I’m Paying For That

And you are too…

Ran across an interesting note to myself with this topic in it – from last winter.

It struck a nerve in me then and still bugs me a bit – so here, let me explain…

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Snow removal

Given that I happen to live in an area that receives snow in the winter, the removal of snow from a variety of places is something that we have to deal with.

• Roads
• Parking lots
• Sidewalks
• Driveways
• Roof tops (sometimes)

And here’s the thing that gets me: when people push their snow into the road…

Yes, I understand the frustration of “the common man” who gets down-trodden when the snow-plow comes by and dumps a bunch of snow from the road into his (or her) driveway.

But putting it back into the road is not the solution.

We pay people to plow the roads and take a sense of responsibility to keep the roads clear so that people don’t have accidents cause by – you guessed it – snow in the road.

And that’s what you’re paying for

You got it – we take tax dollars and use them to pay people to clear off our roads (and sidewalks).

And if everybody pushed the snow back into them, we’d have to plow our roads extra.

Is that what you really want?

Abuse of the system…

This sort of “me first” attitude causes the system to overload, leads to fraud, and promotes waste. Now instead of having a simple reaction to an unpredictable event, we’ve got to tell the darned snow plow drivers to re-plow the main streets to clear the crud again and again. We’ve got to plan extra so that we can deal with this issue, and we’re pushing the same snow back and forth…

(And if you happen to live on a side road, you can expect that stuff to sit there and freeze over for a good while because the plow will only come by once – enjoy the ruts)

Our Safety

Even if I could get over the collective waste of resources and lack of respect, I’m still stuck at the potential for harm.

Now clearly – I think individuals have the right to do stupid things that can even put their own property and lives in danger – but I’m not expecting to cover them when that does happen. And I don’t like it when one person’s behavior spills over and disrupts another.

So yeah – I’m paying for that one individual that doesn’t want to carry the snow to the side of the driveway, and so are you.

(PS – so if it’s your neighbor, have a word with him; heck – you could even recommend The Shovelator System)