Ahhh, New England in the Spring... the sounds, the smells, the snow. Yeah, you heard me. We're expecting a foot tonight out here where I live in northern central Massachusetts. Though I'm no big fan of snow, I still love New England, even when it is snowing. It's pretty to look at and it makes the warmer days all that much more precious. Does it sound like I'm rationalizing? I am. Sue me.

Driving in the snow is another matter entirely. Now, I don't drive like a timid sheep. Ask anyone who's ridden in my car, which I sometimes refer to as "The Purple Rocket". But Fitchburg streets are notoriously bad in the winter. I've lived in a lot of towns around Massachusetts and I have to say that Fitchburg seems to be the worst for keeping its roads clear of snow. Here in Fitchburg MA we have an ingenious method for clearing every last bit of snow in the road: wait for it to melt. As a result, when the roads are treacherous, I drive cautiously.

The problem is, it never seems to fail that while I am trying to drive responsibly when the road is covered in a thick layer of snow, slush, and icy patches, that some intellectually challenged individual will start tailgating me or otherwise driving in a foolhardy manner.

So it was today as I was heading north on South Street in Fitchburg at 5:45 PM. It was dusk and the streetlights were on, but that didn't appear to be motivating the person in the red VW Jetta jalopy behind me to turn on his headlights. The normal speed limit of South Street is 35 MPH in the area where I was driving, but the roads were a mess and as a result I was doing about 25 MPH. I was moving the same speed as the person in front of me but keeping a couple carlengths between us so as to avoid any fender benders.

Apart from my desire to avoid hurting myself or anyone else, my new car is only a few months old and I love it. It's my baby, and I even gave it a name of its own--yeah okay, I'm certifiable, but at least I'm not tailgating in a twighlight snowstorm with two inches of snow on the berm with no lights on, while going downhill, toward an intersection, in a thickly settled area.

Which is what the person driving the Jetta was doing. And when I say tailgating, I mean up-your-fanny type tailgating. So close I had to tap the brakes a few times, not hard enough to actually slow down, but enough to illuminate my brake lights and make the Jetta back off. This worked, but only momentarily. Needless to say this was very disconcerting to me, and I had a flashback to 13 years earlier.

It's February, 1991. I'm driving to work from my then hometown of Whitman, Massachusetts. The road is covered with a hardpack of snow about 2 inches thick, and I am driving about 25 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. My car is a 4 year old 1986 Honda Civic Wagon, and I really like it, I just bought it two weeks before and it's the newest car I ever owned.

Tailgating behind me is a kid and his girlfriend, in a much larger boat... a chevy or something. I can see his girlfriend yelling at him in my rearview to back off, and I can see the big grin on his face as he shows off for his girl. That grin remained there right up until we reached the 4-way-stop on Summer Street. Genius suddenly realized that, though I had given myself enough space to slow down and stop, he hadn't done the same for himself. I watched it coming and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. BANG! My new-used car was hit from behind and thrust into the intersection. After skating into a snowbank across and to the left of the intersection, I got out and had the following conversation with boy genius:

ME: Are you alright?
HIM: Yeah.
ME: Then quit driving like a fucking idiot.

So here I was in a similar situation, this time in a car that was purchased new not long ago. No matter what I tried, the person in the Jetta refused to back off and drive responsibly.

At the coming intersection I was turning left, but I had to drive slow because the hill was steep and I had slipped here in times past. I pulled as far as I could to the left and the Jetta driver accelerated past me on the right, racing toward the intersection as the light turned yellow. After the light turned red I counted three full seconds before the Jetta reached the intersection, and ran the light. He never tapped his brakes once. Through the intersection he flew, and around the curve in the road beyond, presumably passing the elementary school I knew to be there.

So, if by some odd twist of fate you were stuck behind a PT Cruiser heading north on South Street in Fitchburg, MA at about 5:45 PM on March 16, 2004 during a snowstorm in a red VW Jetta, I have one thing to say to you:

Quit driving like a fucking idiot!