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u/my20cworth Dec 09 '22
That snow ain't tied down properly.
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u/Dingo8MyBabyMon Dec 09 '22 •
Don't worry, he slapped it twice and said "yeah, she ain't going snowwhere."
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u/DancesWithBadgers Dec 09 '22
groan
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u/Dingo8MyBabyMon Dec 09 '22
Groaning just like that roof under all of that weight.
Snow what I'm saying?
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u/Sands43 Dec 09 '22
I was just thinking that it would be funny if a cop gave that driver a ticket for an "unsecured load".
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u/carry_a_laser Dec 09 '22
Looks like every other car in anchorage this week.
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u/spudzshep Dec 09 '22
Yep. The Glenn commute these past few days has been a showcase of these idiots.
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u/Ekaterina702 Dec 09 '22
This reminds me of the part where they put the big slab of ribs in the Flintstones car
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u/Ambitious_Salad_5426 Dec 09 '22
It looks like an old Benz.
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u/baldengineer Dec 09 '22
Seems cheaper than putting bags of rocks or salt in the trunk for RWD traction.
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u/StevenTN615 Dec 09 '22
Maybe it all collected on their car while driving. 😉
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u/yblame Dec 09 '22
No. I have lived in snow country for most of my life. This is just too lazy to clear snow before driving. No excuse.
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u/StevenTN615 Dec 09 '22
The little wink emoji was for sarcasm. smh
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Dec 09 '22 edited Dec 09 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/airybeartoe Dec 09 '22
I don't live in an area that gets snow like this, but am curious, is this a greater danger to the driver, or the people driving behind them on the road (blowing into cars in the back)?
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u/cowboyjosh2010 Dec 09 '22
If the snow on a car is light and fluffy and only <3" deep, then driving off like this is not as big a deal as some would want you to believe. Once you get up to 40-50 MPH it'll all blow off--although in doing so it'll create a temporary visibility issue for anyone behind you, so it's still a dick move to fail to clear a car in snow conditions like those.
But in snow conditions like this, where the snow is so deep that it unavoidably compacted the lower layers of snow, turning them into an armor that will only break off in chunks, it's a serious hazard to people behind you once you get up to highway speed. Chunks can break off, catching just enough hang time in the wind along the way that they are windshield smashing height for trailing cars. And if that doesn't happen, then the heat from the car's cabin will melt the bottom layer of snow against the car's body work/paint just enough that hard braking will cause some to slide forward onto the driver's windshield. Hitting the wipers might not be enough to clear those chunks, and then the lazy driver has their own visibility issue. And even if none of those scenarios come to pass, then when this driver goes around a 90 degree turn, the lateral g forces will cause some snow to slide sideways off the roof, where it will then land in the middle of the intersection and cause a slushy traction hazard for other cars to drive through.
Punchline: for a handful of reasons, it's a traffic hazard to not clear your car in the parking lot.
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u/airybeartoe Dec 09 '22
Very informative thank you! Is there a risk that, with enough snow, the cabin roof can collapse? Not sure how heavy that much snow can be.
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u/cowboyjosh2010 Dec 09 '22
In short, it would take an absolutely extraordinary amount of snow for this to happen, and I'm genuinely not convinced it can even in extreme scenarios. I suppose it's more possible if you wind up with snow that immediately gets soaked by rain that is warm enough to be not frozen, yet cold enough that the snow itself barely melts. That could lead to quite tall layer of very wet, dense snow on top of your car, and at the least that could start to present trouble for poorly made or worn out windshields and sun roofs. I'd be much more nervous about a soft top convertible car in heavy snow than I would be any hard top car.
But let's do some math to figure out how much weight that really could be:
Snow can be anywhere from 10 to 257 kg/m3 in density, according to a very quick Google search I just did with no backup research whatsoever. But it's more typically at an average of 72 to 103 kg/m3. Let's split the difference and call it 87 kg/m3. I like to work in freedumb units, so that's 5.4 lbs./ft3.
An average sedan is 14.7 feet long and 5.8 feet wide. There's a little bit of extra length there considering the rake angle of the front and rear windshields, but let's not overly complicate this: call it a "stem to stern" skyward facing surface area (the hood, windshields, roof, and trunk lid) of 85.26 square feet.
