Why do people shovel their driveways when it snows?

Say, if you don’t, and the snow melts (temps warm up a bit) forming puddles in your driveway. Then, it gets cold and the water freezes. Do you want to fall on your ass when going out to your car? :)

No, I wouldn’t WANT to, but I know how to walk on ice. Still not worth the hassle of shoveling.

For the love of hard work and exercise.

@Dutchess_III My tires have gotten stuck in the snow. We get a lot here.

For all the reasons stated above. I also love the exercise and don’t want to fall on ice, and my little car can’t drive over 4 ft snow drifts.

New England resident here.
1. Most people cannot get in or out of their driveway unless you shovel.
2. Are you forgetting the 2+ feet of snow you get at the end of the driveway from the streets being plowed? How do you get over that?
3. Ice/accumulation, as @Mama_Cakes mentions. If you miss shoveling a single time, you could be setting yourself up for 5 – 6 months of a nightmare driveway.
4. If you can’t get out of your driveway, you can’t earn a living.
5. If you can’t get in your driveway, they tow your car.
6. As @Pachyderm_In_The_Room mentions – the exercise is great.
7. It creates great mounds on either side of the driveway for the kids to build snow forts.

My driveway up north is on an incline. If I don’t keep it shoveled, I am afraid I will slide into the house one day.

@Dutchess_III No car or truck would have made it in or out of our driveway after this snowfall without a little plowing or shoveling.

My drive is .3 mile with hills, a bad curve and a lot of shade. If I don’t get plowed after every 6”, I am trapped for the winter and will need a luge or dogsled to get out.

This reminds me of my sister’s adventure. She has a house about a mile from mine, up north. She drove up for the weekend, only to get stuck in the snow at the start of her driveway. She called a tow truck, which got her off the hump of snow. She then drove another 50 feet, where she got stuck once again, and had to call the tow truck back. Yes, she got charged twice.
We now keep the number of a local with a snow plow handy. He charges $60 to clear the driveway.

You guys have good reasons to shovel. I’m just saying I’ve never had a problem.

I lived in Michigan for ten years, very close to the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, and only shoveled the driveway once, after the New Year’s storm of, I think, 1998 or ‘99 when we had about two feet at one time. All of the other storms that we had for all of the other ten years were < 4”, and I could drive over it, pack it down, and let it accumulate over the season, if it would.

But no one with a Toyota Camry is going to “just drive” through 6” or more of heavy, wet snow, or 10” or more of the lightest powder. (And even that much “light, powdery” snow will pack down and prevent movement of the vehicle if the wheels aren’t in contact with the ground in some way.)

In addition to the foregoing, there is a legal responsibility for sidewalk owners to clear the sidewalk after snowfall, “whether we think it needs it or not”. By the same token, if you have home mail delivery (or newspaper, milk, or any other routine delivery) – or even social visitors – then you have a huge liability issue if they slip and fall on uncleared snow and ice, and you haven’t even made the barest attempt at clearing the snow. That’s prima facie “negligence”, and you’d lose the lawsuit immediately.

My best friend in NJ told me “no shoveling, no mail. ” So she shovels.

8. No oil delivery (no heat) if I don’t shovel.

No way to get to the post office (or anywhere else) if I am not shoveled. Also no way for guys to fill propane tank if they have to wade through drifts.

1, So I don’t run the risk of getting stuck in my driveway.
2. Because I have to remove the giant piles at the end of the driveway left by the plow.
3. I don’t shovel it freezes over and becomes ice then it is slippery as heck!
4. My husband can’t push his chair through more than an inch or so of snow and can’t drop the lift to his van unless the snow is cleared.

Say, if you don’t, and the snow melts (temps warm up a bit) forming puddles in your driveway. Then, it gets cold and the water freezes.

Is correct – you are responsible for the safety of people on your property.

My driveway is 231 feet. We get snow up to my thighs here at times. I’m 6’1”. You want to drive thru that?

As I SAID, @Adirondackwannabe many of you have good reason to shovel your driveways. I don’t.

