RANT... ******* snowplow drivers!

[Bill Seward]

Today was the first day back to work after the Cellulitis adventure.

I'll leave the road names off here, because most of you are not from Western NY, and wouldn't know what I was talking about anyway...

Heading up the road to East Aurora from Holland NY. There is a major divided highway that crosses over this road, and because it is in a valley, the bridge is at least 75-80 feet above the road I was on.

A State snowplow was on the bridge, and at the instant I crossed under the bridge, he pushed a MASSIVE amount of snow off the bridge. It fell 75 feet and landed squarely on my Kia Rio. All the windows were covered in 6 inches of that greasy salty snow that gets plowed to the side of the road, and my car got caught up in it, putting me into a NASCAR type spin. Tried to straighten the car, but with absolutely no visibility, I could only ride it out...

Went sideways, facing the opposite direction, into a huge snowbank that was made from the snow plowed out of the Highway Department's driveway! This happened directly in front of where these morons park their plows!

Another guy gets caught up in it, and is into a guardrail.

Call 911, cop comes out, and immediately saw what happened. He got back in his car, drove over to the garage, and made a crew with a scoop loader come out to dig my Kia out. He even made them push the car out once it was dug free of the heaviest ****.

Only good thing - there was NO damage at all to the Rio.

They had me go back to the garage, where they cleaned every molecule of snow off my car, and apologized profusely. I left - pissed, but grateful a semi wasn't coming the other way......

 

[KJShover]

That's about ****** up. Good thing you came out of it without an ambulance ride.

 

[Redbone]

Man, that is all sorts of wrong and that dumb *** driver should be written up for causing a accident! Glad your ok after all you've gone through with your flareup.

 

[tothemax93]

That sucks Bill. It was the company that I work for, that just did all the work on those bridges. I can't say for sure, but I gotta believe there was chain link snow fence on the bridge rail. I bet the driver was hauling and blew the snow right over it. I live ten minutes from where this happened. It was right in front of D.O.T barns.

 

[DMAN999]

Damn, that was a close call.
I'm just glad you and the Kia came out of it in one piece.

 

[rusty]

I left - pissed, but grateful a semi wasn't coming the other way......

Thank goodness that didn't happen Bill, just glad yer OK. Thats all that matters.:worthy:

 

[Fire-medic]

I would call/write (email) the State DOT, the county administrator's office, the risk management office for the county, the local newspaper, in-short, all these people, and cc everyone-else, so they see what happened, where your complaint is headed, and who's in-receipt of it. Include your local elected representatives in your community, the county, and the state. Hell, cc the US House of Representatives congressman too! It sounds like you emerged from this very lucky, but under other circumstances it may have been a multiple-fatality tragedy.

At the very-least, some new policies and procedures about ridding a bridge of an accumulation of snow should happen, even if it required a crew on the exposed roadway below to stop traffic while the snow was dumped, and then cleared off the underlying roadway.

Stress that you want to see procedures implemented to prevent a tragedy instead of just the property damage which happened this time. Next time might-not be so-lucky. Also, if you can get a public-affairs columnist from the local newspaper interested, that can keep the pressure on. Same goes for a radio talk-show. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."

 

[dannymax]

Jesus Bill, damn lucky there man....could have had a lot worse ending. Glad you came out unharmed!

Philip's got a point, might not be a bad idea to call someone's attention to the fact that they have at least one cowboy out there who has no regard for public safety.

 

[poppop]

Just glad youre ok,Youve had a ruff enough week,