It's not often that our provincial RCMP tell us that it's not safe to travel anywhere in Saskatchewan, but last Thursday, they did just that. On March 21, one day after the "official" (insert eye-roll here) first day of spring, Saskatchewan was hit by high winds that carried snow onto local roads and highways as soon as plows tried to clear them. At 9 a.m. and at 11:30 a.m., Saskatchewan RCMP released media advisories, asking everyone to stay off the roads as much as they possibly could. Travel with extreme caution, they said - roads are closed for a reason. They are impassable. The police could not have been any clearer about how crappy the road conditions were. And still people put themselves, their families and emergency workers at risk by trying to travel down roads that had been closed, or where travel was not recommended. Police around the province then had to go get these people and bring them to safety, if they could get to them at all.I don't know how many people I told to stay home that day - friends, co-workers, people I interviewed. I tried to do my part to ensure that emergency workers were not put at risk because someone made a bad decision. And yet I know at least two people who still planned to travel that afternoon, who knew the roads were bad but were okay with heading out on them anyway. I know we - that is, most of the population of this province - don't like to let the weather beat us. We will head out onto crappy roads to go to a hockey game, or get our kids to soccer and it's no big deal. We don't even like to admit that we were a little scared along the way, that when the car hit that drift, we screeched a little bit. Well, I do. I admit it. I am a big wimp when it comes to winter driving. I've driven through one too many storms that I didn't think I could get through. Once, coming back from Saskatoon in a near white-out, I thought to myself, over and over, "At least I will have a new dress to wear for my funeral" because I seriously did not think I would make it home alive. I have been a wimp ever since.I don't go out if the roads are bad. I don't find pleasure in proving the Highway Hotline wrong, saying "the roads weren't THAT bad" when I reach my destination. I don't have an ego where driving is concerned. I think too many of us do.We go out on the roads in stupid weather conditions, just to prove it's not that bad. And sometimes it's not "that bad," it's worse. Sometimes, Mother Nature wins. And when that happens, you not only put yourself at risk, but also the person who has to come and rescue you. I don't want that on my conscience - that someone had to come and rescue me, and put themselves in danger while they did so. I can't bear that responsibility. So I stay home, even when sometimes I could probably have made it to where I planned to go.I'd rather miss something, frankly, than live with the guilt of someone getting hurt because I was too stupid, too full of pride and ego to admit that I couldn't handle something out of my control.As much as we hate to admit it, the weather is out of our control. Sometimes, even our highways trucks can't keep up with the wind and the snow. Sometimes, we should just admit defeat and snuggle up with a blanket at home. I'm sure the emergency services would thank us if we did, because then they would get to stay home, too. Think of them the next time you think you should head out and they are asking people to stay home.
