It absolutely matters. If you are driving significantly slower than the rest of traffic, no matter the conditions, that's a problem. Yeah, if it's just one jerk in a truck who's driving 10 over the normal speed limit, that's just because they're a jerk. If this is happening repeatedly though, or if traffic is backed up behind you, that could be a lack of experience (and therefore skills and confidence) in driving in these conditions on your part. If that's the case, practice is the only solution. Parking lot practice turning out of fishtails, stopping by pumping the breaks, accelerating in low traction. All of these skills require practice, and although it may seem like I'm harping on you here, I'm not so much as I am most of Springfield drivers. Why am I the only person doing doughnuts in parking lots? Why is nobody else doing parking-brake fishtails repeatedly (in both directions) until I'm good at turning out of them? I'm a 52 year old adult and the only other people doing this are 17 year old high school boys. Good on them, but we can't complain about these conditions if we're not willing to practice getting better at driving in them.

Honking at people in these conditions is super low class though. Not acceptable.

edit: I'm sorry Springfield. I was wrong and I take it back. You're already doing a great job on the ice and snow, and practicing won't help anything. Your driving skills are what you were born with and there's no way to change them.

How slow are we talking here?

The decision that the schools have to make is that if they don't get a certain percentage of attendance in a particular day they don't get credit for that day from their state and/or federal funding. Sure, schools don't want to be to blame if a bus goes off the road, but the main reason is funding.

It's not just expensive to buy and spread, but also on the damage it does to our cars. I would ban salt use in Springfield if I could.

As of about 7:00 this evening the roads were mostly covered with white crunch, which gives pretty good traction. I didn't have any trouble starting, stopping, or turning. I didn't see any icy spots from 65 and Battlefield to Battlefield and Glenstone, or through any neighborhood back roads. There were no cleared spots either though, but the precipitation on the roads was not difficult to drive on. I-44 is very cleared of precipitation. 65 has "tire lanes" of cleared area, but snow between the lanes and between the tires. I didn't have any trouble driving 50-60 mph or changing lanes, but I took it cautiously. My tires are all-season tires and are in pretty good shape. Front wheel drive Rav4.

If you have decent tires, you should not be nervous about going out in this.

Last I heard he was living with his girlfriend, who he knocked up. Not all who panhandle are homeless. Not all homeless panhandle. He is absolutely at risk of being homeless though, because of his choices, and that's the point I'm making here. I support the opposite of this law that bans camping on government property, and I wish we could build areas that are safe and have resources for camping for the homeless. Not as a solution to homelessness, but as a small part of a multi-layered approach that addresses the issue holistically, from treating drug abuse and mental illness, to the housing shortage, and to the lack of available resources for those who don't have the executive function that many of us enjoy.

I can oppose this law, and still expect and encourage people to make the best decisions they're capable of.

I saw one of my recently former students with a sign on 44 and Kansas, and I asked some of my current students about it. They said they used to work with him at Taco Bell, but they saw him walking past the store when he was scheduled to work and so they fired him. He was completely capable of working, he just didn't want to.

Springfield actually has a lot going on as far as things to do go, and if you are willing to travel an hour or two, there are a TON of things to do around here. There is a huge contingency of our subreddit that thinks "things to do" consist entirely of eating at restaurants and going to shows, and if that's your bag, then you're going to be disappointed in the number and quality of our live shows.

However, if you like to actually DO things, here's a few I can think of right off the top of my head:

1. We have three really strong mountain biking areas right outside of town. Sac River (old school trails, not much flow, and lots of rocks and roots), Two Rivers (newer flow-style trails as well as some classic xc and tech downhill), and Fellows Lake (even newer, mostly flow/xc, but really nice) and I guess you could say Howler is nearby as well, in Forsyth, and it's very techy and has some unusually large jumps. There is a strong gravel bike scene around here too. On weekends I often drive the 1 hour and 50 minutes to Bentonville, and their insane mountain bike trail network.

2. Stockton Lake has some of the best inland sailing in the United States. You can get a cheap sailboat and have a blast there. I sailed for years on Stockton, and it's a lot of cheap fun. The water is clean (it's where we get our drinking water) and clear, and there's no development on the lake, and there's very few billboards on the way there. Very nice.

