NOTE: Several family members were brutally slaughtered recently, so I will take a break from writing. Their deaths erased my affinity for writing about politics or the economy, thus I'll later limit myself to health and brainpower in addition to completing my book on rapidly overcoming racism and bigotry. BTW, the two men who murdered my father are still on the lam; I am offering up to $100,000 for information leading to their arrest and conviction.
How roads could be plowed for free
Public roads in the United States are plowed during the winter by government employees using government equipment. Despite the many billions of taxpayer dollars spent clearing roads, drivers must often wait several hours to a few days after each winter event (such as a snowstorm depositing fresh snow or wind blowing old snow) before the roads are clear. Cash-strapped cities and counties often reduce plowing frequency to save money, but that increases road hazards that result in more accidents, more property damage, and more personal injuries and deaths.
Is there a better way? Yes. Roads could be plowed more quickly, more frequently, and at zero cost by authorizing snowmobilers (or ATV drivers) to travel on roads if they were plowing or traveling to a road to be plowed or returning from it. Snowmobile and ATV snow plows are readily available, and heightened market demand would spur product innovation. After my experiments with snowmobile snow removal (not just plowing), I know that what is available now is adequate for road snow removal but even better ways are possible.
Why would anyone do it?
Now for the $64,000 question: why would a snowmobiler or ATVer use his or her equipment and burn his or her gasoline to plow roads?
Hint: the answer is a three-letter word: FUN. Few snowmobilers or ATVers own enough land to making driving on it enjoyable, instead of hamster-wheel boring. Before I learned that driving on Michigan snowmobile trails is too risky to justify, I'd occasionally load my snowmobile on a trailer and drive to a trail, but the hassle of loading and unloading was such a deterrent that I rarely did it. Accessing the trail head by driving to it on my snowmobile was also so bothersome that it sat idle most winter days.
However, I would love it if I could legally drive on the roads, taking perhaps a 20-mile drive each time it snowed. I'd have fun and enhance safety for local drivers, who would also save gas because it takes more energy to drive on snow. It'd be a win-win-win situation: Fun for me, better for drivers, and a way for the county to economize.
Can snowmobiles plow snow? Yes!
I've owned a few 4000-pound tractors, and even the 4-wheel drive ones couldn't begin to move as much snow as a 500- or 600-pound snowmobile. Weight helps, but the enormously greater ground contact area of a track gives it a marked advantage in traction. I have no ATV experience, but I know people who rave about their ability to plow snow. However, having much less ground contact area, I think they would not be suitable for deeper snow, especially one-pass clearing of one side of a road (that is desirable but not essential, because the road could be cleared in multiple passes, or one pass with multiple drivers riding in a group).
If the county gave me the green light to proceed, I'd begin by using one of my two larger snowmobiles, but I'd also whip out my welder and make a monster snow-clearing machine that would do things no county snow plow could do, such as precisely clearing around mailboxes. After county drivers flatten several mailboxes (they pulverized mine twice), they typically shy away from them, but that makes it more difficult for mail carriers to deliver mail. I have other related innovations that would make winter driving much safer and less stressful. I could post the engineering files for them online so others could easily duplicate my custom snow-clearing machine and its accessories.
Especially when snow is wet and dense, county snow plows often knock mailboxes off their posts even when they don't directly hit them; the force from the heavy snow is sufficient to damage the box and scatter the mail inside, often burying it. Smaller road-clearing plows and snowblowers, such as the ones I'm proposing, are much less likely to damage mailboxes in this manner.
Suitable for all roads?
I wouldn't feel comfortable plowing busy roads, but ones in my area are rarely used at various times of the day. That is especially true in winter, when it would be a busy day if one car passes per hour.
But is it safe?
A plow-equipped snowmobile or ATV is larger and heavier than most street-legal motorcycles, and snowmobiles have much better control on slick winter roads than automobiles—even 4-wheel-drive trucks and SUVs—the drivers of which often forget that all cars have 4-wheel braking!
I would feel considerably safer sharing the road with cars while driving a snowmobile than I would driving it on a state snowmobile trail. In Michigan, most trails are too narrow, poorly maintained, and with frequent blind corners. (See my article on Snowmobile trails painted with blood.)
