Houston is one of America’s great big cities, full of amazing food and usually capable people. When the world has a problem, it’s Houston they call. The Bayou City can handle almost anything, but about three inches of snow will absolutely wreck anyone who tries to drive anywhere. That’s what happened yesterday and it was complete and utter chaos.
Growing up in the Greater Houston Area, I’ve been through a few ice storms and some extremely light snow. Houston is basically a collection of overpasses with a few homes and restaurants nestled in between, so when it gets a little slippery it rarely ends well.
I’ll share some more videos I’ve collected from friends back in Texas, but please enjoy a clip that combines the hubris of drivers and the worst outcome of one reporter’s best intentions. This was posted yesterday by Houstons NBC affiliate KPRC, and if you can’t see it below check it out at this link:
What’s happened here is that a driver, by the name of Jalell, was passing through Houston when he found himself stranded on a particularly terrible stretch of road to be on in a snowstorm. As you can see from the screenshot below, taken nearby, you’re on a sunken stretch of US-59/I-69 that usually collects flooding rains but, in this case, is trapping snow.
Having lived off this highway, it’s basically a long uphill climb until you hit one of two splits in the highway. Here’s the look heading north.
And here’s what it looks like a little further up the highway, where I think the reporter, Gage Goulding, is with his cameraman:
Again, a terrible place to get stuck, especially as the Texas Medical Center is nearby and this route is often used by ambulances to deliver people to the hospital. Perhaps that’s why, when we start our scene, the journalist is hoping to help Jaleel at least get off the highway and out of an exit.
At first, it doesn’t go well. The W221 S-Class, which appears to be a non-AMG S 550 or S 450, is rear-wheel drive and likely has an open differential (Mercedes, even on AMG products, rarely uses a mechanical LSD). The reporter has tossed some found foam under the rear and attempts to push, but to no avail. A passerby even tries to help, but can’t get it it work and eventually spins out his Toyota Corolla trying to exit.
The best part of the first part of this video is the reporter fist-bumping and apologizing “I really thought I was going to help you out, Jaleel, I’m sorry bro. I thought I was stronger than that.”
In the background some cars are trying to get around, since the S-Class is stuck where the road splits. The reporter makes the point that RWD (at least on all-seasons) is the worst configuration, and if you slow down you’re going to get stuck. Eventually, another passerby comes to help and they really throw their shoulder into it.
The Mercedes doesn’t move at all, just free-revs with no wheelspin.
“You’re not in gear, dawg,” explains Goulding, which is just the most Houston response to the situation imagineable. Eventually the Mercedes gets pushed in gear only to immediately get stuck across even more of the road.
“Oh man, now we’ve created an even worse situation,” says Goulding, explaining that the path towards the hospital is now blocked.
To the reporter’s credit, it’s a little worse than it was, but trying to help was probably the right move here in abscense of any other assistance. The best outcome was a better equipped vehicle arriving. The lifted KPRC F-Series looks like it can move out of the way, so I don’t think the hospital is truly blocked (and there are other ways to get there).
At the end of the report, Goulding explains he’s going to try and see if they can get Jaleel’s S-Class off the road and let’s just assume that’s what happened.
Elsewhere in Houston it wasn’t quite so dire.
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Here’s the Houston Police Department (HPD) out doing donuts in their police cruiser. There are two other police cars there and I’m going to assume everyone was getting in on the fun. I don’t hate it! With global climate change coming it’s about time these officers learn how to drive in the snow.
Here’s another police officer, full lights on, doing the same thing:
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Skiing on the highway? Sure.
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Keep it real, Houston. Keep it real.
How on Earth do you spin out an FWD car, unless you’re in reverse?
I used to live in Beaumont, TX and had to drive through Houston in mid-February 2021 after a freakish snow/hard-freeze event that killed people and made every high-rise Houston overpass unusable and then through downtown, where about half of the traffic signals weren’t working due to power failures. What a shitshow.
I was headed to McAllen, TX and what would ordinarily be a 7-hour drive turned into about 12 hours. Getting through Houston was not fun, but after night fell, the wet roads South of there started looking like black ice. Which I knew from living in Cleveland, OH for a couple of winters.