@Dutchess_III I also use fuel oil to heat my house. They don’t want to get stuck. Plus half my family cannot back up to save their lives.

@Dutchess_III So the answer is everybody else needs to, you are luck you don’t. I don’t either, but it has only snowed here once in the last 40 years. And that time it melted when you stepped on it.

Guys…just chill!

Our driveway is about 200 feet long. When we had all-wheel-drive vehicles, we went years without doing any snow removal whatsoever. Of course, those were years with out any huge snowfalls all at once, and we were always packing it down. That time my dad had the snowblower fixed, that jinxed the next 5 years and we hardly got any snow at all.

@Dutchess_III I agree with you. Shoveling is unnecessary. That’s why they invented snow blowers. ;-)
And 4×4 Z71 Tahoes

@Dutchess_III: Chilling is the problem.

I’m with @tom_g here. As someone who lived on a rural dirt road that was often barely maintained, and usually had a 4-foot snow bank 8–10 feet wide at teh end after the town plow did come through, shoveling is mandatory. If you leave 12–30” of New England’s finest to it’s own devices, it will turn to concrete fairly quickly. If you get only a little snow (6” or less) then that won’t entomb your car, but it will turn to ice. Driving on that is worse than your normal sheet ice as you get occasional break-throughs and your tire will drop far enough to hit your undercarriage; fun times for things like brake lines, transmissions, and oil pans.

@LuckyGuy Blowers only work on the fluffy stuff less than a foot deep unless you get a real snow blower. True, you can get out there 2–5 times during a storm to keep it from getting too deep to blow, but I have better things to do at 3:00 on a Tuesday morning… like get enough sleep to be able to work.

@jerv Is that unit for sale? I’d love to have one of those sitting out back by the barn!
I have a 6 speed, 14 hp walk behind, AND a blower for the front of my tractor. I was too lazy to put the blower on the tractor this year. I didn’t use it at all last year so I figured why bother.
The walk behind will do a 30 inch wide cut up to 2 feet deep. When I reach the end of the driveway I have to slow down the drive wheels but it manages to get the pile left by the Town plow. I absolutely have to get it before it freezes. If not, that mess hangs around for a long time.

For those who don’t shovel the driveway, do you shovel the walk or the sidewalk in front of your house? Here we have to have the sidewalks shoveled within 48 hours of the end of a storm or we’ll be in violation of city code and can get a ticket.

@LuckyGuy No idea. But yes, it’d be nice to have something that can hit 2 feet of snow at 40 MPH and the only damage done is that the edge of the driveway now has an 8 foot snowbank. An acquaintance of mine made a lot of money that way; blast up the driveway at warp speed, swivel the discharge chute while turning around at the far end, and GTFO less than a minute later, leaving enough room to park a few cars.

@LuckyGuy – Nice vehicle.

Because it’s a stupid old rule. Same in Germany. As long as the snow doesn’t melt and refreeze nothing should be done. Snow is pretty slip proof.

True….on the highway, everyone stays in a groove and melts the snow….which re-freezes and gets slippery. I have more traction on the snow to the side of the groove that people avoid.

For anything under 4 inches, definitely true.
Once you get over 12 inches, definitely false.
When you can’t even find your car, it’s moot.

Yes, but most of the time it doesn’t reach 12 inches.

And we need salt on highways with lots of traffic because of the melting that occurs.

Many years ago I had to fly to Lviv in Ukraine in the winter on business. There was a small airport. The plane landed on snow on the runway. It was amazing.

^^^One of the many reasons that my maternal grandfather, born and raised near Lviv, was such a tough old bird.

I liked the town, but 70 years of having the Soviet system took it’s toll… Now many of the historic building are being renovated. The people in Lviv want Europe. The people in Eastern Ukraine want Russia. A divided country.

^^^ My grandpa left for NYC (like most of the Jews in his schtetl) at the turn of the twentieth century.

Good decision. He missed the Soviet hell.

My car is parked at the end of the driveway at the street so I just have to shovel the big mountain of snow that the snow plow leaves behind my car. If I don’t I can’t go anywhere.