Road use would of course necessitate turn signals, a horn, mirrors, and flashers. Safety could be enhanced by extending the penalties for injuring or killing a highway worker to include volunteer snow removal personnel.
Essentially perfect safety could be ensured by legally mandating that vehicles stop, and pull over whenever feasible, when snowmobile or ATV plows approach. This would be similar to laws requiring drivers to clear the way for emergency vehicles (police, fire, and ambulances). Based on my snowmobiling experience, if automobile drivers are anything like snowmobilers, they would willingly pull over, very grateful for what is being done for them. On snowmobile trails, riders commonly wave to trail groomers, and their drivers wave back, likely because they appreciate the wide berth given to them.
Whatever time drivers lost by pulling over would be more than compensated by saving time driving on roads that were cleared and hence safer. Those time savings would multiply considering the time people wouldn't waste in medical treatments necessitated by auto accidents on snowy roads. Even if you're fortunate enough to survive the accident, you might not be physically or mentally the same ever again. Many people—even young ones—with head injuries got them from winter auto collisions, which can instantly transform a brilliant neurosurgeon into someone who is mentally a child.
Enhancing winter driving safety would reduce the accident rate and hence lower auto insurance rates. Since money can help you save time, saving money on insurance gives you more money to spend on other things, including those that save you time.
Organizing the road plowing services
It would not be efficient to have volunteer snowmobile or ATV drivers look down their roads and try to guess which others need clearing. The obvious solution is a website and cell phone app to organize and keep track of the plowing, as well as to authorize road access for those vehicles.
Clearing snow off sidewalks
Lawn & garden tractors, or anything larger, equipped with snowblowers can easily and safely remove sidewalk snow. In my opinion, doing this would be a blast in addition to performing a useful public service. Some municipalities mandate that homeowners clear their sidewalks, but snow doesn't always conveniently fall when they are off work, at home, gassed up and ready to go. Some residents may be elderly, disabled, or unable to afford equipment that enables them to rapidly remove snow.
Then there's the hassle factor: Removing snow requires people to don winter clothes, check the gas and oil in their snowblower, clear their snow, clean snow and ice off the snowblower, remove their snow clothing, and clean up the mess they track in. Wouldn't it make more sense for me, for example, to clear the snow off sidewalks in front of 200 homes? That would save 200 homeowners from the need to perform all of those steps.
Hence, volunteer sidewalk snow removal makes sense.
Why not do it?
I've demonstrated how volunteer road and sidewalk snow removal is feasible and safe. It's definitely doable, so why not do it?
As I discussed in another article explaining why people often ridicule good new ideas instead of embracing them, people tend to cling to the old ways of doing things even when much better ways are introduced. People say they like creative ideas, but they often envy them, loathe them, or fear them.
Most people just want to keep doing what they've been doing, and they want the rest of the world to do the same, even when the system is broken (as ours is) and much better alternatives are available.
For example, I know how to make paying taxes so appealing many people would willingly pay more, and how we could give more to folks who receive money from the government while lessening the burden on taxpayers. I offered $100,000 to the first person who could prove why those plans could not work, but they obviously would, so no one attempted to collect that reward. The ideas in that article could restore our prosperity and give us brighter futures than we imagined (especially now when many fear that the economic shit is about to hit the fan), yet voters still bubble with joy when listening to candidates rehash freeze-dried ideas from bygone politicians.
So when you are suffering under the current political system, or when you're skidding in terror on a snowy road, or when you're dealing with chronic pain resulting from a car accident that could have been prevented if the road were plowed more quickly, remember: there is a better way. Why not embrace it? Why keep punishing yourself and your children by clinging to the old ways of doing things when better ones are available?
UPDATE: After completing the paragraph above, I cleared the snow off my driveway and the road in front of my property. A friend stopped by and said that a local woman was killed earlier today when an SUV, skidding out of control on a snowy road, plowed into the side of her vehicle. There's a price to be paid for clinging to inferior ways of doing things, and she is just the latest statistic. You might be next.
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