a fresh blanket of snow covering everything. They clean off
their car which now puts them behind schedule. You can’t just be brushed off, you have to be
scraped off. They figure you will just make up for it on their drive. You merge onto the freeway
to see it is practically a parking lot. 70 mph zone and its stop and go. They merge with traffic
and slowly make their way down the interstate where they see car after car spun off the road.
They finally make it to work, 30 minutes late.
Though you rear your ugly head every winter, we can’t seem to remember how our
behavior must change in your presence. Year after year, we continue to battle the same issues
of drivers that we did the year before. Drivers getting in too big of a hurry and not having any
patience seems to be the cause of most of these accidents. All that you require is that we slow
down a little, leave a little more following distance, and pay extra attention to our
surroundings. That seems to be too much to ask.
It seems like during and after every storm we see drivers racing by the slower traffic on
snow packed roads. What destination is so important that they are willing to risk their life in
these conditions? Why is such a hard concept to grasp that if we all slow down and drive more
carefully we will all arrive in a safe manner? If we would all just work together and drive
courteously, we would arrive to our destinations alive. Without people racing past us and
cutting us off, accidents would decrease significantly. No accidents mean no lane closures. No
lane closures mean we all travel a little faster because we aren’t crammed into two lanes on a
five-lane highway. We would all arrive to our destinations in a timely manner without the
headache.
It is possible for us to cooperate with your demands, but life would be easier if you just
stopped showing up. Even though you show up every year at the same time, it is just too much
for us to handle. We are all too busy with our own lives and situations to work together even
though it would benefit everyone in the long run.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Driver