Shop owners who offer emergency-oriented tips, kits and instructions can assist motorists in your community when dangerous driving conditions arise.
This scenario hit with a vengeance as the term “polar vortex” entered the American lexicon when wicked weather this way came to the Deep South. Snow and ice engulfed roadways ranging from Texas to the Carolinas, creating epic traffic jams and countless spinouts and crashes – especially among drivers in these normally moderate climate zones who are unaccustomed to the slipping and sliding that a winter onslaught can bring.
“If you don’t have that knowledge, how would you know how to drive on it?” ponders Freda Thompson of Ace Autobody in Hartselle, Ala. “People tailgate all the time, and this is not the situation to tailgate.”
Unlike what you see in the North, snow plows and salt trucks are in short supply throughout the South, wreaking havoc when treacherous icing arrives. Because these conditions are so rare, “it’s not worth investing in the equipment,” Thompson explains.
“We’re not prepared for anything. If we get one inch of snow it’s a disaster,” says Todd Hoffman, executive director of Scene Of The Accident, a nonprofit first-responder training organization based in Surfside Beach, Texas. Courses such as firefighter extrication instruction are frequently conducted across the country in cooperation with local collision repairers.
“The shops are full, and this is usually the time of year when everything slows down,” he reports.
“People have no concept of how to drive on ice and snow,” Hoffman notes, stressing the benefits that the industry can provide by presenting motorist education programs.
Dicey ice
As this year’s bad weather swept in, commuters stranded for hours on end were forced to abandon their vehicles and seek overnight shelter wherever they could find it. Store aisles, church pews and school gymnasium wrestling mats became makeshift sleeping accommodations.
“We heard story after story,” recounts Thompson, who has served in a variety of industry association leadership positions over the years. “If they made it out of the parking deck they were wrecking on the road. Nobody was dressed for it; they don’t have boots for the snow and they had their dress shoes on.”
Law enforcement and tow truck operators struggled mightily to clear the roads. More than a month had passed following the crippling snowfall, and “we’re still getting snow cars in,” says manager Wade Smith at Mike Trammell Body Shop in Birmingham, Ala.
“Business is up 2,000 percent,” Smith quips, yet he’s only half-joking. “We get maybe five to ten cars in a week, but in the week after the storm we got nearly 50 vehicles in.”
Addressing the accelerated production results in “a lot of overtime,” says Smith – still at work in the shop way past suppertime.
Pickens County, Ga. (rural scene) from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Birmingham was buffeted by two winter storms. “The first one was worse because it was unexpected,” Smith says. The second came with enough advance warning to keep many drivers at home and off the roads. “The Interstates were empty,” says Thompson. But not everyone hunkered down, much to their regret. “People still say, ‘I can drive in this,’” according to Smith, and such overconfidence led to another round of wrecks. “We’re really backed up, but we’re trying to take in only what we can get out” in a reasonable amount of time.
“The last two storms of snow and ice have really buried us in the shop. People slid into poles, other cars and we had massive traffic tie-ups and pile-ups,” says Larry Golden at the Golden Collision Center in Little Rock, Ark.
Business increased 30 percent to 40 percent within a short period of time. “We’ve added some additional shifts – they’ve been coming in early and leaving late to get the cars back to our customers. Cycle time is going up because we can’t get to each car every day.”
Golden, a past-president of the Arkansas Collision Repair Association, describes the dicey conditions that ensued as the storm’s wrath took hold: “We didn’t have any technicians for two days because the roads were so icy. I live close by so I was there; we answered the phones but there was no collision repair being done.”
The aftermath was beset with additional delays. “The insurance companies are so darn busy that it takes a couple of days for them to come do the original estimate or to approve any supplemental damage after we’ve pulled the car apart,” Golden says.
The customers “have been very understanding,” he continues. “We spend a lot of time communicating with them at the front end, but at some point their understanding will fade and they’ll want their car back.”
Avoiding danger
Echoing Hoffman, Thompson and Smith, Golden also believes that driver education efforts can assist in easing the impact of future Southern snowfalls. “It would certainly be a benefit,” he says, noting that prior to the climate calamity his shop had emailed a set of tips to the list of previous customers.
Under a headline of “The Golden Rules for driving in winter weather,” they entail:
- Patience.
- Front-wheel-drive and 4-wheel-drive may get you going, but stopping is when most accidents occur.
- Drive slower and keep plenty of distance between you and the car in front of you.
- If climbing a small hill in your neighborhood, remember the snow and slush offer better traction at slow speeds than the frozen smooth tracks left by your friendly neighbors.
- Be sure to thaw out all of your windows before attempting to drive. In poor weather conditions, maximum visibility is ideal. Plus, shooting ice missiles off your windshield at passing cars is considered poor manners.
Looking ahead to the next meteorological challenge, Hoffman suggests that you consider embarking upon a program that involves residents attending a class that covers all manner of weather-related hazards, particularly the risks associated with hurricanes and other high-water incidents. “Hurricanes kill people stuck in traffic more than the hurricanes themselves,” he says.
“There would be a lot of value in a course like this,” according to Hoffman, who observes that drivers should stow first aid kits, bottled water and other key items aboard their vehicles. Suitable coats, hats, boots and blankets would have come in handy for a lot of motorists left stranded during the snowstorms.
If offered for free as a community service, “I think people would attend; you’d get your sponsors from insurance companies, and I know there are vendors out there who would do that,” he says. Prospects include merchants who market emergency car kits.
“You can get involved with your local CERT teams to help spread the word,” says Hoffman, referring to the Community Emergency Response Team, a program that trains volunteer civilians to assist officials during emergencies with tasks such as directing traffic and participating in door-to-door searches.
“Or shops can sponsor an online thing” that delivers the same types of information. Hoffman says too many drivers are instilled with a sense of overconfidence and a disregard for real danger.
“One of the big problems we have here (in the South) is that the media has gotten to the point where there is all this fear.” Dire warnings are broadcast, the predicted crisis doesn’t happen, “and people say, ‘that was nothing.’ They’ve cried wolf too often,” he says.
And, because of bold advertisements from OEMs highlighting rugged vehicles climbing up rock-strewn mountains, fording rivers and avoiding crashes through a cocoon of beams and caution messages flashing on the dash, etc., “people are overconfident about the abilities of their automobile. It’s like, ‘we don’t have to pay attention and drive because the automobile does it all for us.’”
Hoffman recalls talking informally with a vehicle owner who was extolling the virtues and ease of motoring with the wonders of collision avoidance technology. He had to pause and gently respond: “Well, that’s a great feature – but you don’t have that on your car.”
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