3. We live within a few hours of some of the very best class I and II canoeing rivers in the whole country. I've canoed all over, and I will put our rivers up against any of them.

4. We have a public indoor skatepark with an outdoor section as well. It's a nice facility, but it does cost $7 to go, but that helps keep the scooter kids away. Not many cities in America have indoor skateparks where you can skate when it's freezing outside. It's a very inviting scene as well, when some skateparks can have a locals-only vibe.

5. We have a pretty cool stock-car race track out by the airport, and it's a lot of fun. In fact, you can get into stock car racing for way less than you would expect, and for not much more than getting into mountain bike racing.

6. We've got a bunch of places to play pinball, and there's quite a few people locally who restore pinball machines. It's a fun hobby, and there are tournaments.

7. There's a big steam and vintage tractor show every year called Steam-O-Rama, and honestly it's the greatest thing. They have grade-school children driving 20 ton steam tractors through crowds, and corn dogs and home-made ice cream. Maybe the best weekend of the year?

That's just what I could think of at the moment, there's a ton more. My schedule is usually so full of fun stuff to do that it's hard to fit it all in. I know a lot of people who are into woodworking, and welding, and vintage car restoration. There's a lot going on, but you kind of have to get out there and go for it. Nobody is going to spoon-feed you entertainment around here like they might in a larger town.

Also, find a parking lot and practice turning out of slides. It's great practice with low consequences that may save your life on the interstate one day.

When comparing schools do not base your decision on what the "best" schools are on standardized testing. Nixa especially has leaned into test scores heavily as a way to boost property values (since they don't have anything else), but the teacher burnout and lack of teacher autonomy is brewing a low-level mutiny. The teachers are being micro-managed to death, and most of the Nixa teachers I know plan to leave in the near future. I mean, if you value test scores over critical thinking and big picture ideas, Nixa will suit your needs, and honestly some people are looking for that. I don't know many Ozark teachers, but I hear it's similar there.

Is that still a thing? I haven't heard about that since the 80's.

Yeah, this is a tough one. I wholeheartedly supported blocking building giant apartment buildings directly across from one of our nicest parks so that rich a-holes could get a front row view of it at the expense of everybody else. I absolutely, 100% of the time will oppose building more rental units, when what we need is more owner-occupied housing. Why is nobody building condos?

With that being said, there is a high likeyhood that I will probably oppose everything else that she stands for. I'm going to guess (but I don't know) that she will be opposed to the Lone Pine Bike Park for the same reasons that she was opposed to the apartments, and I support LPBP 100%. I don't know, and I should ask.

I generally disregard the opinions of anybody who uses the word NIMBY. It's such a cop-out, disregarding the nuance of city planning. "Oh, you don't want a sewer treatment facility next to your house? NIMBY! We need that sewer treatment facility for the betterment of our entire community!" Of course people are going to protect their own interests and look out for the quality of life in the places they've chosen to live. People who say NIMBY will also oppose gentrification, and those two ideas are often opposites of each other in practice. Talk about gentrification, look at what's happened to Galloway in the last 20 years.

As long as I'm complaining about people who use specific words and phrases, I'm going to add "patriot", "black ice", "kids these days", "in this day and age", and also to hell with anybody who drives a new Mustang or truck that has to have a hitch with a lowering extension. Also people who make lists of things they don't like on the internet.

I don't know. I hadn't ever considered veteran resources aside from the medical aspect. I guess discounts and close parking are resources, although I had always sort assumed those were marketing tools aimed at conservatives rather than resources. I thought that being in the military got you free college wherever you wanted to go. I honestly don't know much about life after serving in the military, with military service being so varied. I know veterans who were combat soldiers, but most I know had desk jobs, or worked in IT, or a warehouse, or mechanics, or were engineers who designed missiles. Job availability among them is going to be more varied than veteran/non-veteran. Like, saying "I'm a veteran and how is the job scene for veterans?" doesn't mean much compared to "I worked in shipping logistics for the Army for 12 years, are there jobs like that in Springfield?" In fact, it describes skills so vaguely that I thought it was code for something that only veterans know about.

