Do not view - 100% off-topic, and yet...

Seattle snow is waaaay different than Midwest snow. It's a lot slicker due to all the moisture in the air. Doesn't help that they the don't salt. Plus you add that there are hills everywhere. Wheeeeeeee!

I'm from Michigan where this is a cake walk for us but now reside in Georgia where everything would shut down for roads like this. I'm good with either scenario! This so hilarious to me.

Car Pile Up brought to you by Funny Jokes

Loved how the moron decides to just bail out of the car and almost gets run over by the one behind.

and they closed schools.  The only people on the road were relocated yankees and people who have no idea (and its obvious).   We get ice storms here sometimes that are dangerous and a little more extreme than those in Michigan, but the main problem is when people who don't have a clue take to the roads.  My dad tought me how to drive in the snow, we basically went into a vast empty parking lot and slid around (practicing counter steering and avoiding the brakes) until I had it down.  My gf is a southernor, and freaks out that I drive the speed limit in snow . . . the looks of terror and wailing are pretty entertaining.

I have lived in Northern California, Traverse City, Ann Arbor, Minnesota, and Arkansas. Every state says our ice storms are worse, out snow is slicker (hilarious), or the best one is we get more snow. Snow is snow and the great lakes give off more humidity than the state can handle. If you live in Western Michigan you get lake effect snow nightly it seems. Ann Arbor doesn't get a ton of snow like the West Coast or U.P. Don't be an idiot, simply slow down. A front wheel drive car will smoke a 4WD truck anytime on a couple inches of snow. I am done venting.

I live in Seattle. I grew up in NE and spent plenty of winters in Michigan.

Blaming Seattle drivers for their lack of snow driving skills is a bit naive. I doubt anyone from Michigan would have a clue about driving around here during a snowstorm. There are streets in downtown Seattle that are literally steeper and longer than ski slopes in Michigan. Add to that there are limited number of plows and more importantly, deicers and salters, the streets are impassable even for the most skilled snow drivers.

Today is even worse as freezing rain has turned the street into ice rinks.

I shudder to think what damage Michigan folks who have never really seen hills would do in this environment...

Environmental laws in that part of the country don't allow them to use any of the fancy deicing stuff that really works, they are stuck with sand.  It makes it a lot harder to get rid of the refreeze type stuff.

Fair points.  But it's way more fun to make fun.  So I'm going to do that instead.

Lived a block from there, and there were several occasions when cars going up State stopped at the light at Hill, and couldn't make it up State due to icy conditions.

However, vacationing in Colorado the last several years, I can't even imagine driving on some of those roads in snow and ice without 4 wheel drive and chains on the tires. We were on dirt Forest Service roads, where the drop was frightening in the summer. Can't imagine what it'd be like in the Winter.

Have you ever been to Seattle? It's built on the side of a fucking mountain. Any little coating of snow, and the whole city shuts down.

does it really help to put chains on the rear tires of a fwd car?!  That's funny.  Reminds me of an old Chevette I'd see in my home town back in my hs days that had the back end jacked with big tires like a muscle car.  Stupid is as stupid does.

Oh man, I hope all these years in Florida have not made me drive like these clowns in the snow. I used to make the trudge in a FWD Ford Windstar minivan all the way to school on unplowed roads. The best part was the 1 mile subdivision road in 8" of fresh. Good times.

If you think some of these videos are bad, check out this massive pileup on a busy hill in Colorado Springs. If I remember, this storm hit about 3 pm, leading to a somewhat crazy rush hour. 

If someone with better embed skills could post this, that would be awesome

http://youtu.be/d5exATIaQiI

Living in Michigan, I think we are at least in part steeled by having to drive on what one Lawrence Tech professor rightly termed the hands-down worst-kept roads in the country.  Or at least the mainland; Alaska's might not be that great.

....is that it fills in the potholes on my drive to work and actually makes the experience a far better one.

If you're not familiar with the area, I always recommend that people take a drive down I-696 between about Southfield and Warren to get a real taste of ballsy winter driving Michigan style. No shoulders and sporadic tunnels in Oak Park making doing 40 MPH on ice in an SUV an intriguing experience, to say the least. The same  applies to the  Lodge from about Eight Mile and all the way to nearly downtown Detroit. Some folks trying to get to work play a automotive version of the old Star Wars: Pod Racer game that they had for N64.