Consider this a little bit of a trip journal. I had to get to NYC. We decided to drive in daylight on Sunday. I'm an experienced snow driver and to dispell people from accusing me of doing anything outrageous. There was a first responder in the car that needs to be back for critical work. Now on to the trip! The first 60 mi were perfect at or above speed limit. There was some snow in Massachusetts but it was so cold. It was just blowing drifts and for half of the state it was not slick. It was so cold you didn't need wipers. Just before Holyoke was the first snag with a slowdown and complete stop. Apparently we needed to look at six snow plows waiting to clean our section of road in the median. Rubber necking. Heading further south by the time we hit Springfield, Massachusetts, the snow was sticking and there was still a decent volume of traffic on the road. Trucks were already forbidden though we saw three rigs in the vicinity of Springfield on the highway. Heading into Hartford about 12 mi out. There was no sign that the road had ever been plowed! Traffic from a normal three or four lanes was down to one just with a stream of vehicles just following the ruts of other cars. I have Blizzacks and they pulled beautifully through this and I didn't see the traction control come on once. Leaving Hartford the roads were plowed again and all was good until "15" Parkway. It was plowed on sections and unplowed on sections. Again, the blizzak tires gripped and pulled through up to 6 in of snow on the road. There were times when the vehicle was dragging / plowing snow and you could hear the cat converter guard and plastic below scraping. Everything was good but you couldn't exit the parkway! I had to wait three rest stops to use the facilities. Exiting the rest stop was an adventure. I followed a giant Rolls Royce SUV (which comically looked like a Kia/ Hyundai) somehow he plowed through a foot plus of snow in the entry to the parkway again and I was able to follow through keeping up momentum and plowing though. Closer to the Big Apple, things got more dicey as the volume increased and the exits were not plowed. There were dozens of cars and SUVs stuck in banks trying to exit. I saw County and state troopers with hand shovels trying to get people out! At one point, a Tesla SUV in front of me stopped on a slight incline. He attempted to start moving again and just started sliding backwards and sideways. Miraculously again, those Blizzacks performed for me as I started from a dead stop on a hill and merged back into the single Lane of traffic which was going around this stalled vehicle. This was a start from 0 mph in at least 6 in of snow. I didn't think it was going to happen but it did. The portion of Westchester County we drove through again, was not plowed at all. It was one lane and vehicle ruts. Anybody trying to get off the road was instantly stuck. At this point we are the only car on the road. Everything else was giant SUVs and trucks. However, they weren't getting off the road and they weren't making it on to the snow banks. The final 10 miles of the trip were tricky because of the volume. Luckily nobody was trying to get ahead and the three-lane highway (87 South) was turned into two for the day. Again, the issue is entries and exits. There were dozens of vehicles piled up and stopped along the way. A convoy of New York City Department of Sanitation plows four wide joined in front of us and cleared the way all the way to the Manhattan exits. Inside the city the roads were plowed but there were Banks you had to pass and intersections. I can't praise the Blizzak performance enough. The traction control really didn't ever appear which was shocking. One of the biggest issues during the trip was the fact that people have their daytime running lights on. Daytime running lights don't light up the rear running lights. I had a discussion with somebody in a gas station along the way explaining that his lights weren't on. It took three levels of prodding to explain that since it's daylight the "automatic" lights in his Benz did not adjust to this type of situation. I'm going to attach to photos. 1. Unplowed road and perfect performance of the vehicle and tires 2. the tail of the car that was cleaned 4x during the trip. This was about 20 miles of driving. Safe travels everyone! I'm not good with the picture hosting, but I'll try to add the photos soon.
Addendum: Hah, while I was typing, you figured it out, lol. You can upload pictures directly to priuschat website, from a phone, computer, tablet of some sort. Several ways to accomplish it, but all very straightforward. Here's the button on my pc: The above incidentally illustrates another method: I've done a screen grab (with the Windows Snipping Tool), which puts an image in Clipboard. If I subsequently place the cursor somewhere in my text and type <ctrl> <V>, that images is pasted in there. Phones are similar, have the same "upload a file button".
Did this once in a February blizzard, Delaware to Long Island in the v Five with Dunlop snows. Car pulled and tracked like a train.
