SALT LAKE CITY — As tow trucks fished the season’s first several hundred vehicles out of medians, ditches, and one memorable retention pond, officials confirmed Monday there was simply no way to prevent Utah drivers from forgetting how snow works, despite it happening on a schedule so reliable it can be printed on a calendar.
“We’ve looked at this from every angle,” said a UDOT spokesperson at a press conference held within sight of three separate multi-car pileups. “A man can live here fifty years. Fifty winters. He can own a snowblower with a name. And the morning of the first storm, he will drive 75 in the left lane on bald tires like the concept of friction is a rumor started by Big Brake Pad.”
Transportation scientists say the amnesia is total and instantaneous, typically setting in sometime between the last 80-degree day and the first flake. Brake pedals are rediscovered around mile marker four. Four-wheel drive, researchers note, continues to be interpreted as a legal exemption from weather, rather than a feature that mostly helps a vehicle get stuck farther from home.
Officials floated several prevention theories — public service announcements, school curricula, a state holiday in September called “Remember Snow Day” — before admitting all of them had been tried, annually, forever. “At this point the forgetting might be load-bearing,” the spokesperson said. “Like the orange barrels.”
At press time, the same drivers were reportedly doing fine, having relearned winter driving in a single commute, a skill they will retain perfectly until approximately next October.
Photo: Jeffrey Beall, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons