This coming winter, students should be cautious when driving through seasonal conditions such as snow, sleet and severe cold, officials say.

“(Students) should slow down and take it easy in winter driving conditions,” said Lois Ristow, Wisconsin Emergency Management director for the Eau Claire regional area.

Sophomore Kim Schatz doesn’t care for winter driving.

“It’s not normal driving,” she said. “People are more comfortable driving on asphalt than on icy roads.”

Schatz’s parents had to drive in winter conditions to pick her and her twin sister, Katie, up after the end of the 2004 fall semester.

“There was a huge snowstorm before we left,” Kim Schatz said.

The family didn’t leave Eau Claire until late at night when the snowfall stopped and traffic flow had slowed down, sophomore Katie Schatz said.

The winter season can range from extreme snowfall to barely any, Ristow said.

“Usually we get our first (snow) storm in mid October,” she said.

But, Ristow said, the weather has been abnormally warm this year.

“Who knows when (the first snowstorm) is going to be,” she said.

Gov. Jim Doyle announced the week of November 7 to 11 as Wisconsin’s Winter Awareness Week, according to a state press release.

Winter Awareness Week is just two weeks before Thanksgiving break.

Junior Tracy Phillippi has a car in Eau Claire and plans on going home for Thanksgiving.

“I have class until five,” she said. “Hopefully the weather will be good.”

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation suggested people check the weather before they depart on trips this winter.

Katie Schatz said her parents check to see how the weather will be before they drive.

“My parents are really concerned,” she said. “They won’t let us drive if it’s snowing bad outside.”

Phillippi doesn’t check the weather before she drives, but the thought of a snowstorm doesn’t deter her from getting home.

“If it’s bad, I’ll drive slower,” she said. “I’m going to leave Wednesday (before Thanksgiving) regardless.”

Phillippi said she feels the university is putting students at risk, having classes ending at 5 p.m. the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

“It puts students in a dangerous situation when they have to drive late,” she said.

Add on the possibility of bad winter weather, Phillippi said, and there could be trouble.

Many crashes in winter are caused by driving too fast for current conditions, according to a press release from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Ristow agreed, saying people tend to press on during a snowstorm instead of stopping.

“They have a tendency to collide with the car ahead of them,” she said. “Or they slow way down and the vehicles in the back collide with you.”

If you are in a situation where you don’t think you can keep going, Ristow said, don’t.

“Your best bet is to sit on the side of the road or find a coffee shop and wait it out,” she said.

Ristow said her advice to students traveling this winter is to slow down and take it easy.

“Don’t go faster than the conditions allow,” she said.

Kim Schatz plans on being careful this winter season when she drives, but the surroundings around her make it difficult.

“You want to look outside because it’s so pretty,” she said. “But you have to focus on driving.”