Its all relative really.  My assumptions about driving in Cleveland in their “deadly storms.”  I grew up in the Northeast.  I delivered newspapers at 5:30 am in snowstorms on a bicycle for years.  I remember temperatures in – 30’s, and I still delivered newspapers.  “Bad” is relative I suppose.  It doesn’t make me wrong to say roads were not bad at all.  I’ve to a few people from Cleveland, that lived elsewhere in the Northeast, came back to Cleveland, and laugh at Cleveland’s “horrible snow storms” and “bad roads.”  Its not just me.

Anyways.  I always like stories of people moving to say Virginia.  And then there is an inch of snow on the ground and everyone in Virginia freaks out and everything closes.  Cleveland however isn’t Virginia, but acts in a similar fashion in some ways.  I wouldn’t call myself “the best driver ever” but I would call myself a self-assured driver, a driver who trusts his instincts, and a driver who knows how to drive in just about all conditions.  I know bad roads.  I grew up in Upstate New York.  It forces you to learn how to drive in all conditions from flooding rains to white out snow storms.  Cleveland has had neither of those.  But maybe, if you’ve never experienced driving conditions other than what is here in Cleveland, you’d think Friday was a horrible driving condition.  Just like someone in Virginia that hasn’t driven anywhere else would think an inch of snow makes for horrible driving conditions (although with after the winter the East Coast has had this year, maybe they’ll freak out at an inch of snow less next year).

And as for the joke about Buffalonians grabbing a beer and hitting the road in a snowstorm; I’ve gotten more than a few comments on how its not a funny joke.  A joke, especially one like that, is meant to be a gross exaggeration.  It is meant to say people from Buffalo are confident driving in snowy conditions.  It is not meant to imply all people from Buffalo grab beers and drive (only their football players…. ha…I kill myself).  I’m sure Buffalo has that same small minority that think its fine driving around with a beer in their hand as any other city in the US or world, but that’s not the majority.  And if I had written the joke any other I would have changed it from how it was told to me.  And lastly, as someone from Buffalo, I did laugh when I heard it, and it was funny.