Winter Driving in Middle Tennessee (Portland: house, refrigerator, schools)

[LeeB]

Does TDOT salt the roads?

I am new to Tennessee and this is going to be my first winter. I live up the hill from Nashville in Portland.

Any pointers?

[bnewman]

Yes, TDOT does salt the highways and main roads around town...if you're up in the hills in a remote area, you might have difficulty if there is ice on the roads.

I don't know where you've moved from, but we don't get much snow here as it is. What little we get melts away pretty quickly, and schools typcially are out if there's even a chance of flurries! Just be sure to join the rest of us when we stock up on bread and milk.

[Steve_TN]

Originally Posted by LeeB

Does TDOT salt the roads?

I am new to Tennessee and this is going to be my first winter. I live up the hill from Nashville in Portland.

Any pointers?

I don't know where you are originally from, so I do not know what you are used to. Yes, they do salt many of the roads but not all of them. The biggest problem we have is (and I sincerely do not mean to offend anyone) that people down here have no idea how to drive in slippery conditions. Many, not all, folks expect stopping distances to be the same on both dry and ice-covered pavement. Then they have a completely puzzled look on their faces when they rear end someone or end up in a ditch. So, my biggest pointer is to watch what the other driver is doing or not doing in addition to controlling your own vehicle.

[RS-1080]

Unless our winters change back to the way they ''usedtobe'', you car or truck will prolly never rust out. Here, snows not a problem very often nowdays. Ice may be a problem now and then though, if anything as snow is not deep as it usedtobe. I have early picts of a 62 VW bug with my dad trying to get home.It was plowing snow through 10'' ruts, and my brother trying to hunt in snowdrifts in the wooded hills upto his but cheeks. You don't see that here nowdays.

It used to be, in the early 80's that our buss driver would nearly burn the engine up in our buss trying to get over a mountain spinning his wheels trying to get us all to school.If he couldn't force the buss over the steep backwoods roads, he'd take us back home and the school would call it off. Nowdays,, one word of snow and schools shut down before the first flake falls. I tell my kids how lucky they have it these days

[artemis]

Nashville uses a brine mixture on the roads, and I haven't seen an intersection yet that has gravel or rock salt.

I keep a bag of kitty litter in my trunk, and on icy/snow threat days I throw 2 or 3 tubes of sand in there too.

[TNNative]

Hwy 52 will be salted to the interstate. You will find that a lot of people just take a sick day on bad weather days, if they can, or wait until the out-of-state newcomers have cleared us a path. Nashville drivers truly "freak out" with the forecast of snow. Ask Kroger.

[Mary_Moon]

Originally Posted by Steve_TN

I don't know where you are originally from, so I do not know what you are used to. Yes, they do salt many of the roads but not all of them. The biggest problem we have is (and I sincerely do not mean to offend anyone) that people down here have no idea how to drive in slippery conditions. Many, not all, folks expect stopping distances to be the same on both dry and ice-covered pavement. Then they have a completely puzzled look on their faces when they rear end someone or end up in a ditch. So, my biggest pointer is to watch what the other driver is doing or not doing in addition to controlling your own vehicle.

The biggest obstacle to driving safely on icy roads around here is the other drivers! To be fair, most 'natives' just don't have the opportunity to learn how to drive on ice. We so rarely get iced over and when we do it doesn't last longer than a day or so. Since we're all so well stocked up on bread and milk we don't need to leave the house anyway.

Starting when I was 16, my Dad used to drive me out to an empty parking lot on icy days and make me slam on the brakes and slide around, teaching me how to drive on ice. Back when we had the big ice storm in '93, I was driving around south Nashville picking up co-workers in my beat up Corolla because I was the only one that could drive in it! I remember seeing soooo many trucks and SUV's in ditches during that time.

God bless my Dad, though. He still called me every morning we had ice and asked if I needed him to take me to work, even after I was married and lived 30 miles away, up until the year he died.

[46Barb]

We had our first winter here in TN and it snowed a couple of inches one time. We didn't bring shovels, etc. with us. Since w'ere retired, we decided to stay in and let nature take it's course. It was melted by the 2nd day.

We've had a few icy road conditions early in the morning this past winter. We didn't go out until it melted. One reason we don't travel on the icy roads is the main county road over here has no guard rails by the steep dropoffs on the road. There was no way we were taking a chance of sliding on ice and dropping down 20-30 feet off the road.

[LeeB]

Thanks for your in-puts. We are from California and I have driven in snow and Ice (but I didn't like it) I know to be aware of other drivers. I think what we will do is just watch the weather reports and stay at home if possible. Load a couple of sand bags in the back of the truck and use the front wheel drive car. I was just concerned about the salt and muck. I am guessing that salt is not used that much. As I look around I don't see that many rusted our cars and trucks..

Barb we am with you retired and plan to stay put and let nature take it's course..I will take pictures and hang them on the refrigerator and look at them on days like today.

[alleycat]

Metro Nashville salts the main roads and intersections fairly heavily.

The main problem when it snow is the traffic slowing to a standstill. It doesn't take much to block or slow a road and a little snow is often enough to do (not to mention the occasional jack-knifed semi). If you can drive off of peak times, it's usually a lot better.

I'm not familiar with driving in the Portland area. Some rural areas only use a grader or a plow on the front of a truck to clear the road and it doesn't do that good of a job.