Being from Alaska, Miss D. gets more than a little angry when she sees people driving around in cars from which they've not swept the snow and ice, so that it flies off at speed and hits the vehicles around them. Apparently, in the frozen north, the cops ticket drivers who do that - which sounds like a good idea to me.
I thought about it after finding this picture on MeWe:
Look at that compressed rear suspension! I'd love to know what all that snow weighs . . .
Peter
10 comments:
A True Alaskan knows that all you need to do is to chisel out a gunsight for the driver to a aim the truck...
When I lived in the great white North, I would occasionally shovel snow from my driveway into the back of my rear-wheel drive pickup truck to fill the bed.
The extra weight gave me traction. And unlike gravel, it wouldn't have to be shoveled out; it would melt out.
Of course, I never piled it quite that high.
It's a Dodge, 50 pounds is all it needs to squat the suspension.
I backed way off a lot of vehicles in the winter, with thick cakes of snow/ice atop. Twice it was big sheets coming loose off trailers or SUVs, that stayed aloft some 50-60 ft before drop and breakup. Very scary moments.
IBDBW is right. I used to do the same thing. Problem was that the roads cleared much faster than the snow in my truck melted. The solution was to go to a largely empty parking lot, open the tailgate, build up speed in reverse, and stomp the brakes. Makes for a quick unload.
PS If you need traction, just let the air in your tires down to about 20 psi. My Spitfire would pull through snow with the Jeeps.
It isn't just Alaska that will ticket you for ice on your vehicle, ask any long-haul trucker.
According to reference.com a cubic foot of wind-packed snow weighs about 23 lbs on average, or about 620 lbs per cubic yard.
That looks like about 5 or 6 cubic yards to me, so that's about 3100 - 3700 lbs of snow, by my guesstimate.
Magson's calculation is slightly larger tham my SWAG of 3,000 lbs.
Either one is well over the weight that truck should have in the bed (around 2200 lbs.)
One can find lots of Russian dash cam video of what can happen when vehicles are not cleaned of snow and ice buildups.
A large sheet of ice can total a car when it flies off a truck going the opposite direction. For that matter, it can kill you when it chops through your windshield like a blade.
Weight would depend on whether this is "wet" or "dry" snow. Dry snow isn't that heavy.
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