East Lansing has finally received a much anticipated “real winter.” By “real winter,” I mean that the temperatures have at last dropped below freezing and a few inches of snow have successfully stuck to the ground for longer than a 24-hour period.

Now that “real winter” is upon us, it’s becoming painfully obvious how ill-equipped most of us are in dealing with our yearly descent into cold and darkness. Even for those who have lived in Michigan their entire lives, many still haven’t mastered how to deal with the inevitable Arctic-like conditions that are so characteristic of our great state.

As someone who spent the majority of her life in the Upper Peninsula, I can say with certainty that there are a number of crimes against winter that people constantly commit.

Living in Marquette, practically the U.P.’s capital city, has ingrained within me a very distinct set of behaviors I adopt whenever the cold comes and the snow falls. I become hyperaware to the ways the people around me violate those behaviors. Some of these mistakes are dangerous, and all of them evoke in me a feeling of shame and maybe even a little bit of schadenfreude.

Automobile-related faux pas seem to be the easiest crimes to commit. There is an astounding lack of snow tires in the Lower Peninsula. This is made more dangerous by the fact that many cars lack four-wheel drive.

It doesn’t help that the majority of both Upper and Lower Michigan drivers magically forget how to drive as soon as snow and/or ice first coats the road. Training and previous experience don’t exist — there is only sliding and overcorrection.

The car itself may not even be the problem. Drivers (and the decisions they make) can be the most dangerous component of a vehicle. They seem to forget that clearing a small little square of the windshield before setting off on their trip isn’t quite the same as having a full range of sight. You see them hunched over the steering wheel, peering through maybe a square foot of clear glass surrounded by frost and snow on all sides.

If the windows are frosted over, it’s highly unusual to spot a driver successfully using the defrost system. Instead of pressing a button to solve their troubles, many unfortunates turn their heat up to the point where the frost melts, but the windows fog up and diminish their visibility even more severely. Constantly wiping at the inside of the windshield with the back of a coat sleeve is the preferred method of dealing with this nuisance, though the area will inevitably fog up again once the driver’s hand has returned to the frigid steering wheel.

But drivers aren’t the only ones who choose the worst solutions to easy problems. There are students tramping through campus wearing sneakers in the dead of winter, cursing their wet cotton socks. It’s apparently a surprise that sneakers aren’t waterproof and that once cotton is wet, it stays wet.

There are those who wear rain boots in the winter, which is almost OK. You might be waterproof, but your feet are still going to freeze if you haven’t layered up on wool socks.

Then there are the guys who wear basketball shorts in the middle of a blizzard. You know who I’m talking about. The guys who are apparently so determined to assert their masculinity that they brave the possibility of frostbite to do so.

There are different degrees to this type of person. On one end of the spectrum, you have the guy in shorts who has appropriately also layered on a parka and boots. On the other, you have the guy who tromps through the snow to class with sneakers, a hoodie and shorts. That’s it. Maybe, if the temperature dips below zero, they might add a hat. Maybe.

To be sure, it’s exasperating to see these behaviors repeated winter after winter. It’s especially aggravating when the mistakes are made consciously by friends who you have chastised again and again for not clearing their entire windshield before driving or not owning a pair of waterproof shoes.

Many Michiganders simply don’t learn the winter code of conduct without finding themselves in a situation where they’ve totaled a car or risked frostbite. We don’t live in a very forgiving part of the country during the winter, and it would be greatly beneficial for us all to play it safe before we regret not doing so in the first place.