Icy makes it Dicey

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/01/10/opinion/letters/128380_45.txt

A few storms ago, while walking along Highway 75, in front of the Hailey Post Office, the driver of a big rig, slid across the ice and into my intended path. Fortunately, I was heads up and quickly juked out the way, from where the truck sledded. His was an honest mistake, albeit a near injurious one.

My first instinct was to call the City or State – whoever it is that maintains that stretch of road. Then I flashed back to my own snowplowing days in Virginia. Inside the slippery Beltway, we had snowplows around one-third the size of Idaho’s. There the temperatures fluctuated around freezing, often resulting in treacherous roads.

After walking away unscathed from the Hwy 75 near-hit, I reminisced upon an incident, when the Falls Church mayor, poked outside for a second. Walking down icy Maple Street to Anthony’s Pizza, he radioed our Street Superintendent, about how the town core roads, were too slick.

We laborers prompted stepped to fetch our tools and migrated over to Maple Street, with a generous showering of sand, salt and flailing ice picks. Little did the mayor know that we had dropped our diligent snow removal efforts from various avenues of town to heed this new call of top precedence. In reality, his call impeded the city’s overall progress.

Cautiously sliding a few more blocks to Hailey’s Hitchrack, I could see it was slippery on virtually every street, this wintry day. Other signs made it clear that the dedicated workers had been burning the midnight oil, to churn out gallant snow removal efforts, throughout our great town. Therefore, I hesitated to make that same call the mayor made fifteen winters ago, which resulted in more delays than it did help.

Citizens have to understand that city workers (and contractors) are doing their utmost to keep up. Icy makes it dicey and not nicey everywhere you go. Use common sense and establish eye contact with drivers before crossing roads. Don’t let your brain freeze and remain aware of your surroundings while ambulating around monster rigs that spin along Slideway 75.