DYK? Ice Citations

Wow! Apparently, I am a lawbreaker. Last weekend, I drove with some snow and ice on the hood of my car, only to see it fly over the roof of my automobile and onto the roadway behind me. Thankfully, no one was driving back there at the time, so the “ice missle” broke apart on the roadway. If someone had been travelling behind my car, that individual may have had an eye-opening experience, like this woman who was discussed in a recent news story on WTNH Channel 8:

Mary Jacques of Wolcott was driving on I-691 when a piece of ice shattered her windshield, “I heard a loud crack and realized my whole windshield was shattered, realized it was a hunk of ice that hit my car, not snow,” she said.

A piece of ice that launched off an oil truck hit Mary’s windshield like a rock, even pushing shards of glass into her SUV.

Automobile drivers are not the only victims of flying ice. Truck drivers can succumb to these “missles” too. From the same article on Channel 8:

Dominic Simeone of Lombard Motors towed a big rig Tuesday after ice from a truck slid off and severed its air brakes. His company has been busy towing cars and trucks wounded by ice and he’s even been a victim himself.

- snip –

“Last year I was on my way to a call on Middletown Avenue and a sheet of ice came off a car the opposite way and it took my mirror off one of the wreckers.”

I don’t know about you, but I must confess I didn’t think much about flying ice doing that much damage, which is rather strange given that I am a native Minnesotan and my elementary school custodian was killed by ice that fell off a building. I was only thinking about my hurried holiday schedule and the fact that I didn’t want to risk scratching the paint on my car by chipping away at the ice on the hood.

Did you forget to finish cleaning the top of your car last weekend? Is it still displaying patches of snow and ice on the hood and roof? If so, watch out for those state troopers. The fine for an ice citation is more than $100.00.