The Physics of Snow Plow

I got a good chuckle out of reading this letter. It was obviously from a very frustrated snow plow driver in Sheboygan, Wisconsin responding to a series of complaints from the residents about the way the snow in the area has been plowed.

Why we can't plow closer to the curb:

The snow will end up on your sidewalk, service walk, and/or driveway and further increase the number of complaints we get already.

Plow drivers should slow down:

The law of physics tells us the faster we go the further the snow goes. And the slower we go the less chance to get the snow up and over the banks and it falls back down and makes the street even narrower.

Good for him! And this is exactly the way to tackle these complaints head on. Tell them exactly why things are done the way they are, because unless one actually had to do these things, one can never get the full feel of the problem and how to solve it. This applies to everything, and it is why I get annoyed at crackpots who can't work their way out of a simple physics problem, but somehow think that they've found the theory of everything.

Zz.