Driving on Ice

It really cooled off today. The arctic front hit Austin with a vengence. The temperature started dropping around noon and hit the freezing point shortly after. It does reach freezing here in Austin several times a year, but it's rare that there's precipitation along with the cold weather. When this happens, Austin will basically shut down. Unlike the north, Austin does not have very much, if anything prepared for snow/ice.
It was raining early in the day, and when the temperature dropped, the water on the roads froze, leaving a thin sheet of ice. No salt or sand was applied to the roads. On the way home, I saw about 5+ accidents and I saw another 10+ cars in the ditches on the side of the road. Two of the cars in the ditches were actually flipped upside-down. Many of the accidents occured near or on bridges since they freeze much more rapidly. When I went over one of the bridges, I had to go about 3 mph. Even at that speed I could feel my car sliding. Other cars decided to just park themselves on the bridges since they were afraid to move and therefore ended up blocking traffic. My usually 20 minute commute turned into an hour and twenty minutes. It was actually so slippery, I almost fell twice, once walking to my car and once walking from my driveway to my front door.
People here don't know how to drive on ice. When your car loses traction and starts to veer out, you're suppose to turn toward the way you veer out to regain traction. For example, if you feel your car veering off toward the right, you're suppose to turn your wheel to the right to regain traction. People's instinct is to turn left to compensate, but that won't really help. You want your wheels to point toward the direction you are going if you want your wheels to be able to rotate and have traction with the ground. Of course, you still need to be careful and not swerve into other cars or into the ditch...