When I was about 12 my mom’s Mustang was stuck and I and my friend from across the road were trying to help push it just like this. She was even in gear. But we didn’t use a piece of foam, we used a piece of plywood. My mom revved it up good, the piece of plywood when flying backwards at a high rate of speed and broke my friend’s leg! We both felt really bad about it, friend was out of school for weeks and she made me give him some of my stuff while he was recovering.
Friggin storm! I just got home after getting stuck in Houston due to canceled flights. I was trying to get to our factory in Monterrey and was connecting through Houston Monday night. A tiny bit of snow starts falling and the whole airport shuts down for the rest of the night and the whole day Tuesday. My rebooked flight gets canceled twice, so I finally said f* it and came home last night after a couple nights in a shitty hotel the airline put me up in. What a waste.
I remember one winter, my mom had just picked us all up from our cousins house (For a total of 3 young children and 3 even younger cousins) and it was snowing outside. It was about an hour trip, and it started snowing in already crappy conditions. It was also when the 4WD got stuck in 2WD because we never used the 4WD. The roads were ok for about the first half. Then it really started coming down and laying on the road, and the 4WD Still was not engaging. We were in this 2.5 Ton SUV and sliding around a decent amount, but by golly mom held it together, kept us in our lane, and got us home.
As much as it’s natural for a northerner like myself to giggle at stuff like this, I try to check it down by reminding myself that most of these folks endure a full 5-6 months of hot/humid living hell from spring through fall, where I have about two months of that with breaks in between.
Also worth noting that the police are not only having fun, but doing the right thing. Finding an open lot with unplowed snow and seeing how a car handles in it is highly recommended. It’s something I would do with almost every new car when I could.
Except when I do this in empty parking lots and the cops drive by they get mad and tell me I’m not allowed to…
Hypocrites.
I was on my way to the pub one evening, and stopped to help a guy push a car into a praking space. So, we both get into position and start pushing, but the little Micra isn’t going anywhere. then we realised the driver still had the brake on. In all the back and forth and shouted instructions, they managed to leave the brake on a further two times before we finally got it in a safe place on the side of the road.
We once got stopped on a road blocked by a disabled vehicle – I don’t recall the cause of the issue – but another driver coming up the other way stopped to help push the first car out of the way. They got it moved, opening that side of the road. Then the assisting driver went to get back in his car only to discover he had locked his keys in the car so now his side of the road was blocked.
People who are not used to snow have no idea how to drive in it – even in areas that get snow you should stay off the roads until after the second or third snowstorm because people forget how to drive in the snow and need to relearn the skill.
The Police doing donuts is the best thing to do to quickly get a feel for driving in the snow and how to correct (“steer into the skid”), I commend them for the informal training. Of course the police might not appreciate it if you were doing the same thing in your personal car. It is highly recommended to go do donuts in a wide-open snowed-in parking lot – although with our lowered amount of snow all around you need to watch out for the plow-trucks that are anxious to get working (& paid).
Snow is a weird thing – I was on the way back to the Charlotte airport last year, taking the Blue Ridge Parkway in the rental car, and we ran into some snow (it was ~70 degrees F at the lower elevations). At one point coming at us was a brand-new full-size Bronco that had hit some of this snow (less than an 1″ I would guess) and that was stuck on a slight uphill, like not moving forward at all – we had a flight to catch so I didn’t stop to explain how transfer cases and low-gears works, but it was a weird thing to see – at first I thought it might be black ice under the snow, but we had no problem going through the same stuff in our AWD car. I think the Bronco driver just had no clue.
Finally any northerner will tell you, after you get a few feet of forward motion and then get stuck again, your best-bet is to back up into the now-clear ruts and build up some momentum to get through the new snowy/slippery spot.
You nailed it right about the clueless drivers and police officers! My German father took me to the car parks during the snow storms in Dallas, Texas so I could learn the techniques and practise driving on snow. I am eternally grateful to him for the important lessons. I also resolved not to go out driving during the snow or ice storms: it’s due to the idiots who don’t know how to drive endangering others.
When I moved to Colorado in the late 1990s, driving on snow was sort of “old ropes” for me while the Californian refugees (many of them moved to Colorado for jobs when California tanked economically) struggled a lot during their first time on snow. One interesting thing I learnt from Coloradans: if you struggle to go up the sloped street and your car has front-wheel-drive, turn around and drive in reverse up the street.
