One of the things that struck me most about our time in the US, was how HUGE the cars were! I'm so used to seeing Smart Cars and VW Polos zipping around that the sight of typical American cars was a point of re-entry culture shock for me. I was never a fan of the SUV before we left, but upon returning, I noticed just how many people had them - and HUGE ones at that! The worst were the amount of Hummers. I mean, really. How do you justify a Hummer?
However, we fell into this trap ourselves when we chose our rental car. We knew we'd be driving through the snow belt, so we wanted something with AWD/4WD option. Cape Ann alone is full of twisty, turny, narrow, hilly roads, and having an accident in a rental car was something we'd rather steer clear of. (pun intended) The smallest AWD option was a mid-size SUV. For us, it meant a Ford Escape. We felt like we were careening around in a giant box until we came back to Germany and got in our Toyota wagon, at which point Stefan looked at me and said, "this car feels dinky".
But if small, more gas-efficient, AWD vehicles (like Subarus) are not commonly used by car rental companies, what do you do? At least I felt sure that at least half of the giant pick up trucks I saw in New England had plow attachments stuck on the front of them. If only we had more of those in Germany.
Because since we came back, our streets have looked like the opposite of the kempt streets we saw over the holidays. We have snow-covered layers of ice to skate on, I mean, drive on. Except our region is just not prepared for this sort of weather, especially for this long. Grit is sometimes thrown down, but honestly, not really. The plows here have a rubber blade that bends backwards as the truck goes down the street. So, since the plow is never really 'dropped', nothing really gets pushed away. I find this totally baffling. The streets are a total mess. Slushy, icy, snowy, frozen, you name it. Yuck.
(our street, for the past month)And people here don't slow down. Just the other day I read an article about the state west of us having over 300 car accidents in one night. I've never seen such irresponsible winter driving in my life as I currently see here in our corner of Germany. Usually, if people aren't used to snow, they creeeeeeep along, not fly, right? I hate going grocery shopping now because I'm scared to drive - not that I can't drive in this stuff, but after seeing so many cars fly through a turn and end up sliding off to some other part of the intersection...well, it's disconcerting. Thankfully it's supposed to thaw this weekend!
3 comments:
Ok, so I found out a way to justify having a Hummer. If you're running from the government, which has wrongly accused you of plotting against the President and they have sicked some of the most elite Marines in the armed forces on you and the only way to protect your family is to blast your way out of your barracaded home.
THEN, I would say the Hummer is a viable option for you.
dude! I just looked up the weather in Marburg. It is cold, eh? :)
yeah, it's pretty doggone cold here - below freezing for more than 10 weeks now, people are really freaking about the heating bill backlash as it's never like this.
Also b/c it always rains in Marburg, it's actually been snowing a TON b/c of the temps, which is nuts. I really miss living in an area where people know how to clean up/drive in this kind of mess!
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