@Barkydog, if you wear glasses now, you won’t after the surgery. My MIL had her lenses replaced last year, and not only can she see again ( she waited too long), but she only needs reading glasses for the smallest details. She can read the paper without visual aids.
I think B.L.E. nailed it. Not only is there less than two seconds between vehicles but, based on defensive driving principles, there should have been at least three seconds between vehicles. I am not absolving the negligence of the first driver for not clearing the ice off of their car but it is always critical to leave sufficient space in snowy climes to allow for unexpected debris (snow and ice) from other traffic. Tractor trailers are a great example of vehicles that have no possible way to clear snow and ice from the top of their vehicles. You need to be smart and vigilant in the winter, at least where I live (in the snow belt of New York State).
“Way less than the two second rule.”
Actually, it is the three second rule, but that 3 second following distance is only considered to be appropriate on dry, non-wintery road surfaces. Defensive driving experts recommend a four second following distance in rain, and a five second following distance on wintery road surfaces.
Once again not absolving the offender. A simple tap of the brakes by the following vehicle also might have caused a miss. So in my esteemed opinion this could have been avoided in multiple ways. Clearing off the roof, not following so close, or simply paying attention.
I disagree re “tap of the brakes”. With the small times involved, the driver had no way of knowing if braking would help or hurt. That is, it could have gone above the windshield, and braking could bring it down to the windshield level.
But he was following too close.
This is only one instance caught on camera. I see this stuff constantly after any snowfall around here. It would be ridiculous on the expressways around here to allow enough room for the morons like this. These ice sheets do not always fly straight. I’ve had them come from an adjacent lane. Sometimes they hit the pavement immediately, sometimes they can fly for great distances. Saying you should leave enough room is ignoring reality of multi-lane expressways in heavily congested areas. Often the roads are clear and dry. These ice sheets come from idiots that leave the snow to partially melt and freeze repeatedly on their rooftops over several days AFTER the storm has long since passed…
They had some brain surgeon on the news a few days ago that fortunately got pulled over. He had 3 or 4" of wet snow blanketing the entire car with only a 12" clear spot directly in front of the driver. I’d like to see the cops pull out a scissors and snip the driver’s license in half on the spot…
The now useless wiper blade is priceless.
ok4450: I was at work and walking between hangers. It was dark. I heard a woosh, woosh, woosh overhead. When I looked up a big barn owl was doing orbits 10 feet above my head. After a few orbits it flew away. I’m guessing it realized there was no way to carry my big butt back to the nest.
Not to veer off the subject but it got me thinking about a guy that was killed in Minneapolis a few years ago. A truck tire came loose and bounced over the jersey barriers, hit his pick up and killed him. Guess you always have to pay attention but some stuff just happens. The Police are also currently investigating a big chunk of steel that came flying into a windshield a few weeks ago. It looked like a piece of a heavy duty hitch with heavy channel welded together. No one has any idea what it is though.
Reminds me of the Jerks that leave the ski resorts near here,they will drive 30-40 miles with their vehicles covered with snow,even though most of areas are bare ,its still cold enough that the snow wont melt off the vehicle .It seems they are proud of their snow and ice , interstates are bad places to follow 18 wheelers during these conditions . To bad this person didnt get the license number of the offending vehicle and dont you just love the peep hole drivers and the drivers that coat their windshields with the washing fluid that will freeze back on the glass, people are either too lazy or in to much of a hurry . A carport is one of the best investments ,I have ever made .
I am not absolving the negligence of the first driver for not clearing the ice off of their car but it is always critical to leave sufficient space in snowy climes to allow for unexpected debris (snow and ice) from other traffic.
In theory yes…in practice (like around Boston…IMPOSSIBLE). You leave a 3 second gap between you and the car in front of you…then within seconds you’ll find 2-3 cars jump in front of you. So you slow down to get that 3 second gap again…and within seconds 2-3 more cars will jump in front of you…If you slow down again you run the risk of being run off the road.
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"It seems they are proud of their snow and ice"
I suspect there’s a lot of truth to that theory.
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"It seems they are proud of their snow and ice"
Like mountainbike, I suspect that this is true in many cases.
For an analogous situation, consider the guys who–finally–get the chance to take their Jeep Wranglers off-road. You know…these are the guys who spend 99.9999% of their time on paved roads, but want to be able to somehow justify buying a car that is really only well-suited for off-road use. When they finally do take it off-road, they usually refuse to wash mud off of the vehicle for weeks (if not months), so that everyone can admire their brown badge of courage.
Similarly, I can recall an incident from my days working at a gas station. We used to wash everyone’s windshield, without even being asked to do so. Somebody pulled in for gas, and I can recall gathering a really big wad of paper towels so that I could clean the biggest pile of bird poop that I had ever seen, from his glass. Just as I was about to squirt the cleaning fluid, the guy screamed, “Don’t do that! That’s eagle crap!”.
Yes, he was extremely proud of an eagle having crapped on his windshield, and apparently wanted to preserve that…artifact…for people to see.
I see the one time 4X4 “mudders” displaying it for weeks. The eagle poop trophy is just plain weird.
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As long as it’s only the poop and not the eagle. 
To each his own.
Just to provide a bit more information about the eagle poop on that guy’s windshield, he claimed that the…deposit…took place while he was touring one of the National Parks in the far west. Our gas station was in NJ, not far from the GW Bridge, so he apparently drove ~3k miles with a goodly portion of the passenger side of his windshield obscured by that bird scat.
Driving 3k miles with that massive amount of bird crap on his car indicates that he was REALLY proud of it, I think.
I hardly know what to say about the guy with the eagle poop on the windshield except he has a strange way of thinking.
Did a little squirrel hunting, and one guy stuck a squirrel tail onto my antenna, stayed till it got too ratty looking and had to remove it, could have been half a year or so.
"I hardly know what to say about the guy with the eagle poop on the windshield "
I hardly knew what to say, myself, but I have to admit that I was VERY glad that I didn’t have to clean that huge, dried-on accumulation of bird crap from his glass.