At the risk of having students die in a snowy tractor-trailer spin-out on State Road 316, students need to know that classes are canceled before they begin their dangerous journey home from a weekend getaway. That is what happened to me – minus the dying part.

My roommate Brandi and I were merrily driving down 316, drinking delicious hot chocolate from Quik Trip at the breakneck speed of 25 miles per hour Sunday afternoon.

The snow was coming down hard, but like most other drivers not used to the icy road conditions, we were slowly and cautiously trekking back to Athens. We had spent the weekend in Woodstock, which received little more than a dusting of snow.

With no word from the University and worried about driving home at night if the roads were bad, we had little choice but to head back. As the snow got thicker and the temperature dropped, so did our speed. That’s when it happened.

Out of nowhere, a rogue tractor trailer raced past the Seabring convertible we were in and Brandi lost control of the car. With no visibility because of the sludge spewed onto the windshield from the tractor trailer, the car swerved wildly and we spun out. Thanks to Brandi’s mad anti-spinout skills and sheer luck, we landed safely in the emergency lane without hitting the guardrail or plummeting into the nearby ditch. We were stuck in the snow but relatively safe nonetheless.

And all of this so I could take Melinda Cro’s Italian quiz on parts of the body bright and early Monday morning.

The closer we got to Athens, the more cars we saw sitting in ditches, often banged up and covered in snow. Hoods were smashed in. Windows were broken. Even in Athens proper, cars were abandoned in the middle of the intersection of Baldwin and East Campus.

As students in Georgia, most of us don’t have the necessary experience to be driving in snow and ice.

Especially after a weekend when many students leave town, the University should have cancelled classes earlier. It’s better to be safe than spun out by a tractor trailer.

- Daniel Burnett is a news writer for The Red & Black.