I just bought a 2024 Bronco Wildtrak around Thanksgiving, and so far it has handled the snow (which is way below the normal amount) here in southern New Hampshire like it was nothing, so I’m pretty sure it’s not the Bronco’s fault
Back when we last had snow in Austin, I had a Honda Pilot AWD with some Michelin ‘3-peak’ tires. It was fine in the snow/ice. Honda’s AWD system was actually the best AWD system I’ve driven.
This time around I have an Outback XT with the stock tires. I actually like the OB more. The stock tires are “meh”, but the Symmetrical AWD is very competent and fun. Poke the throttle and the back end kicks out and you get a good drift going around corners. Stay on it and drive it through. If you let off the gas, the car just keeps rotating till you are pointed not where you should be going.
There were still the brodozers out there with those wide, chunky, mud tires either stuck in the ditch or well on their way into one at breakneck speed.
When I had my Legacy GT, my favorite was that throttle stab oversteer in the winter. So much fun.
There are little bits of rally car still in the Subaru DNA, but it seems with each redesign, they lose some. The STI is only an appearance package now.
I do love how my BRZ drives as well, but I’m not sure how much of that is Subaru related. The new regular Subarus do nothing for me but I can see the appeal to normal people
I get what you are saying.
With collaborations between car companies, it’s sometimes tough to see where certain influences come from. The latest Toyota Supra, while fine, isn’t the same. Is it more Toyota or BMW?
The BRZ is a departure from traditional Subarus. The latest sales numbers seem to indicate they’ve got something people want. They don’t sell a lot compared to more mainstream vehicles, but they (BRZ/GR86) outsell MX-5 and other 2 door coupes combined.
I think because it is a fun car, but it is still reasonably useable for the everyday person, at least more so than the MX5. I have a back seat in an emergency and with the backseat folded down I can fit my skis and some longer items in there. For me it has enough space for getting groceries for my wife and I without being too cramped.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. And snow.
I once got stuck in Little Rock Arkansas during an ice storm. Figured it would be a couple of days until I’d get a flight out so I checked into my hotel and took a walk across to the Waffle House.
While there, I realized I could not wait there for three days. I checked out of the hotel, took a shuttle to the airport and took the last rental car available to start driving back to Boston.
Roads were rough, but the biggest problem was drivers unfamiliar with how to drive int the snow.
Three times I saw a car pass a big rig, only to immediately turn back into the rig’s lane and slow down. This caused the rig to brake and jacknife. Three times I watched this happen in front of me. The exact same way each time. I saw it almost happen a few more times. In decades of driving, all of them including snow, these are the only three jacknifings I have ever witnessed.
If you don’t know how to drive in snow, don’t. Cancel your plans. Dig through your pantry and freezer for food and stay the hell home. This also goes for the news crew, because they’re not making anything safer by parking their news truck in a traffic lane and shining bright lights into traffic.
“Now this is a 911 situation.” Yes, dumbass, and you are the one who caused it! You took a car that was stuck relatively safely on the side of the road and pushed it sideways across more than one travel lane. Congratulations. When he covers a crime story does he just start shooting bystanders? Go home, Gage. Nobody needs you out there.
Many years ago, I would have been one of those people that said “You call that snow? That’s cute.” However, when Chicago gets tied up because of 12″, I know there are folks up in upstate NY who would say the same thing to us. Ditto for cold, rain, heat, etc.
While I try to be non-judgemental, I still watch these and think “Oh. No. No no no. Whatever you’re doing, do the opposite.”
I know they don’t get much snow, but zooming in to show the amazing snow accumulation of 3″ made me giggle.
As someone who grew up in Chicago and moved to the South, it is funny what you see when it snows. I remember being behind a 7er, and the driver stopped before attempting a snowy hill. Just no.
I’m from Chicago. What Houston has is referred to as a “primer coat.”
I’m originally from Chicagoland myself (Elgin) and live in Massachusetts. Anything less than 6 inches is considered a “light dusting”!
Usually from January to about April (sometimes mid-May) snowstorms coming from the west over the Great Lakes or the nor’easters churning over the Atlantic will dump anywhere from 6 inches to 2 FEET (sometimes 3)of fresh powder!
In the automotive business (body shop in particular) we called that “White Gold”-and for VERY GOOD reason!! There’s going to be a lot of tow truck drivers and body shops that are going to be very happy this winter season-especially in Texas and Florida!!
