CARS: Clumsy Automobile Reeks in Snow

This weekend, there was a major snowstorm in Maryland, burying the state in over 2 feet of snow. The storm also made its way up the East Coast, covering areas in at least 6 inches of the white powder. On my drive home from Penn State (I was visiting my girlfriend over the weekend) on Sunday, I was hindered by a horse-drawn carriage. This carriage, although slow, was doing a very good job staying quite steady in the snow-covered streets. My car, on the other hand, was not doing so well. I made it home fine, but my car had some trouble in areas when the tires weren't touching actual pavement. Many snowplows were hard at work on the sides of the road, pushing towering walls of snow into ditches and carrying heaping mounds of powder off the highway. Of course, there were many crashes, which caused for even further delays. In fact, on my way to College Park, I passed a car completely engulfed in flame, smashed into a wall of snow. Even with its 4-wheel drive, 5-star crash test rating, and anti-lock brakes, this SUV found itself helpless in nature's grasp. I truly hope the owners of the vehicle got out safe.

Nowadays, we have many new technologies that help drivers deal with the snow. But lets take a look back in time when cars first started out. There were many worldwide attempts at making an efficient automobile, but I won't get into details just yet. The Duryea Motor Wagon Company became the first automobile manufacturing company of America in 1893, but it was quickly overtaken by the Olds Motor Vehicle Company, with the creation of the Oldsmobile, in 1902. Ford and Cadilac were only a year behind, and soon these car companies were producing thousands of cars a year. Back then, innovation was fast because there was so much to improve on; the earliest cars didn't even have windshields. Back then, breakdowns were standard, tires were regular rubber, fuel was scarce, drivable roads were rarely found, and rapid innovation (meaning the invention of a windshield, for example) made the preceding cars obsolete. Now add snow to the mix. Cars were worthless when it snowed in the early 1900s. There was no such thing as snow tires, 4-wheel drive, windshield defrosters, seat warmers, seat belts or even windshield wipers. And according to the "Air Conditioning Timeline" on the "Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century" website (), the first air conditioning unit was made available in a Packard automobile in 1939; most automobiles didn't have air conditioning until 1969. There must have been many cold drivers in the 1900s. All in all, driving in the snow back then was horrible, no doubt about it.

Unfortunately, even with all the new automobile technology, winter causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in America every year thanks to snow storms. No matter how technologically advanced we've come, we still can't surpass the harshness of mother nature in winter. Will the car ever be safe in the snow? As an on-campus student, I don't have to drive to school, but, for many off-campus students, the car is the only option to get to campus. And because the roads leading to campus have to be as clear as the ones within campus, classes can't be held knowing that main off-campus roads are still covered in snow, preventing students, and even faculty, to go to school. UMD has been shut down for 4 days now, and, even though the majority of students either live in campus or take the underground metro to school, it can't be reopened until all students and faculty who drive a car or take the public bus can safely arrive on campus. 100 years after its invention, the automobile still can not be driven safely in the snow.