'Let's be careful out there.'

Those of us who grew up in Snow Belt areas tend to scoff at the notion that Cincinnati gets anything approaching a real winter. But this week's cold weather, with the predicted snow and ice for Thursday and Friday, poses some very dangerous problems.

One of them, the plight of homeless in frigid conditions, was addressed on Tuesday's editorial page. This issue was underlined tragically on Wednesday when authorities said a man staying in a homeless camp in Queensgate apparently had frozen to death overnight. Even though the man may have been seriously ill anyway, his death raises several issues, such as the weather criteria under which emergency shelters are open, and how authorities deal with homeless people who refuse to go to those shelters ("Shelters are nasty," said one of the man's companions. "It's safer out here.")

A front-page story in Wednesday's paper addressed another major winter peril -- the predictable rash of serious crashes on our roadways each time the snow starts falling. A report Tuesday from the Ohio State Highway Patrol highlighted a couple of main causes that come as no surprise -- driving too fast and young, inexperienced drivers. Come to think of it, those two usually come hand in hand. Speeding was the main factor in 74 percent of snow-and-ice crashes in Ohio from 2004 to 2006, the patrol reported. Among drivers age 20 or younger, that figure was 79 percent.

Part of our problem in Greater Cincinnati is that we are located between northern and southern climates. We don't get enough snow for drivers, young or old, to get past that "inexperienced" stage regarding winter driving. They often fail to understand the winter driving principles the Ohio patrol outlines: that when there's snow and ice on the road, you have to do everything a little bit slower and smoother - accelerating, braking, turning. You have to anticipate more; you have to leave more space between your car and others.

Unfortunately, odds are we'll see that predictable rash of crashes in the next 24 to 48 hours. But in at least 74 percent of those crashes, according to the Ohio patrol's figures, you won't be able to blame it on the snow. Blame it on the drivers.

And watch out for them. As Sgt. Esterhaus used to say in TV's "Hill Street Blues" in the 1980s, "Hey, let's be careful out there."