To be fair, though he lives here in Houston now Gage is from Pennsylvania. Also we always called that portion of 59 “The Canyon”. I don’t know if that’s the official name but everyone always seems to know what I’m talking about when I call it that.
Also, these past two days have been some serious nonsense! I live in the south specifically to avoid this frozen stuff.
Having recently moved to Houston, the absolute avoidance of using cardinal directions by the newsguy is wildly Houston and still novel to me. Can’t just say “Southwest of downtown” when describing the general location.
I’ve driven across England 3 or 4 times and it’s a thing there, too…but arguably worse, since even the major road signs haven’t seen a cardinal direction since Wolsey told Henry VIII that he couldn’t have Hampton Court Palace and we saw how that ended. SICKEST OF BURNS! Where was I? Oh, yeah, the whole “95 North” or “1-10 East” seems to be a mostly North American thing.
England literally has roadsigns indicating “The North”, “The South”, “The Southwest”.
Less for directional purposes, and more for separating the country into nebulous and arbitrary areas. The ‘vague hand-wavey’ kind.
Cardinal directions aren’t always helpful to noobs in a city in which we’ve all agreed that Main Street runs north and south even though it really describes a long arc, and downtown/midtown are a nice grid 45 degrees off from north, south, east, and west. Blame Gail Borden, Houston’s original surveyor who did a lot better with dairy products.
One of the things people who aren’t used to it don’t understand is that when you’re stuck on snow or ice, too much accelerator doesn’t help. Best to just turn off the traction control and see if you can basically idle up to a reasonable speed in many cases. I say turn off the traction control because I’ve been in several vehicles where TC doesn’t let you go anywhere in slippery conditions where you might want the barest amount of wheel slip.
Never use traction control in the snow is what I’ve learned. Not only will it be impossible to get started up hills on RWD cars, but often times on FWD cars it’ll make the car shudder out of control when taking a turn because it feels the wheels slipping when you use the throttle to pull it around. In either situation it thinks it’s a loss of control rather than you maximizing the miniscule moments of friction you get by spinning the tires faster.
I used to have to turn off traction and stability control to drive my FR-S in the snow.
Taking a right out of my driveway in the snow, the car refused to turn and stay on my side of the road. I don’t know if those systems were designed for wider roads or if the car didn’t want to be around any more, but it would put me head-on into oncoming traffic every single time.
With traction and stability control off, it was fine in the winter with snow tires.
My BRZ stays on the road fine in the snow, I just find the throttle is very sensitive in the snow so it is easy to spin if you aren’t careful. I do agree that the car is much better with TSC off though.
I had a cavalier that didn’t have a button for the TC. So I used to click the ebrake up one click. Enough to trigger the car to disable TC but not enough to actually engage the cable brakes. Then you could spin just enough to dig through the snow a little and get the car moving.
Yup, no traction control is key. I was driving a RWD 320i (stick shift) through an ice storm once and with TC off it really wasn’t that hard to keep the car moving. I did better than a lot of people in more suitable vehicles.
Well designed modern traction control that applies braking force to the spinning wheel works really well in snow – on BMWs this was started in the late 1990’s. I had a both an E39 five-series (with snow tires) and an E46 (all season tires) with this style of traction control when I lived in New Hampshire and never got stuck anywhere – including passing all kinds of 4×4’s that were stuck. Traction control that blocks the throttle is useless in the snow.
The driver is just a terrible driver. He probably has bald tires too.
Many other cars were driving by just fine. He wasn’t stuck, he was on ice.
I understand that uphill on ice can sometimes be impossible, I’ve been there, but with so many others doing it slowly, there was definitely something wrong with this driver and this car.
I got the impression the driver was stuck in the mindset of “to go faster I should push the throttle more”. Not realising that their wheels were already spinning, so more power was useless. I’d have said all he needed to do was change up a gear or two, but it was almost certainly an automatic gearbox.
Pretty sure that S-Class has traction and stability control. I’m also pretty sure it has summer tires on it.
It absolutely does have traction control. And tires that don’t have sufficient grip for the car to do anything.
Yeah, that’s problem number one. Lack of snow driving experience and RWD contributed, but those tires had almost no grip to work with. FWD and experience still might not have gotten him to the top of the hill with those tires, though maybe he’d be a bit further up the road.
