Am I a dick?

Because as I was driving to work this morning I realized something. When I had my little FWD Civic, I hated the douchebags who drove 4 wheel drive trucks through snow like it was nothing.

I woke up this morning to several inches of snow on the ground. Midway through my morning commute, when I was already 5 minutes late for work and still 10 miles or so away, I am heading to Route 101 through a suburban neighborhood. The two cars I'm following (a Jeep Liberty and a Nissan Maxima) are doing well enough in the snow but I keep my distance anyway. As we begin going up a somewhat steep hill, the Jeep has no problem but the Nissan begins struggling about halfway up.

I have a pickup that does very well in bad conditions. But shitty roads are shitty roads and even if I drove a Humvee I would be stupid to think the laws of physics don't apply to me. As I was driving up the hill and seeing the car in front of me come to a wheels-spinning, driver-cursing halt, I was faced with a conundrum.

A) Stop on the hill while the Nissan struggles the next 15-20 feet. This, of course, means that when I begin moving again I have to manage the incline from a dead stop and without momentum on my side. I would also be forcing the vehicles behind me to take the same risk.

B) Illegally pass on the left, thus keeping momentum in my favor whilst mitigating the risk of holding up a number of other cars.

Naturally I chose B. But as I continued driving I realized that when I had a Civic and people in pickup trucks and SUV's that drove the same way, I would call them a dick and continue to struggle through the snow.

Then, it happened again. A second time. This time I barely even considered the decision- I just did it. And the rest of the drive home I kept asking myself the same question: "Am I a dick?"

So I open the floor to the three or four readers of my blog. Am I a dick? Well, I know I'm a dick in general - my closest friends will tell you the same thing. But am I a dick for passing in the snow?