F- me It's January!

It’s a cute meme but please don’t do this irl. This is how peoples’ days (and sometimes lives) are ruined.

77

I did this once just to drive 2 blocks on totally empty streets. After 30 seconds, I had my passenger open the window and see if I was good on their side. Shit was terrifying. I can’t imagine doing it on a legit commute. You gotta convince yourself you’ve got 8-inch solid unobtainium plot armor to do that.

22
- You have to convince yourself its ok to murder a pedestrian, my friends grandpa hit someone at a crosswalk that way, luckily they were ok and kept on walking but its always better to let your car get up to temp and defrost the windows and wipe down the side windows and mirrors
  
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Every winter, I'm reminded of what driver vantage points some people think are optional. Half the windscreen and none of the other windows cleared? Good to go. It really explains what we see on the roads the rest of the year.

4
It takes only an extra minute or so to get from this point of scraped off to a safe amount of the windshield scraped off. And honestly the couple of times I was lazy about it I ended up saving no time because I spent longer at stops plus was late anyways.

1

“Oh, I don’t need to be careful . I drive a 6000 pound death machine. It’s got airbags.”

55

I feel safer in the bigger vehicle

edit: guys I was kidding

3
- Statistically, you absolutely are. There’s good data to back it up: even when looking at the same vehicle category, the risk of death is smaller in a bigger vehicle.
  
  https://www.motortrend.com/news/are-bigger-cars-safer/
  
  Which is of course exactly what you’d expect. It’s basic physics after all. And there’s simply more metal between you and the thing that you hit / hits you.
  
  Still, the inverse also applies: driving a larger vehicle is more dangerous for everyone else on the road, so drivers should be extra careful. Everyone wants to get home safe.
  
  13
- Until everyone is also driving the 6,000 lb death machine. Now you need to get the 9,000 lb death machine to compensate and thus the cycle restarts until everyone commutes to work in literal tanks because "it's safer".
  
  4
- "I just like knowing that if there is an accident, I won't get hurt."
  
  4
- Sarcasm is a risky gambit here. I picked up on it but some people really need that /s
  
  2
- that's why i take the bus
  
  0
My old 3500lb death machine (2002 525i) just recalled for unsafe airbags.

2

What are you talking about? I live in Canada and it was 9 degrees (C) this morning 🔥🌞🔥

It's been stupid warm this winter.

37

I must have accidentally received your winter weather. I live in South Carolina and it was -4c this morning when I was leaving for work.

12
I spent the week after Christmas at the top of Michigan's upper peninsula. I was close enough to get Welcome to Canada messages on my phone but I don't have a current passport so I couldn't visit. Which is bullshit by the way, I've been there with just my DL many times.

But there was no snow. It rained several days. WTF?!

8
- That changed in 2007, ice requires a passport to enter the US
  
  1
-35 here in Sweden currently

3
In Finland we've had -5C for like the whole winter but now there's been a week of -25C. And back to positive next week.

2
It seems to finally be consistently below freezing in southern Wisconsin. We had some snow in November that made me hopeful but yet another year with little snow until the new year

1
That's around 50f for all of us using stupid units.

0

One morning around 2014 I got up early, scrapped the ice off my windshield, ran the defrost so I could see clearly out of the window (this was not the norm for me back then) and promptly slid down a 2-3 ft hill (I'm using hill VERY loosely here) less than 200 yards from my front door into a small fence going like maybe 2 miles per hour because the apartment complex hadn't had the parking lot salted the night before or plowed that morning. Still got to work on time though, though the body shop bill was about $350 for the repairs.

For YEARS my dream was to own a home mainly for the garage so I'd never have to scape my windshield again.

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That's not what garages are for. They're for storing all of the crap you definitely need.

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- What else are you supposed to do with those girlscouts always knocking on your door.
  
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- Good point, remote start was made for not having to scrape windshields.
  
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- Haha. Yeah you're like a lot of my neighbors. Fill your garage with shit you don't need so it looks tacky as fuck and park your car in the street to make sure you're in other people's way.
  
  -1
I built a house with a garage. I laugh at the frostbitten peasant cruisers on a cold morning.

Sometimes I wash my car an hour before a thunderstorm. You can get away with these things.