What are veteran resources? What is veteran friendly? Is this code for something? Are you talking like a VA hospital?

Here's a list of job openings from a company I used to work for. They're a great company to work for, and I owe so much of what I have now to them. They don't really have a reputation for paying the very highest in the field, but when people left for higher pay at other companies, they often came back for the supportive culture. I loved it. The owners are awesome, my co-workers were awesome, and the work was interesting and challenging.

I left to be a high school teacher, teaching the skills I used at this company, and I love that even more. It's a dream job, honestly. I'll tell you what I tell my students: There's no place in America for the unskilled. Not today, and not in the future. We can work to change the system so that that isn't the case, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Can you program PLCs with ladder logic? Are you a process engineer? A machinist? A CAD designer? A TIG welder? Awesome! All of those jobs are in high demand, and are among those in the link above. Do you have a high school education only and years of experience in retail or restaurant work? You're in a tough spot.

High schoolers: Get your A+ scholarship and go to OTC for free, learning to do all of those high demand skills. You've only got to graduate with a C GPA, do some mentoring, and pass your Algebra EOC. Do your math and science homework. DO NOT GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL WITHOUT A PLAN FOR ADDITIONAL TRAINING AND EDUCATION! We have a surplus of those people already.

Yeah, but a lock only needs to be as secure as bolt cutters, in most cases, or breaking a window, or cordless angle grinders. I've never picked a car lock, but they say they're the easiest of all because no thieves take the time to pick a car lock. They just break the window.

I have a lock pick set you can borrow, and I'll show you how to use it. You would be surprised at how easy it is to pick a lock, especially a cheap Master lock. If it's a really fancy lock, it may be a bit harder, but I'll bet it's going to be easy.

I haven't been in a while, but when I used to go out, Stepchilds was pretty chill. "Best" is pretty subjective, and although most people wouldn't put Stepchilds in the best of anything category, it used to serve our purposes well. Strong sense of regulars, community oriented, it felt like a chill house party where everybody either knew each other or was only one or two degrees away from knowing each other.

Royal Oaks is just under 18 as of now.

I have never found a body shop in Springfield, only panel replacement shops. If you find one, let us know. I have a car that needs hammer and dolly work.

37.16288720084212, -93.24362729171858

Park on Covington, enter from trail on greenway at bench. I haven't been in there in a bit, so there may not be people living there now, but there may be a few.

This is very true, but I wonder if something new is happening. There is a cultural shift going on which has actually shifted the balance of power. It's been going on for a long time, of course, but the tides are at a point in which those who used to be in a comfortable majority are no longer so comfortable in that majority. One half used to see the other as being a detriment to their way of life, but now they're forced to see the other half as actually having power over them as well. You can see that it's distressing to them in ways that it didn't used to be. Suddenly they're all saying they feel tread upon. Make things be like they used to be. Even this trend of tattered flag stickers and t-shirts is representative of them feeling like their country is being torn apart. They want you to know they're not happy, and you're going to feel it behind the counter, too.

I think there is a large group of the population that is basically permanently agitated and combative. They're feeding themselves fear and hate 24/7, and are convinced that everybody is out to take advantage of their hard work. They are convinced that they are perpetual victims of society. This clouds everything that they see and do.

I would love to see more skateparks, mountain bike trails, bike jump parks, pump tracks, RC car tracks, and an RC airplane flying field with a runway.

I would prefer to see more owner-occupied residential, of all types.

I would love to see (or hear) enforcement of excessively loud mufflers.

Yeah, I thought about that as I typed it, and it felt like gatekeeping even as I said it, but at the same time, it's nice to have to work for something. That particular trail is not an official trail, it's not maintained by the park service, it deliberately didn't have signs directing people to it, and that's why it took so long to find it. They don't really encourage people to hike there.

I've got a ton of other places that are amazing that I know about just by wondering around the woods in the Buffalo River park, and it's nice that they are not overrun by "guides" bringing people to them.

There was a big push to dam the Buffalo at one point, and turn it into a recreational lake like Table Rock. It would absolutely be getting more use that way, but I would argue that use isn't the most important thing about public lands.