AUSTIN SACK & GRAHAM CARROLL

You wake up one morning to find a thick coat of snow blanketed across the roads, and after you triple check with your parents about having a snow day you realize you have to go to school.

The closer you get to school the more your confidence grows, you see a stop light coming up so you start to apply the brakes. Then you realize something doesn’t feel right. You are slipping and the bumper of the car in front of you is now dangerously close.

Right as you crash in to it, you have just become one of the 1.5 million annual car crashes associated with poor driving conditions caused by weather.

Depending on your driving experience, driving in the snow can be seen as a winter wonderland allowing you to slip, slide and spin, or a car crash waiting to happen.

For teacher Rod Oosterhouse, driving in the snow means taking extra precautions. “ It always makes me a little uptight,” Oosterhouse said. “ I don’t have immediate control of my car, I can’t stop fast, I can’t steer fast and I can’t avoid things quickly or as easily.”

Sophomore Noah Rawls takes advantage of snowy conditions to have some fun. “ If the parking lot is covered then I like to drift around and do doughnuts,” Rawls said. This is in contrast to how Oosterhouse feels about driving in the snow, “Other drivers are part of what makes me nervous, because I wouldn’t be able to avoid them if they got out of control in front of me,” Oosterhouse said.

For teacher Sam Campfield driving in the snow is like a Sunday drive, stress free and relaxing. “I enjoy driving in the snow, I spent two years at 8100 feet and five years in south dakota,  I’m very used to driving in the snow,” Campfield said.

For sophomore Matt Doddemeade, driving in the snow is also enjoyable. “ If its snowing outside I am more cautious but if its melted some then driving in the snow is a lot of fun,” Doddemeade said. Doddemeade and Campfield have similar ideas about driving in the snow, “ I think driving in the snow is just practice, the more you drive in it the better you get,” Campfield said.

There are a lot of tips and strategies for driving in the snow, such as apply brakes earlier, accelerate slower, turn into the skid and drive more cautiously. The trick is to use those tips and to get lots of practice and maybe have a little fun here and there