As Metblogs and WCCO have mentioned, there are several laws that apply to driving in the winter in Minnesota, especially in regard to snow. Specifically, they both point to Minnesota Statute, Chapter 169.42, Subdivision 1:
No person shall throw, deposit, place, or dump, or cause to be thrown, deposited, placed, or dumped upon any street or highway or upon any public or privately owned land adjacent thereto without the owner’s consent any snow, ice, glass bottle, glass, nails, tacks, wire, cans, garbage, swill, papers, ashes, cigarette filters, debris from fireworks, refuse, carcass of any dead animal, offal, trash or rubbish or any other form of offensive matter, or any other substance likely to injure any person, animal, or vehicle upon any such street or highway.
Metblogs and WCCO both point out that this means that you have to clean off your vehicle before driving so you don’t have snow/ice fly off of your car and on to the street. However, I’d note something else if we’re to follow the letter of the law. This means that if you park your car on the street, you can’t brush snow off of it there, and you can’t move the car in any way that would cause snow to come off of it, because cleaning off your parked car would deposit snow and ice on the street, which is illegal. The side of the street, yes, but the street none the less.
So, in order to behave legally, if you park your car on the street in Minnesota, and it snows, you need to collect all snow and ice off of your car, not letting any of it fall on the street or adjacent publicly owned land, and transport it to a privately owned location, with consent of the owner of that privately owned location. Also, it says “any snow, ice”, which means that if you cause even a single flake to fall on the pavement, you’re a criminal.
While we’re at it, new word for me in that law: offal. According to Wikipedia, “Offal is the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of organs, but includes most internal organs other than muscles or bones.” Apparently offal dumping must have been a problem at some point to get this into law.
So remember- snowflakes, animal entrails, and cheap booze (swill is mentioned) are equally offensive in the eyes of the law. Apparently, the dumping of good booze is fine, since it’s not offensive (my general definition of good booze vs swill), and dumping it is out is not “likely to injure any person, animal, or vehicle”, and, in fact, may prevent such injury. Though I am in no way advocating the pouring out of good booze in the streets. The proper disposal method of unwanted good booze is to give it to the blogger who first introduced you to the word offal. It the law. Maybe.
Even more random aside- the Wikipedia article on offal is actually full of random gems, such as:
- “Fries” is a term used in Europe to reference testicles as a food dish.
- “Faggot”, in addition to being a bundle of sticks and derogatory term in the US, is a British meatball commonly made of pork offal.
- Italians like to eat brains, among other disturbing things.
- The liver of the polar bear is unsafe to eat because it is very high in vitamin A.