Be careful what you wish for

By Doug Miller
Posted: February 25, 2010

It’s hard to know what some people expect. Maybe it was just cabin fever talking.

Naaah.

Some folks we intereviewed recently complained about the job county crews did with snow removal in the wake of the recent twin blizzards. First, the county was late in freeing some neighborhoods from the white monster. Then when the equipment did get there, it tore up curbs and sidewalks.

In short, the disgruntled said, the county was not prepared to deal with the situation.

Of course it wasn’t. Nor should it have been.

This isn’t Buffalo. We get storms of this magnitude once in a blue moon. The last one that was even close to the snows of February 2010 was seven years ago, and this latest one hammered Howard County even harder.

To be fully prepared every single winter for a storm that dumps three and a half feet or so of snow would do things to the budget I don’t even want to think about. And most years all those extra trucks and all that extra salt would be sitting idle.

And I have a sneaking suspicion that the same people who find the county’s response to the snow unacceptable would scream like banshees if the county hiked their property taxes to pay for more equipment and personnel so that the next time — whenever that might be — they won’t have to wait so long for their cul-de-sac to be cleared.

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Don’t look now

By Doug Miller
Posted: February 24, 2010

Just when you thought it was safe to get back on the roads, more wintry precipitation is on the horizon. Supposed to start tonight.

It won’t be anything like what we saw a couple of weeks ago (we can still see most of it, in fact, lying on lawns and piled alongside streets and driveways), but we’re likely to get a few inches of accumulation. Enough to make commuting messy.

And almost certainly enough to leave officials of the school system with a real dilemma. They’ve just this week OKd a plan to make up the days already lost to snow, one that includes cancellation of a couple of professional days and extension of the school year into late June.

Chances are they’ll be able to get waivers of any further lost instructional days from the state school board. But if the snowfall coming overnight and into Thursday stacks up as predicted, it might be just enough to cause much hemming and hawing.

If it’s just a dusting, no worries. If it’s another dumping, it’d be a no-brainer. It’s these in-between amounts that can inspire much second-guessing, no matter what the decision turns out to be.

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An alternate lesson

By Doug Miller
Posted: February 12, 2010

I see where Maryland schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick is asking the state’s Board of Education to grant a waiver of the requirement of 180 days of instruction to all the local school districts in the wake of the blizzard of 2010.

Without a waiver, they’ll be bumping up against July before the kids get out of school, on account of all the unscheduled closings due to snow.

She told the Baltimore Sun that she doesn’t want teachers and students in un-air-conditioned classrooms in the heat of the summer, but I’m sure she’s also cognizant of the uproar from parents whose travel plans would be thrown into disarray if the school year is extended.

As sketchy as it might sound at first blush, there’s another justificaiton: For learning history, there’s nothing quite so instructive as living through it, and this week’s snowfall has certainly been historic.

For those who’ve been paying attention, the week’s events also offered insights into human behavior. They’ve often been uncomfortable, as tempers have flared under the stress of waiting for the snowplow, fighting over shoveled-out parking spaces and suffering cabin fever.

There’s also something to be said for the value of plain old tough, physical work, which even many elementary-schoolers have experienced as the volume of snow called for an all-hands-on-deck approach to clearing driveways and sidewalks.

Of course, all this assumes that school kids have actually gotten out into the world during all this. I concede that some have probably been parked in front of the Xbox for days on end. But even those must have been curious enough to trudge out into the snow, at least long enough to find out what it takes just to walk through it.

Mustn’t they?

In short, it ain’t book-learnin’, but it’s sure been an education.

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Dig this

By Doug Miller
Posted: February 9, 2010

The original plan was not to hole up with four Spartan princesses for an entire weekend. That’s just how it worked out.

And it’s a good thing. When the snow hit, my wife was in Florida, of all places. She and her younger sister had left that morning, leaving a day ahead of schedule (to beat the weather) on a long-planned trip to help their older sister with a move.

My 15-year-old daughter wanted to have some friends for a sleepover. I was sick as a dog at that point, and in no condition to argue. Besides, with what we knew was coming, it was a lot safer. If it had been just her and me snowed in for three days, it would have been redrum and “Here’s Johnny” and the whole nine grisly yards.

On Saturday my daughter and her friends used rouge and eye shadow as war paint, putting red and blue hash marks across their cheeks as they prepared to attack the driveway. “We are Sparta!” one of them intoned.

I wasn’t yet warrior-worthy, but was feeling a little better, so I joined them.

We had but one objective. Friday night, as the heavy stuff was starting, I suddenly realized that my sister-in-law’s car was parked on the street and would make things tougher on the snowplow drivers than they were already.

Hours of digging on Saturday was just enough to free the car and a tiny space in the driveway. It was a tight squeeze, and I was skidding and stalling out. We dug out a little more space, and after five or six tries, I finally got it into the driveway.

By then it was getting dark, so the girls stayed over again that night. No sense trying to send them home through all that if we didn’t have to. On Sunday, though, our house guests decided they’d seen enough of us and headed for home. Our neighborhood still hadn’t been plowed, so what would normally be a leisurely stroll became a slog.

After my daughter got back from seeing her guests home, she joined me in clearing the rest of our driveway and our part of the sidewalk (which, in retrospect, was pointless, since the plow covered it again with what was in the street).

I haven’t worked out like that in a long while. Maybe ever.

I got so I was perfecting technique with my curve-shafted snow shovel, which is supposed to be easier on your back but makes dumping your load trickier. Lift, turn, put left hand and shoulder behind the shaft near the blade, right hand atop the handle (removing thumb so as not to twist it), step into the throw and catapult your load over the mountain of stuff you’ve already moved.

When the plow finally did get to our street late afternoon Monday, of course, we had to hit the driveway again to clear what the plow left at its mouth. Lift, turn, position hands, step into throw.

My shoulder’s a little balky, but all things considered, I’m remarkably unsore.

For now, that is. We’ll see how I hold up after tomorrow’s shoveling.

Good news is that my wife gets back from Florida today. Presuming her flight isn’t cancelled.

Hmm, might need to get a message to Sparta.

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Gabby motoring

By Doug Miller
Posted: January 29, 2010

People are bound to draw their own conclusions about things, but I’m inclined to agree with AAA’s take on a recent study of the effect of laws governing cell-phone use by motorists.

A press release I just got from the Mid-Atlantic chapter of AAA says, “A new study released today by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), a research arm of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), found that states with laws which ban hand-held cell phone use while driving have not seen a reduction in crashes.”

Habitual cell users will no doubt conclude, “See, I can talk on the phone and drive at the same time.”

The auto club and I see it differently, though.

See, it isn’t the handling of the phone itself but the distraction of having a phone conversation — hands-free or not —  that impairs drivers.

“In fact, a recent study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety showed that talking on a cell phone while driving—regardless of whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, quadruples one’s chances of being involved in a crash,” the release reads.

AAA Mid-Atlantic spokeswoman Ragina C. Averella says, “If bans on handheld cell phone use are merely pushing drivers to adopt the use of hands-free products, then it’s really no surprise that we are seeing little to no change in road safety.”

This comes to us as the General Assembly is considering multiple bills dealing with the issue of distracted driving, including one from James Malone, who represents Howard County’s northeastern corner (along with a hunk of Baltimore County) in the House of Delegates.

Yes, the legislature has a monster budget problem to address, but here’s hoping they find time to enact common-sense measures to keep drivers’ minds on the road.

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