Thanks, great guide. Winter tires are an absolute must. People who have never had them insist they arent necessary. DO NOT BELIEVE THESE PEOPLE. I’m partial to sottozeroes. I would argue tires are more important than whether your car is AWD or not. Posted this in the “cars in snow” thread but even with pure RWD and…

I understand the political situation and I expected them to act as they did.

That traffic light the truck blew through turns red and the overheight sign comes on when a vehicle too high is detected. That system was installed last year just for incidents like this, yet people still hit it. I think one of those water curtain stop signs like they have in front of some tunnel entrances in…

bless you

I put snow tires on my Mustang when it was my only car and I was still delivering pizzas.

Regular snow, sure. Try climbing an icy hill without AWD or 4x4. Last week in Portland, OR it snowed like a half inch, then melted and re-froze. The only way we got around was a Land Rover Discover II with studded tires (once you get over the initial butt clench it’s actually quite fun).

Don’t use bacon grease, or any sort of non-vegetable based cooking grease, if you live in bear country. They may be hibernating right now, but when they wake up your car will still smell of meat grease to them even if you can’t smell it. You don’t to be the person that has to call in to work and say you’ll be late…

That is a very good point. I think windshield wiper care in winter deserve a whole post though. People often go for the cheapest option and don’t properly maintain them or switch them out often enough. But you literally can’t drive without them during the winter.

You should also mention that when you get into your car, turn it on, and start the defrosters - DO NOT - just turn try and immediately turn the wipers on. There’s a little transmission between the wiper motor and your wiper arm/blades and this is a very easy way to FUBAR it. It doesn’t take much ice (or frost even…

Because, wait for it, there are multiple countries in the world and they don’t all have the same requirements.

Because the country that you are visiting wants to be sure that you will be able to leave by the time you have to leave. They don’t want you “stuck” there because your passport is expired.

Where I’m from they will actually take your picture and print it for you at no cost at the passport office.

I will go into a Lewis Black diatribe for you:

Right, so the reason behind this is that the US has a visa waiver with most countries (which Europe is helpfully thinking of rescinding because our current Cheetolini keeps fucking up our own visa waivers for their citizens) and that stamp or ticket you get when entering most of those countries is for — wait for it — n…