I have seen a lot of complaining up here in Seattle about how bad the snow clearing is. I have also noticed that the majority of drivers don't use chains.
I don't have chains. I learned to drive in the SF Bay area, and coping with snow was not part of our instruction. I'm sure there are many people here from warmer parts of the country who have simply never learned to drive on snow. I've been told by people from other parts of the country that our snow in Seattle is really slicker than in other regions, because it's usually not as thoroughly frozen. After the snowfall, the temperature often rises above freezing during the day, water runs down to the pavement level and then freezes into a layer of ice underneath at night....very slippery indeed. And then there are the hills....
My car has front wheel drive, so I will drive a short distance on fresh snow, but once it gets packed down it's buses and "Shanks' Mare" for me until it melts. There are so many other people here who (admittedly or not) have no idea how to drive in the snow, that it's just safer to leave the car in the garage on those infrequent occasions when we get a heavy snowfall. Usually that's only a few days; this time it was nearly three weeks, the longest I recall in the nearly 27 years I have lived here.
I wonder if folks that use chains and carry winter clothes and a shovel in their trunk are as whiney......
When I got back from my parents' house Saturday, the gutter in front of my house was clogged with snow and slush, so the water couldn't drain away as it would normally. I knew that would keep me from getting out the next morning, so I cleared out the clogs, and with help from a neighbor, removed ice and snow from the last few feet of steeply sloping crown up to the driving lane of the street (which was mostly clear). I hoped that overnight rain would remove the rest of the ice for me and it did. (hallelujah!) As I was giving a finishing touch to the ditch, a neighbor from the other side came out and remarked that it was the City's responsibility to clear the street and she gave it has her opinion that if the mayoral election was this year, the incumbent would have been trounced. I could understand her ire if storms of this magnitude were an annual event, but I bet she would gripe even more about the higher taxes that would be needed to keep snow-clearing crews in readiness every winter for amounts of snowfall that occur perhaps every 5 years or even less frequently.
....as the those that expect the roads to be bare and dry all year.
Nobody who has lived in Seattle through even part of a winter expects the roads to be bare and dry all the time. We expect them to be bare and
wet for at least 4 or 5 months of the year.