Herb Caen liked to write about how the fog snuck into San Francisco on cat’s feet.

That’s not the case here in Manteca.

If you can compare tule fog with anything in the cat family it wouldn’t be the delicate feet of a domesticated purring machine.

The analogy would be more like a pouncing saber-toothed tiger.

It can be fairly clear when all of a sudden more fog than bands playing on MTV used in the 1970s suddenly masks everything more than three car lengths away.

If you’re not familiar with living through a fog season in the Central Valley, life in the dead of winter isn’t measured in times or miles.

It’s car length.

Chicago has its chill factor, Los Angeles its ultraviolet scale. We have a refrigerator dial.

And if you want to describe to someone who has never experienced living in the world’s largest cloud that stretches from Redding to Bakersfield between the Sierra and the Coastal Range, tell them it is like being stuck inside a refrigerator for three weeks or so at a time.

Fog, of course, makes people do crazy and stupid things. The list of insanities is topped with driving habits.

When you can’t see much beyond the hood of your car, it prompts some wild and crazy drivers to decide that if you can’t see it, it can’t hurt you.

Over the years you collect a lot of Central Valley stories about drivers who are in a bigger fog when it comes to logical thinking than there is fog outside their two-ton projectile.

A man driving 10 miles above the 35 mph speed limit in zero visibility after dark and misjudged the location of a turn and ended up on the porch of a home.

A teen boy who became so disorientated in a “white-out effect” after sunrise that he drove his motorcycle into the side of a parked semi-truck.

Another male driver (could it have anything to do with testosterone going out of whack when things get cold) who was having a hard time finding his rural  driveway in a combination of thick fog and cloak of darkness who decided high beams would do the trick. The end result was a slow, deliberate turn into a drainage ditch.

The guys were all lucky. They didn’t sustain any injuries or create a lot of property damage.

That’s not the case with others whose idea of a safe distance between vehicles would get a chaperoned boy and girl in trouble in most Middle East countries.

One would think after a century of driving in tule fog, that humans would realize that they should take the foot off the gas pedal, keep eyes peeled, radios off and lights on low beam at night whenever they see gray in a larger concentration than one would at an old mare farm.

But, alas, year after year of massive fog pile-ups show that people aren’t heeding Caltrans and CHP warnings about fog driving tips.

So without further ado, here’s a stab at increasing the level of competence of drivers and quality of life in general by taking the “The Manteca Living in  Fog Test.”

1. When low visibility warnings flash up on the high-tech Caltrans fog warning message boards along the Highway 120 Bypass and Interstate 5 you should:

a) Speed up.

b) Ignore them.

c) Close the distance between you and the gasoline tanker ahead of you.

e) All of the above.

2. The reason you want to flip on high beams in zero visibility is to:

a) create a pleasant blinding light effect so oncoming drivers will know if they come toward it they may get to experience the light people say they see when they are hovering on the edge of death.

b) conduct a field test about the theory that water particles in clouds reflect light back toward you.

c) make it easier for oncoming truck drivers to be drawn to you much like a moth is to a porch light.

d) bounce enough light back into the interior of your car so you can read a magazine while driving down the road at 65 mph.

3. If you are driving in thick fog down the freeway and the truck in front of you is going either 20 mph, or is completely stopped, you should assume:

a) it is completely safe to swing around them at 65 mph.

b) the driver is simply startled that it has suddenly become clear so you should step on the accelerator and pass without hesitation.

c) that it is OK, since he is moving so slow, to get close enough that you can read all of his license plate tags.

d) that it’s just an optical illusion and not slow down.

4. The safest approach to driving in fog on the freeway is to:

a) drive as fast as you can so you can get off the freeway as fast as possible.

b) move into the fast lane and slow down to 20 mph even though the traffic in the other lanes are going 45 mph.

c) keep the distance between the bumper of the car ahead of you and yourself to 30 inches or less.

d) keep your lights off since you don’t want to waste energy.

5. When driving through neighborhoods in heavy fog it is safe to assume you don’t need to slow down or be extra cautious because:

a) there probably aren’t any pedestrians out in the chill.

b) there are no vehicles parked on the street unlike on clear days and nights.

c) everyone backing out of driveways has better visibility than you do,

d) it is perfectly OK to bump into city garbage carts since they are made out of a rubber-like material.

6. Lighting a fire in your fireplace in heavy fog is a great idea because:

a) it helps increase the density of the cloud cover much like in London decades ago when coal burning and fog created that infamous pea soup that killed hundreds.

b) it helps neighbors to breathe better.

c) sparks happen to land on your shake roof the fog will extinguish it right away.

d) wet wood — assuming you brought it in from a stack outside in the elements —  is a more effective way of letting the neighbors know you have a cozy fire.

7) The best way to counter the physiological impacts of being stuck in a fog-bound community for a week at a time is:

a) to never open the drapes.

b) schedule a vacation that puts you in a base camp at the Himalayas with blinding snow storms during January.

c) put a blind-fold on and sit in front of the refrigerator with the door open for five hours straight.

d) put on a CD of K-Tel’s version of Van Halen’s greatest hits accompanied exclusively with fog horns.

Of course, you could just chuck the test and head to San Francisco, which actually makes millions if not billions of dollars a year using fog as a way to lure tourists to the city.

You will discover that San Francisco is as clear as a bell this time of year. That natural abnormality is what prompted Mark Twain to say the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

Twain may have had something witty to say about Manteca when he passed in this general vicinity heading from San Francisco via Stockton on the old stage coach route that went along French Camp Road to the southern mines, but he probably did so in winter and likely couldn’t see a thing a wagon-length ahead of him.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com