1
- I like to just sit in my garage and think about things.
  After awhile I turn the car off.
  
  2

It's a tough walk from my kitchen to my desk indeed.

19

Can someone from a country that gets snow explain this meme?

13

The problem is not snow, it's the ice that forms on the windscreen during the night, because of the sub-zero temperatures. It takes time to scrape it off, and if you're late, you do the bare minimum to see where you are going, hoping your car will heat up and melt the rest before you crash!

33
They snoozed the alarm so they are late and didnt clean the windshield to rush somewhere

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And it's incredibly stupid and more common than it should be. Takes 20 seconds to do the windows properly.

A girl in my city did that a few years ago and hit a pedestrian and then went to jail for it.

Worst 20 seconds she ever saved.

7
- Yeah it's at least 5 minutes and I run the car while I'm scraping.
  
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- Sometimes the ice is so bad I have to run the car for 10 minutes so the ice scraper will remove the ice
  
  1

Don't laugh ..... it's a really bad day when your car/truck decides to run ...but the cab heater has stopped working ... on a really cold day at minus 10 to 20 degrees Celsius (+14F to -4F in American) ... your windshield basically becomes a frosty block of ice that will clear up for a minute after you scrape it before it forms a new layer of frost again.

I drove around for a week continually scraping the windshield to drive around town one winter a few years because of this. And if you are unlucky, police will stop you, ticket you and tell you to tow your vehicle home.

11

And if you are unlucky, police will stop you, ticket you and tell you to tow your vehicle home.

That’s actually if you’re lucky my dude.

If you’re really really unlucky then you slam your truck into a minivan full of kids on their way to school and kill them all because you decided to drive through a layer of Vaseline ice on your windshield and endanger everyone else around you.

58
- True ... if you decide to head out on a busy roadway or highway ... when I had the problem with my windshield, I was just moving over block to block to get to where I had to be in my neighbourhood. I do remember one friend who was coming up from Toronto in February who lost his heating midway through on his way to Timmins and he said it was absolutely scary to decide to drive on a northern highway with a windshield like that.
  
  You're right, it is an absolutely dangerous thing to do in the wintertime and I'd never attempt it on a major roadway if I had the choice.
  
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I usually use deicer liquid in spray form directly on the windshield. The ice becomes mushy in like 5 seconds and I just have to wipe it off. But yeah, it's only -5 to 0 here, so maybe it's not very effective where you are.

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- That trick works in Michigan during really cold days too. Granted, you need to buy the nice stuff, I get the rain-x with de-icer (the purple one)
  
  7

Bro if I'm late, I just have to accept it. I tell my work people that I'll be late and they're usually fine with it as long as I say something and show up.

I know that not all work places are as understanding as this, but don't be stupid if you're late. You'll still get there, just not on time.

6

Time lost at home can't be made up on the road.

Just this morning I was an hour late. I spend most of my weekends helping my parents a few hours away, so have a 4am alarm set for Monday mornings to get up, shower, and head to work.

Because of the Holiday, my first day of work this week was a Tuesday, so my 4am alarm didn't go off and I got up at 5.

I got up, showered, sent a text to the team that I'd screwed up, and went to work.

Yeah, I could've driven 100mph on country roads and blown through a few red lights in the middle of nowhere near my parents' place. But I also could've died trying that shit. Instead I just drove normal, got to work late, and it wasn't a big deal.

I get that not everyone works in an environment where getting in late isn't a big deal. But a lot more people do than realize it. Most workplaces can be flexible, and will be when it matters. If they're assholes about it when they don't need to be - look for somewhere better.

6

You guys still have to drive to work?

4

Man a lot of these comments are taking this very literally.

4

Don’t you know that Lemmy memes are meant to be debated and disproven at every opportunity?!

6
- "I'm smarter than this meme, and I know more!"
  
  2

Fuck you it's January!

4

Just use cardboard. It's that easy.

1

hue hue my lack of discipline is lethally endangering everyone around me so funny hue hue

1

I don't get this winter joke

-1

Thanks for sharing

1

Would a battery powered hair dryer work here? Throw a ton of hot air on it.

-1

That's how you crack your windshield.

5
No. You scrape the ice off like a normal person so you can see. It takes 60 seconds.

4