Mechanical LSDs are a double-edged sword that will CUT you big time in the slipperies. They are great at keeping you from getting stuck at low speeds. At higher speeds, give the car a touch too much throttle and you spin BOTH rear wheels and lose directional stability big-time. The best solution for snow was the auto-locking diff that Volvo and others offered back in the day. 100% locked when one wheel spun at very low speeds, automagically unlocked at 20mph or so. E-diffs using the brakes work very well too, at the cost of brake wear.
I have no doubt that this S-class has an E-diff, but on no-season or summer tires there is just no grip to work with here. Best option is STAY HOME, or wherever you happen to be when God’s Dandruff starts falling in places that have no concept of how to deal with it effectively.
I loved my 1996 Volvo 960 in the snow!
Me too – I had a ’93 965 with the auto-locker, as well as a couple of 944s/945s and a 745T with it. Like magic for getting out of an unplowed driveway or whatnot.
Here in eastern Ontario its been very cold the last few days, but almost no snow this winter. I’m not complaining, it’s great that others get to live the dream. Snow tires are the answer.
Snow tires are almost certainly the answer in Ontario, but not Houston. It very rarely falls below freezing and almost never snows. I’d bet that none of the tire stores there even stock snow tires. The closest would probably be mud tires. In Houston, not driving in this stuff is the real answer.
It would really be a waste of money to buy snow tires there, this would probably be the only day the entire year when they’d be useful
A couple years back, I moved from Colorado (Denver) to Maryland. It snows a lot less here, but that just means that even a little bit really screws things up. Luckily, I am currently able to work from home during inclement weather.
My snow tires just lived in the shed for years when I moved from New York to Delaware, eventually gave them away for free to someone being transferred to Idaho. Although occasionally useful, especially when driving into Pennsylvania, they just weren’t useful enough anymore to be worth the hassle of switching back and forth. My Crown Victoria has all terrain tires on it now that work reasonably well in snow as well as mud, but I’m not supposed to use that one for work, since it isn’t tied to my mileage program
Yeah, they’d almost definitely be dry-rotted to hell and back before they’d ever be needed again.
They’d get used for about 2 days every 3-4 years then put back in the garage. Much better to just stay home.
So less than a week’s worth of actual need over the “recommended” tire life (about 6 years). I agree that it’s just better to stay home.
That’s how it is for all snow related issues in Houston. Friends up north will make fun of us for not having snow plows or salt trucks but they’d sit in a storage lot for years at time and would wrack up more costs in maintenance than they’d save us in productivity for the 2 days we have to stay home every few years. As long as staying home on days like this is an option I don’t even bother with all-season tires, my PS4s are a lot more fun the other 363 days.
I’m with you. What a lot of people don’t get is that when you guys get snow, it is usually preceded by freezing rain and that ice is typically lurking under any accumulation.
People like to scoff, but it’s the same in Utah. Any time it snows, I get to do the “all-seasons are good enough” slalom* in my snow tire equipped daily up a long gradual hill, passing cars that just ran out of traction and momentum like the guy in the video.
*Not bragging, I have to be at work at 5:30am and the roads are usually not plowed yet and I have several significant hills to navigate.
It goes both ways, when our NYC office got shut down after a tiny Category 1 hurricane we sent them back the same jokes. It’s all what you’re prepared for and we prepare for what’s most likely to happen.
Even all-seasons would have been a big help there. Houston’s not exactly full of steep hills.
I never meant to imply that people in more moderate climates need to put on snow or even no seasons. I used to commute about 50 miles a day for work and with the winters here, no seasons usually get you stuck or ditched.
You’d be surprised at some of the newest 3PMSF all-season tires. They’re not on par with Hakkas or Blizzaks, but they’re starting to beat out the lower-end snow tires. Again, nothing I’d use for icy mountains or a 50-mile commute, but they’re good enough around an actual snowy city.
I use Blizzaks on both of my cars. We live deep rural and snow clearing isn’t too bad but when we get a huge overnight dump, things can fall behind. I’m originally from Saskatchewan where the standard practice is leave it until spring. The practice you get driving through foot deep drifts on top of sheer ice stays with you forever.
