The Negotiation

On February 6, 2007-Ronald Reagan’s birthday- a surprise four-inch clipper snowstorm attacked my hometown of Roanoke, Virginia.

The Negotiation

First snow. I was returning home from a school board meeting at William Byrd High School last night at the height of the blizzard in Roanoke and managed to crawl down I-581 all the way to my Peter's Creek Road exit. Then I traversed the white, short stretch alone until I turned off onto North Lake Drive.

Looking ahead, I saw two cars struggling on the first and main hill into the subdivision. So I bided my time and waited at the bottom patiently. No one was behind me, so I just chilled. The car in front managed to back down enough to make it to a cross over and turned to head back down the hill. The van that was stuck mid-hill backed down and gave it another run.

What makes the hill especially difficult in snow is that it immediately starts steeply up and then about halfway up, the road bends sharply to the right and then goes up even steeper. At that point where the road bends, there is that cross-over where the other car had turned around. At that cross over, there is another less steep road that intersects the main drag and snakes around the side of the hill. In snow, most experienced residents know that it's smart to use this side road to skirt around the steepest parts of the hill.

So the van began its run up the hill and looked like it had the task firmly in hand, so foolishly I began my trek up in my 94 Honda Accord (good tires!). We were sailing up well. The van was cruising and at a very safe distance well in front of me when the driver of the van got to the bend. Smartly, the driver decided to take the side road. However, foolishly, the driver decided to stop on the hill before making the turn. So with me committed to the hill and following behind...I had to stop, too...on a steep grade. So the van spun a few tires after checking for oncoming traffic then spun his way across the median and onto the side road successfully. I, meanwhile, was stopped cold on the side of the hill and unable to regain traction. So I figured that I would just roll back down the hill. Unfortunately, I found that I now had a car a couple of lengths back right on my rear bumper. So I kept popping my car into reverse so the driver would get the idea that we both needed to roll back to the bottom of the hill, but he didn't seem to understand my signal language. So, growing a bit frustrated with people in general, I popped out of the car, walked back to the guy behind me, and said, "Hey, I think we'd be in better shape if we both rolled back down the hill." He replied, "Oh yeah... okay." So he rolled back then I rolled back and crossed over at a median cross over at the bottom of the hill. Then I looped back around behind the guy who was behind me and waited until he had successfully made it past the curve on the hill ahead. Then I got my run going and made it to the curve cross over, made my turn onto the side street and snaked around to my house a few blocks away with no further problems.