In Seattle, it doesn't snow all that much. Maybe once a year and often not even that. And it generally doesn't snow more than a few inches. Nevertheless, it can all but shut the city down! Especially if it snows a few inches, then freezes. Not many people around here really know how to drive in these conditions.

I spent a year in eastern Washington, working for a radio station in Pasco. I had a small apartment in Kennewick, which is just across the Columbia River (the one Woody Guthrie sang about), which meant I had to cross over a bridge which, when snowing (and it did a lot there during winter) was like a skating rink. But—people there knew how to navigate. So I had to learn to drive in snow because I had to get to and from work, which involved negotiating the bridge twice a day. Gently, gently!

So I'm back in Seattle, and it snowed. I'm driving carefully down Stoneway toward the ship canal, hoping the Fremont Bridge is navigable (drawbridge, so you're driving on a steel grid). There's a mess of vehicles around the intersection of Stoneway and 40th Street. 40th is an incline, and a city bus is stuck up the hill in the middle of the block. It's wheels are spinning despite its chains. Other cars are hanging back to see what happens, especially not wanting to try to pass the bus in case it starts to slide sideways.

Some congenital yo-yo comes ripping around the corner, swerves out and tries to pass the bus. He loses traction. He slides backwards, spinning his wheels like a madman, and broadsides a car that's waiting at the intersection for the logjam to clear.

It's evening, it's dark, and it's one of those times when sounds seem crisper than usual and carry clearly over the snow. I hear the expensive crunch of rumpling sheet metal. A few seconds later, a loud voice rings out from somewhere, perhaps from one of the onlookers, perhaps the voice of God echoing across the sky:

"IDIOT!!"

Fortunately, no injuries that I'm aware off.

Don Firth