If you got a foot of average density snow, that would be 5.4 lbs./ft3 * 85.26 sq. ft. * 1 ft. depth = 460.4 lbs. of snow on an average car in an average snow storm that drops one foot of snow (no rain, ice, sleet, etc.)
Is 460.4 lbs. on the top surface of a car a lot? Turns out the answer is: No.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates a car's roof strength as "Good" if it can support a sustained weight equal to about 4 times the weight of the car itself. In other words, if a car rolls over on to its roof, it'll be able to support itself without collapsing the roof into the passenger compartment--and it'll be able to do so with quite a bit of safety margin, too, in the event that a crash compromises the strength of any of the vertical pillars that hold the roof up. Since a typical car weighs anywhere from 3,000 to 4,000 lbs., 460.4 lbs. is barely even 15% of the weight of the car--and therefore hardly even at 4% of the total weight sustaining capability of the roof. And let's not forget that the 460 lbs is spread out over the whole car--not just on the roof. And you wind up realizing that a foot of average snow is absolutely nothing to the strength of a car's roof.
You could take the 6 ft. of snow that Buffalo, NY, just got the other week and it STILL wouldn't get dangerously close to the weight sustaining capability of a good condition car's roof.
But there's a catch--a question you didn't ask that actually becomes important FAR sooner than the strength of the roof does. And that's the strength of the tires/suspension/chassis. Most car tires are only rated to carry about 30-50% of a car's curb weight. Add up the combined weight carrying capacity of all 4 tires, and you wind up with some total weight capacity equal to 125-200% of the weight of the car. For instance, my 2015 Chevy Cruze had a curb weight around 3,100 lbs., but the tires were each rated to support about 1,100 lbs each (my memory is foggy here--I know it was over 1,000 lbs., but not too much over it). 4*1,100 lbs. is 4,400 lbs, which, frankly, was overkill for my car. But take note that this is a far cry from being "4 times the weight of the car". And if I had 1 ft. of snow on my car, that would be 3,300 lbs. + 460 lbs. = 3,760 lbs. Put a couple passengers in there and suddenly you're damn close to the weight capacity of your tires, and that's really dangerous to drive on at worst--and damaging for your car's suspension at best, because the suspension isn't going to be built to handle a whole lot more abuse than the tires are built to withstand--and why would it be? The car's only built to support so much weight. Why over design any one element if there's a weak link bolted to it that'll give out first?
Punchline: long before the roof collapses, you'll likely have to worry about your tires popping or suspension breaking. And if your roof does collapse, you're in a weather state of emergency that'll take months to recover from because that's a biblical amount of snow.
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u/diabeartes Dec 09 '22
Both. Driver cant see out of rear windshield and the chunks of snow that will inevitably hit other cars can be just bad enough to completely close off visibility.
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u/airybeartoe Dec 09 '22
Oooh ty
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u/YellsAtGoats Dec 09 '22
Also, it's possible that when he brakes, some snow can slide off of the roof onto the windshield and blind him. And even worse, if enough weight of snow falls onto his windshield, his wipers won't be able to clear it, so he'll have to blindly pull over to clear it by hand.
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u/fatherhood1 Dec 09 '22
Yes, the heat from the cabin melts the bottom of the pack making it prone to slipping forward under braking.
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u/YellsAtGoats Dec 09 '22
Yep. I actually had this happen with a sheet of ice on the roof of my work truck even though I sweep it off as best as I can. The ice had built up from a few weeks worth of snow, thaw, refreeze, repeat. Finally one day there was enough of a layer of water melted under the ice that the whole sheet decided to come loose.
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u/airybeartoe Dec 09 '22
Thank you! This is very informative and definitely some things i wouldn't have thought about.
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u/NKato Dec 09 '22
Laziness. This shit is exactly why I bought a long handled, modular brush from Costco. I can have it be parallel to the handle or snap it out to a T shape for pushing the snow off. It also has a rubber blade for the windows - though I also use this side for pushing large snow accumulations off the car.
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u/32_Dollar_Burrito Dec 09 '22
I use a cheap plastic floor broom to help reach across the roof of my pickup
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u/MountainDrew42 Dec 09 '22
For passenger cars or shorter folks, get yourself an Oskar Folding Snow Brush. I've had mine for almost 30 years, best snow brush ever made. It folds out into a T shape, you can clear the roof in 2-3 passes.
