I caused chaos on the road this morning

[FrancisQuoynt]

Chucked it down with snow overnight and my car was covered in snow. I cleared the windows and drove off to go to work. I got to a roundabout where you can turn left, go straight on or turn right (as you do on roundabouts, I was going straight on) and there was an avalanche on the windscreen. I'd forgotten to clear the roof. It covered the windscreen and the wipers were jammed and I couldn't see a bloody thing.

I had to stop the car and get out and clear it off the windscreen. I was in the left lane, so anyone going straight on or right could still get by. A man behind me with a moustache and a trilby hat on started honking and shaking his fist because I had delayed him by about, ooh, 90 seconds.

Feeling a right fool. Trilby Man looked like someone out of a 1970s sitcom.

That’s exactly how I felt word for word. Thank you for articulating it so well when I’ couldn’t find the words.

You’re right. I think I felt exactly what you’ve said here too. Just like the whole thing was just horrible from start to finish from the post to the replies. I totally agree with you. It usually doesn’t bother me too much, it just genuinley got me down and I couldn’t articulate in a better way than ‘I hate this!’ I don’t know why it got to me so much, I think it just all felt so unnecessary. I’m realily being crappy and adding to it all. X

I can't reach to clear my roof!

😆

This place is a cesspit at times. I try and remind myself that the overwhelming majority of people I meet in real life don't behave like this towards each other.

My take from the OP was that they were just venting. I've messed up in the past and looked to friends or family to make me feel less terrible, sometimes by trying to find the humour in a bad situation.

@CurlyhairedAssassin you ok hun?

I guess because they were shocked by the post.

If it happened on a motorway the driver would be charged with dangerous driving. Very dangerous to drive with a load of snow on the car roof. Lives could be lost because of this stupidity.

A pretty basic mistake which could put lives at risk.

I recall my daughter's car parked outside our house when there had been heavy overnight snow, her husband had started to clear the snow as they were about to drive home, he's cleared the windscreen and was clearing the side windows when the snow from the roof slid forward into the cleared space and broke both windscreen wipers, not just the blades but the whole expensive-to-fix arms.

But why would you think they were lying? Unless you know something about this poster that I don’t it seems an odd assumption to make 🤔

A garage, perhaps? You can always tell who has a garage and who doesn't on a snowy morning.

Not always, our neighbours have a garage but the cars never go inside. One neighbour uses it as an extra room, another as a workroom and the man across the street has turned his into a gym

All you have to do is go on YouTube and watch dashcam footage. Many a broken windscreen broken due to low flying roof snow.

Regarding reaching car roofs, I have a message for my fellow shortarses: you need this heavy-duty fold-up stool. It's brilliant!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Folding-Lightweight-Carrying-Outdoor-Portable/dp/B0CBQ48NCK/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa

It was safer to stop than to try to drive blind.

It's also safer to drive when you're not liable to be annoyed by fairly minor inconveniences.

And I'd bet a lot of money that they would roll their eyes at you.

“Don’t” and “have absolutely never ever in my entire life” are different. We ALL make mistakes

OK I'll put it into your language I have never ever in my entire life done the two things you mentioned.
I've made tons of mistakes in my life but not when driving. I never said people never made mistakes and I have said that obviously I have but not when driving.
I take being behind a wheel as a huge responsibility as I could quite literally hold someone's life in my hands.
I don't know why you have such a problem with me and what I've said. I haven't been rude to anyone.

What should she have done instead?

Sometimes men get annoyed over silly inconveniences and behave irrationally over them. However, I'm actually with the guy on this one as you caused a safety hazard by stopping on a roundabout and by not clearing the snow properly from your car. The snow could have blown into the windscreen of another car, a HGV, or on to a cyclist and caused an accident.

Sometimes we actually need to learn lessons from mistakes rather than whining on the internet that someone got narky about it. Yes, humans make mistakes, and it is human to do so. It's also a human response to be irritated about an inconvenience caused by a human mistake that was very avoidable (which this was).

Hopefully next time it snows you'll clear your car roof.

I use a soft bristle brush to sweep the snow off the car roof but I had a mishap doing that one winter. We’d had a couple of days of very heavy snow and I hadn’t been out so it was piled high on the roof. Shoved it off and thought no more about it. Then later that day I looked down from the upstairs window and noticed scratches all over the roof of the car. Underneath the the deep layer of snow there had been a rough layer of ice and it scratched the roof as I brushed it off. 😡

Thanks for starting the thread, @FrancisQuoynt . I have never cleared my car roof and hadn't realised that it could be so dangerous. I will clear it in future.

Sorry that MN has come up with its usual absurdity in hitting you with such severe criticisms. I loved your Trilby Man. Made me think of Harry Worth
https://images.app.goo.gl/D2wAEQTz8vVwxW9d9

I wonder.... maybe avoided the issue in the first place.

We are not helpless, we take accountability for our actions. To be honest, this didnt really need posting here - OP made a mistake, and instead of just dealing with it, made a post on mn to poke fun at a man and his fashion sense.

I think that’s the thing that’s getting poster’s backs up. If the OP had come on and said ‘I hold my hands up, I made a mistake this morning that could have been very dangerous and I held up other drivers while I sorted it, so everyone please remember to scrape the snow off your roof’ there probably wouldn’t have been the same reaction. Instead it came across as the OP was just shrugging and mocking someone’s hat and moustache 🤷‍♀️