I’m in Virginia Beach, where we just got a very uncharacteristic three inches of snow and I’m contemplating if I need to go anywhere if I drive my NA Miata or my Subaru BRAT with no brakes.
This winter is freaking weird. We haven’t had an event of more than 2″ of snow this winter. And I live about two hours from the Quebec border.
Yeah, right? Good thing we’re so accurately focused on solving the problem.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/trump-revokes-biden-order-that-set-50-ev-target-2030-2025-01-21/
Snowy Sliding Slabs Sever Several Shins, more at 11!
If only he had swangas, too!
Wish I could edit, I had forgotten the name :)Or maybe wilfully repressed it…
Snowy Sliding Slabs Sporting Swangas Sever Several Shins In Snowstorm!
Rwd isn’t the worst, fwd reduces grip up hills when it needs more and adds grip down hills when it doesn’t.
Maybe if more car makers didn’t put 70%+ of the wieght forward. Bmw is close to 50/50 for a reason.
It is the worst when you have crappy tires
But, it can go both ways, I had a FWD Caravan as a company car in upstate New York that was totally useless in snow, vs my personal car at the time, which was a Mustang with four Blizzaks on it. Biggest issue with that one was that the snow would build up against the front air dam like a snow plow and eventually stop the car until you got out and shoveled it away
I had some guy in a Caravan almost screw me in the snow a few years ago. He was being way to cautious on a long hill and he lost momentum and started spinning about halfway up. Luckily I had room to go around and make it up
I had a Saab 9-3SC that I replaced with my current RWD BMW 328i wagon. On the very same snow tires, there was nothing in it for driving in the slipperies. The Saab was slightly better at some things, the BMW slightly better at others. And you are absolutely correct, BMW was FAR better at climbing hills. And cornering (but I like the ability to steer from both ends). The Saab was better at getting going. Basically, all the stuff where weight on the drive wheels counts, FWD with 70%+ on the nose wins. Other things, 48:52 won. But it was not an extreme difference. The Saab was probably “safer” in the hands of a brain-dead booger-head typical driver. All that weight on the nose made for better directional stability, and it’s always safer to hit things head on than sideways.
I also have an AWD Land Rover Disco on snow tires. It is GREAT in the snow – until it isn’t. Because all that extra ability to GO doesn’t mean you can STOP or TURN all that extra weight, and AWD makes it a LOT easier to write checks that your driving talent can’t cash. As evidenced by all the Subarus and Jeeps in the ditch in Maine every year. But for pulling a boat trailer out of a snow-covered field or getting over a 3′ plow berm at the end of the driveway it’s pretty great. And as a sacrificial salt anode so my BMW can sleep through Maine winters.
What should I do in the snow as a brain-dead booger-head atypical driver, though?
https://live.staticflickr.com/2844/12415574674_6724e70fc2_c.jpg
I’ve had seven Saabs including a pair of ’69 Sonett V4s. BMWs are more fun in the snow if you know what you are doing.
But by definition, anyone smart enough to choose Saab was not brain dead. Possibly a little twacked in the head, but not brain dead.
This is also what we see going up into the Sierras every winter when storms roll in. All vehicles must use tire chains except those that are all wheel drive and are equipped with snow tires. And every five or six miles, you see a pickup or a big SUV that’s spun off the road exactly because the drivers don’t understand that you still need to go slow, whether you have unconquerable all wheel drive or not. Chains pretty much preclude going too fast, this saving many drivers from themselves.
“ fwd reduces grip up hills when it needs more and adds grip down hills when it doesn’t.”
Unless you go up the hill in reverse…
The Model T solution, albeit for different reasons.
If you don’t have access to 4wd, I maintain that the best car for the snow is a small FWD drive hatchback. The engine is right above the front wheels, so there is always plenty of weight on the tires, and because they’re usually skinny, the tires cut through the snow. Also, because it’s a tiny car, if/when you do need to push it, it’s pretty easy.
That said, the best car in snow, is any car with a driver who knows how to drive in snow.
As a former Houstonian, and someone currently sitting in their office watching the snow roll in from the Colorado Rockies, all I can say is “Ha! Ha!” and I’m glad I’m not there.
I watched it from my home office window, the cars are both locked safely in the garage from this nonsense.
Good plan. That’s what I used to do on those rare days when Houston would freeze over.