Many of us who have lived in Michigan for years know what is coming when winter blows in.  I hope most people will drive more cautiously and heed the common sense driving tips from our police.

The Bath Township Police Department has provided us with some driving tips that many of us know we should do but may forget from time to time.  When you forget you raise the probability that you will get in an accident with someone else or possible just your vehicle alone.

For many of us who drive 4-wheel drives this is one you should heed because we become a bit too confident in our 4-wheel drive vehicles.

The police inform us that “4-wheel drive does not help you stop”.  They are quoted in their Facebook post stating:

You sure do look cool as you blow by everyone in your sweet lifted truck, however, you look less cool as a Prius slowly passes you back while you're in the ditch.

The second piece of advice is something I remember my father doing many winters when I was a young boy and that is “get snow tires”.  They write in their Facebook post:

Putting two logs, a bag of rock salt and a 30 rack of Busch Light in the back of your vehicle for weight purposes probably won't cut it…Snow tires are CRUCIAL. Spend the money. When we show up to your accident we will say 'Is everyone OK and where's your snow tires?' And you will go, 'uhhhh.' It happens everytime.

The third piece of advice can certainly be categorized as common sense but many of us believe that we just do not have enough time to do it.  That is “clean off your windshield completely”, as they wrote in the post:

Don't scrape a six inch hole and drive while looking through it like you're a tank commander…Yeah it's cold out but do what you gotta do. You know what else is cold? Being stuck in a wet snowy ditch with a $100 tow on the way. Also, windshield washer fluid is your friend.

Their last piece of advice is “clean the snow off the top of the car”, because they tell us:

There is no experience quite like driving down the highway and having a huge wall of snow and ice come crashing down on your windshield from the car in front of you…This happens more than you think. It's very dangerous. Don't be lazy. Again, it's cold out. We know you don't want to spend the time in the morning to clean off the roof but you should.

So there you have it and hopefully we will all follow them so we can cut down on the number of accidents we have to deal with while going through our daily lives.  Also more importantly possibly avoid our own accidents which will cause many of us to get to wherever we are going much latter than we anticipated and of course lessen the amount of injuries and deaths.

Happy winter to all in Michigan, it has arrived much earlier than we expect and is usual.

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