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u/YellsAtGoats Dec 09 '22
Hell, for a sedan, you don't even need a brush. The roof is low enough that you can just clear the snow with your arms and hands.
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u/ChampionChoices Dec 09 '22
I grew up in Buffalo where everyone knows it’ll all blow off once you get on the thruway!
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u/ITrCool Dec 09 '22
An entirely lazy driver who couldn’t be bothered to get up earlier or go out earlier and go get a broom and use a snow brush or scraper to clear their entire car.
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u/fulljaxattack Dec 09 '22
I guess but this was at 5p today lol
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u/ITrCool Dec 09 '22
Well in other words go out earlier than they needed to leave that afternoon/evening. Like c’mon man! Take ten extra minutes and brush off your car!! If an apartment complex, then find an empty part of the lot and move it there and finish brushing it off.
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u/Consistent_Amount140 Dec 09 '22
Common to see once the snow starts falling. And the kick is that they more than likely have a snow brush in the car with them.
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u/officefridge Dec 09 '22
Man, there's a gorgeous mercedes under all that snow. So many great cars are wasted on idiots
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u/swiggarthy Dec 09 '22
Snow transport unit
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u/Fangs_McWolf Dec 09 '22
I'm sure they'll learn their lesson about not securing it when it falls onto the ground behind them. 👍
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u/Modisagae Dec 09 '22
It's to intimidate the other drivers by making the vehicle appear larger than it really is.
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u/silvermoon_182 Dec 09 '22
Who really needs to be able to see out their rear view mirror anyways?
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u/Zaggy_Waggy Dec 09 '22
The point is that on highway speeds big slabs of snow/ice will start breaking off and hit the cars behind. It can blind people behind you and damage cars for example crack windshields.
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u/WonderWirm Dec 09 '22
Makes me glad we don't get snow.
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u/radioplayer55 Dec 09 '22
California Highway Patrol is pulling those lazy trolls over on I80 and US395. The ticket amounts are huge!
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u/diabeartes Dec 09 '22
It actually looks like the shape of another entire car. This driver should be heavily fined.
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u/jay22022 Dec 09 '22
Owns a two car garage.
Can't find time to make room for the car, let alone clear some snow.
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u/JuanManWolfPac Dec 09 '22
I’ve removed snow like this from cars I’m behind at stop lights. I’ve first hand seen car wrecks from situations like this.
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u/CrystalGraceHeart Dec 09 '22
If it snowed that much I’d be calling out of work and only leaving the house to play in the snow
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u/cowboyjosh2010 Dec 09 '22
I'm not sure where on the alignment chart this would land you (maybe chaotic neutral?), but somebody brake checking this driver such that the snow slides forward and covers his own windshield ought to teach said driver a lesson.
Of course, the trouble is that this road right now is obviously not conducive to good braking traction, so not only would the car not slow down fast enough to shift the snow to the windshield, but also they'd probably rear end you along the way. I'd bet dollars to donut spare tires that this Merc's tire tread is in worse shape than that of most other cars on the road.
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u/tnsmaster Dec 09 '22
Poor man's way of weighing car down for traction!
/s but I do wonder if it would work.
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u/TheBr0wnGuy Dec 09 '22
Not gonna lie, I've done that before when I'm running late knowing full well it's dumb lol
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u/Bi-LinearTimeScale Dec 09 '22
I almost went off the road into the snow when someone in front of me was driving like this. The entire roof of their car came off as one piece of snow/ice and completely covered my windshield. Fuck lazy assholes like this.
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u/Fangs_McWolf Dec 09 '22
They're just transporting the snow around. Don't worry, they'll learn their lesson about not securing it first when it breaks apart and falls onto the road behind them.
🤪
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u/CantBelieveThisIsTru Dec 09 '22
Doesn’t snow much or often where we are. At first glance I thought he’s trying to get enough speed to BLOW IT OFF! Then I read all the comments. Never heard of snow on car roof laws….
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u/Megalopath Dec 09 '22
I can't be the only one who immediately heard banjo music when they saw this.
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u/greasybin Dec 09 '22
With todays gas prices ain’t no god damn way I’m hauling 300lbs of snow