Ice Ice Baby

We had a bit of an ice storm here in the greater Smootville area on Sunday.  People were freaking out, as per usual, driving their cars into one another, sliding down embankments, etc.  I saw a picture of one car that was firmly planted in a vertical position in a creek.  Only people in this area could be that bad at driving in inclement weather.

Anyway, two of our three major TV stations were doing wall-to-wall coverage of this amazing event on Sunday morning (who could have envisioned such a thing:  ice... in December!).  I always get a kick out of watching our news stations cover stuff like this.  Ok, the driving conditions were a bit hairy, but they made every effort to put the movie 2012 to shame by blowing things completely out of proportion.

Here's what cracks me up.  The newscasters spend most of their time pointing out what a bad idea it is to be out on the roads.  "Even if you absolutely have to get to work today, or you're having that life saving heart-lung transplant, for the love of God, stay at home!  Do not go outside under ANY circumstances!  It's not even completely safe to be watching our televised pictures of the weather!"

They'll go through this whole spiel about how moronic it would be to go out and drive in these conditions.  And then in the same breath they'll say, "And here's Kent Brockman, standing along I-279 with a live report!"  Obviously these reporters are out driving on the highways themselves, as if their presence on the roads somehow makes us safer than if they were doing the entire broadcast from indoors.

And you can be pretty sure that their giant TV vans are sitting there, blocking part of the road.  According to the IIYRSS (Institute of Imaginary Yet Real-Sounding Statistics), 78% of accidents on bad weather days are actually caused by news vans blocking the highways.