Clear Your Car Roof

Yesterday I became a poster child for why you should always clear the snow off your car roof. The weather yesterday was cold, wet and generally yucky. There were about 2 inches of snow on the ground when we got up. By the time we headed out to clear the cars (or more correctly by the time Amy headed out to clear the cars) the snow had turned to sleet. Even though we were driving into work together both cars needed to be cleared because her car doesn't have 4 wheel drive and has to be parked at the top of our steep driveway and we were driving to work in my car which does have 4 wheel drive. I've been nursing a sore knee this week (it's getting better but I'm not very steady on my feet) so she did the bulk of the work.

When I got out I finished clearing my windshield, but skipped clearing the roof because there was only 1/2 inch of icy frozen stuff on it. The drive was basically uneventful, except perhaps dodging the chunks of frozen stuff flying off trucks on the Turnpike, and the constant rain. As is typical the off ramp was clogged with traffic. As we stopped at the first traffic light (there are two before crossing the river) a small amount of icy stuff slid off the roof. It was easily removed by the wipers, which were on because of the rain. However, when we stopped for the second the bottom third of the windshield was suddenly filled. This wouldn't have been too bad except that the wipers tried to clear it and because it was icy about 3 inches of the driver's side wiper got shredded. Once across the river I pulled into a gas station and cleared the accumulated snow and ice from the windshield. The wiper was clearing enough of the windshield for me to see so I continued on to drop Amy off at work.

Then I headed directly to the car dealer. The service guys were nice enough not to turn me away, and I spent just over an hour watching tv and reading old magazines. The only repair was the wiper blade, and because it's a new car and the service guys like me they didn't even charge me for it. It could have been worse - not only could there have been more damage to the car (one of the service guys mentioned that another customer's car had required body work when ice came crashing off his roof) but it could have caused an accident.

And so we add another rule to the Chelle/Shelley's (pronounced the same) rules of driving: no leaving the neighborhood without clearing any accumulated snow or ice off the roof of the car.