S.O.S. From Florida, The Snowbirds Have Arrived!
It’s already too late for us full-time Floridians, but as Tom Dye, The Safety Guy, I am making this selfless sacrifice, so you can save yourselves. DON’T COME TO FLORIDA! IT’S NOT SAFE! For God’s sake heed this message.
Save yourself, your children, friends, and family. Please, Please, Please, don’t make my ultimate sacrifice to you be for nothing. Enough innocent lives have been lost already.
You see the Snowbirds have landed in Florida. I am not talking about regular birds e.g. – Crows, Egrets, Seagulls, etc. We can handle any of our flying avian friends,
OH NO…I am talking about literally million’s of “elderly people” descending upon Florida between Thanksgiving and Easter. These part-time Florida residents are commonly known as “Snowbirds”. For whatever reason, this snowbird season is far worse than ever before. Normally, all of us regular full-time Floridian’s encounter a few snowbird’s every day in a normal snowbird season. This year we are encountering literally dozens every single day.
Please read this article and pass it on, your life may very well depend upon it.
You see my friends, you have to understand, there are three types of residents in Florida:
First, There are “Native Floridians” who were born and raised in Florida. These people make up about 1 in 4 Floridians or about 25% of the population.
Second, there are “Florida Transplants”. I fall intro this category. I moved to Florida from the Northeast in 2001, and have lived here “full-time” ever since. Florida transplants make up about 50% percent of the population.
Third, there are the dreaded “Snowbirds”. These are the retired and elderly that only live here only during the winter months from roughly Thanksgiving until Easter.
It is these dreaded retiree’s, or elderly migrant’s commonly referred to as “Snowbirds” that descend upon Florida in the Winter months like a plague of 17-year locusts, destroying everything in their path, and in their inexorable migration, kill or maim, full-time, Floridians by the scores.
Let me just say right off the bat, before you start sending me hate mail. I have nothing against the elderly or retirees. As a matter of fact, my parents are elderly and retired, and I love them very much. Snowbirds are an entirely different animal. Just hear me out.
First of all, you have to understand that snowbirds come from all over, including such exotic locations, e.g.- Quebec, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Massachusetts, Connecticut, etc.
I am seriously not kidding when I say that many of these snowbirds drive so poorly, that all I can imagine is a trail of death and destruction all the way from Michigan or other exotic locales all the way to Florida.
I have extensive experience with this dangerous Florida phenomenon. You see I actually have to drive 65 miles each way to work, five days a week. Normally, my drive is fairly uneventful. It normally takes me about 1 -1/2 hours to get to work, but I have my coffee and NPR on the radio to keep me company. So, for most of the year, everything’s good.
Then comes the dreaded months between Thanksgiving and Easter. That’s when the real horror begins. Over the last couple of years, I have become a very keen observer of other drivers around me, especially “Florida Snowbirds”.
The very fact that I am still alive is the real testament to my sharply honed Florida-white-haired wrinkled zombie survival skills.
Out of necessity, most of us regular-full-time-Florida drivers have all developed really keen snowbird survival instincts. We all practice these skills year round. Let me try to explain.
First of all, driving is always a challenge here in Florida, posted speed limits, are just a suggestion. No one seems to know what turn signals are, and other drivers regularly cut in front of you. Basically, my daily commute mostly entails, driving, driving, driving, stop, stop, stop, and occasionally hitting the brakes really hard. Just another day in my life.
But, when the snowbirds flock to Florida everything suddenly changes.
Essentially, my morning commute doesn’t change at all. I mean I have my coffee and NPR on the radio. Everything is exactly as it should be. Thankfully, snowbirds are still sleeping between the hours of 5:00 AM and 6:30 AM. Life seems perfectly normal.
The real terror begins when I begin my drive home at 3:30 PM. Suddenly, many of the Real-Full-Time- Floridians that I would normally share the road with have been replaced with hundreds of Florida Snowbirds!
No one knows exactly why the snowbirds suddenly feel compelled to get in their cars and mass migrate to the highways during rush hour. I know that many Floridians believe that its the-sweet-sirens-call of the “early bird special” that perfectly explains the mass snowbird highway migration. I personally believe that only explains part of their unusual behavior. I also believe that snowbirds also possess a subconscious desire to reign chaos, death, and destruction upon the rest of us, but who knows, it could be something else entirely.
The only thing I do know for sure is when the snowbirds descend upon Florida roads, my regular 1.5-hour daily commute suddenly becomes 2 hours, 2.5 hours, or even more of pure terror.
Beginning at exactly 3:00 PM on the dot, multitudes snowbirds suddenly hit the road. Like locusts, these white-haired-wrinkled-zombies, driving Buicks, Cadillacs, and Lincolns suddenly descend on the roads during rush-hour traffic at the very same time that thousands of us regular-full-time-Floridians are making our way home from work, or school.
These snowbirds are actually a sight to behold., and if you’re not paying very close attention, it may well be the very last thing you will ever see. Many of my friends and colleagues have been victims of the dreaded part-time snowbird drivers, some survived the encounter, some sadly, did not.
Florida snowbirds have several distinctive traits. First, they have all shrunk down to 5 feet tall or less. If you see a car in front of you that appears to be driverless because the drivers head is below the headrest then beware it may be a snowbird.
Secondly, snowbirds always wear these very dark, wrap- around, virtual reality looking sunglasses. They drive bolt upright very close to the steering wheel, and look straight ahead, and never, ever, look side to side.
