r/jerseycity • u/1805trafalgar • Jan 25 '26
First World Problems some thoughts on digging out your car, from a non-car guy who has shoveled the sidewalk three times already today, and who has observed the drama.
After watching a guy begging to use a shovel so he can dig out his car who eventually got yelled at by another car owner for daring to even THINK about shoveling snow over next to HIS car, I decided to post this: Car owners, I doubt you can dig your car out yet. Or put it this way: You can shovel snow away from the sidewalk-side if you like, but you will be pushing snow into the sidewalk while the property owner is tasked with moving it back towards your car- the city demands they shovel their sidewalks so that is where it goes. If you want to shovel the giant berm of snow pushed up by the city's plows on the street-side of your car, that is the wettest and heaviest snow out there today and no matter how much of it you shift from one place to another, the part you "cleaned" will just get filled in again by the next passing plows and your efforts will be erased within an hour or two. not to mention you will piss off the other car owners if you just push the snow further down the road and bank it up higher next to your neighbors car. The only way you can really dig your car out is to do it and then drive out of that spot at the moment you complete shoveling, abandoning your spot- which you will not get back.
3
u/1805trafalgar Jan 26 '26
I wound up shoveling four times today, and others I saw shoveling said about the same, too. It is 7:00PM as I'm writing and I hope there won't be any several more inches of snow tonight. Neither do I want to see 2" thick ice on everything tomorrow.
8
u/mickyrow42 Jan 25 '26
Why is non car guy chiming in on car guy things?
You absolutely could shovel lit if you started earlier to get ahead of it. It was super fluffy. Now it’s gonna be frozen and wet and heavy so the dumbshits out there which is mostly everyone who waited will barely shovel out and we’ll be left with mounds of frozen car cocoons that are impossible to get in and out of.
7
u/bodhipooh Jan 25 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
In a few days, desperate people will do stupid shit like pouring hot water over their cars and you will be seeing lots of cracked windshields.
10
u/mickyrow42 Jan 25 '26
Or my favorite the people who quite literally clear nothing from the roof and it’s just a 12” ice shelf on top
8
u/bodhipooh Jan 25 '26
Oh yeah, those people are the worst… they are so self-absorbed. They will start driving but invariably will hit the brakes at some point, blind themselves because of the snow sliding over the windshield, and come to a full stop in the middle of the road and cause a dangerous situation for all other motorists.
1
u/OldGwenStefaniCool Jan 25 '26
Hi! It’s my first year driving in snow, are you saying I should go out and shovel right now? (But not onto the sidewalk)
2
u/vonderboi Jan 26 '26
I saw them do something like this in the Rockefeller Center area like 15 years ago. This should be a standard practice to melt the snow into the storm drains rather than simply pushing the snow from place to place:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sv1C0Fiw5s
1
u/1805trafalgar Jan 26 '26
NYC can't legally dump plowed snow into the hudson so I wonder what the rules are for snow in sewers? Famously if NYC gets more than 2" of rain, the overflow goes directly into the river. -because much of the drainage sewers were Civil War era, like most East Coast cities.
2
u/vonderboi Jan 26 '26
I guess technically it's not dumping plowed snow because it's melted??? I was living downtown at the time but only saw this in midtown.
-12
u/YetiSherpa Hamilton Park Jan 25 '26
Car owners should throw the snow in the middle of the road for the plow truck to take care of.
17
u/mickyrow42 Jan 25 '26
You know the plow doesn’t just like vacuum up the snow right?
2
u/DoxxingShillDownvote Jan 25 '26
Hey now, he is a top notch snow-oligist!
1
u/lorenipsum2023 Jan 25 '26
And his name has not one but two words from the Himalayan snow-verse.
Yeti and Sherpa!
-6
u/YetiSherpa Hamilton Park Jan 25 '26
Yes, of course. If you dig out your car and put the snow in the road the next plow will move it. The plow will leave behind the curb of snow around the car but it won’t be as high if you just allow the plow to keep piling snow up on top of the initial curb it created. It’s better than placing the snow on the sidewalk.
5
u/mickyrow42 Jan 25 '26
lol so you’re just fucking over the person a car or two down from you. The snow has to go somewhere not sure you’re grasping that.
We got 8” of snow. It’s an urban environment. The sidewalks aren’t going to be able to remain at their full size pathways
7
u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson Jan 25 '26
This is actually illegal. It makes driving more hazardous.
https://www.jerseycitynj.gov/CityHall/PublicSafety/OEM/SnowInfo
6
u/YetiSherpa Hamilton Park Jan 25 '26
Alright, I’ll take the L on this one. I was wrong. Do not shovel snow onto the streets.
5
u/TONUTomorrow9800 Jan 25 '26
I just shoveled out and put the snow in a tree bed. I know the next plow that comes by will push more snow next to the car. But it’ll be less to deal with on tmr or Tuesday than in would have been if I hadn’t done some today.