Lastly, snowbirds usually drive with a turn signal flashing for miles, and miles, and will always be driving at least twenty miles an hour slower than everyone else on the road. It seems benign enough until you realize that when a snowbird decides they need to randomly change lanes, they will, suddenly, and without any warning, regardless if anyone is in the way or not.
As I stated previously, regular-full-time-Floridians out of sheer necessity have a tendency to drive just a tad too fast. Well, to be perfectly honest we drive really fast. You can stop your holier-than-thou judgment of us right now! If you had to share the road with snowbirds for several months out of the year, and actually survived, you would understand why we drive fast.
You really have to try and understand, we only drive really fast, and reckless just so we can get off the frigging highway-death-derby, as quickly as humanly possible. The lucky ones among us arrive home safely to our family and loved ones. Of course, we have to do it all over again, the very next workday.
For literally five months out of the year, all of us, regular-full-time-Floridians are forced to play some sort of a sick cosmic version of highway-death-derby, or in other words, death by Florida snowbirds.
You have all seen the NEWS reports of an”allegedly” confused elderly Florida snowbird who “accidentally” hits the gas instead of the brakes and suddenly plows through a home or business or even a large crowd of people. This scenario plays out literally every single year.
Is this an act of a confused elderly snowbird? I THINK NOT!!! This is what the snowbirds would lead us to believe anyway. In reality, the truth is much, much, much, more insidious. This is actually a cold, calculated act, designed to eliminate as many of us, regular-fill-time-Florida-residents as possible.
In order for you to more fully understand exactly what I am talking about, let me describe my typical death race afternoon commute during a typical day during the snowbird season here in Florida. These events happened just this afternoon.
My personal death race vehicle of choice is my, 2006 Mercedes-Benz, C230 Sport. This vehicle is equipped with a 201 hp V-6 engine, it’s comfortable, nimble and has great acceleration, standard cruise control, adaptive automatic transmission and is equipped with awesome anti-lock brakes.
My daily commute home is about 50% fast city driving on three lane highly congested roads and 50% high-speed highway driving. Unfortunately, the Florida snowbirds have already been on the roads for 30 minutes before I even leave the parking lot at work.
Once I leave the parking lot, my usual driving strategy is to stick to the center lane as much as possible because I believe that this gives me the most options. I can quickly shift to either to the left or right as necessary to keep moving.
The secret to snowbird survival is to pay really close attention to the randomly shifting traffic patterns in front of you at all times and to look as far ahead as possible. Normally, the traffic is similar to a highly choreographed ballet with traffic randomly shifting left and right, cutting in front of you and stopping suddenly.
It doesn’t take very long before I encounter my first of many snowbirds. Abruptly, the traffic pattern changes. All of a sudden everyone is suddenly moving in the same direction, either to the left or right. And that’s when I know, even though I can’t see them yet…there is a snowbird somewhere up ahead like a slow-moving object in a sea of fast-moving cars and trucks that is ready to reign chaos upon the rest of us.
I have only seconds to make my move. As soon as there is an opening next to me that is my own car length plus three inches, I make my move. I swerve over the same direction as everyone else and rocket ahead. And it doesn’t long before I can see just up ahead. That driverless car, blinker on, barely moving against the flow of traffic. As I zoom past at blinding speed, and before they can suddenly and without warning turn into my car, I get just a glimpse of the dark virtual reality sunglasses and white hair of the snowbird driver.
Sliding back into my preferred center lane I have a few moments to reflect upon the disaster averted until the next encounter that will surely occur in the in the next few minutes.
You see my friends, for those regular full-time Floridians that are not as skilled at snowbird defensive driving techniques as I am, the dreaded snowbird encounter turns out entirely differently.
As all the traffic is suddenly shifting in the same directions these poor smucks wait too long or are too scared to make their move. Suddenly, right in front of them, there is a slow-moving snowbird that forces them to slam on their brakes to less than 20 miles below the speed limit. As they look into their rear-view mirror they realize to their horror that it’s already way too late. Every single car behind them as far as the eye can see is already shifting over, and zooming past, creating a solid wall of cars leaving them with absolutely no place to go.
Now, not only is there a slow-moving, random lane changing snowbird, right in front of them but now they are also trapped in the snowbirds slow-moving alternate reality as well. In the best case scenario, it is now going to take at least several minutes before a break in the traffic will allow them to finally pass the snowbird, That is if they are lucky.
In the worst case scenario, the Florida snowbird will execute one of their erratic lane changes right in front of them, hit some random regular Florida driver next to them, and cause a multi-car accident. Of course, this leaves the poor unskilled driver stuck behind, or worse yet, involved in the multi-car accident with no place to go. This poor driver just bought him or herself another two or three hours minimum added to their commute home.
These and similar scenarios are repeated multiple times a day, every single day during my daily commute home.
I am really looking forward to Easter when the snowbirds finally go back from where they came from. Only then, can I relax in the knowledge that I survived another Florida snowbird season.
As my parting words to I strongly encourage you to stay away from Florida during snowbird season, it’s dangerous and not safe at all. Believe me, it’s not worth risking your life.
If you absolutely have to come to Florida, heed these words, Stay off the roads after 3:00 PM and until after sunset. You see there is a little-known fact that you must be made aware of……
Snowbird-white-haired-wrinkled-zombies have one weakness that can be exploited for your own survival. You see, snowbirds suffer from night-blindness, and won’t, or can’t drive after dark.
Remember this, and you just may live to see another day.
As Always,
I Am…
Tom Dye, The Safety Guy
This is an original work of satire, from Tom Dye, The Safety Guy.
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