Yeah, I’m in northern Illinois and drive a Mustang GT. This may be the worst possible car for icy, slippery roads - lots of power, RWD, not enough weight to really press the wheels to the road.
It’s a manual transmission, which helps a bit. More control.
But going up icy hills (or even my own driveway) I often have to turn off the traction control. As Enipla points out, it cuts power to the engine when it senses that the wheels are slipping. This is not a good thing when you’re trying to get up an icy hill. Sometimes you need to just gun it.
That said, I highly recommend NOT leaving it off. It’s a god-send at highway (or even road) speed. If you’re cruising along at maybe 40 mph and hit an uneven icy patch (one side has traction, the other doesn’t) you can really get into trouble. Especially if you have a foot on the gas.
One side accelerates, the other doesn’t. You fish-tail a bit if you’re lucky; if you’re unlucky you can spin out completely.
I strongly suspect that this advice has caused far more accidents than it’s prevented. What people mean when they say it is “if your back end slides to the left, then turn the steering wheel to the left”. Which is exactly what most people would do instinctively, if they never heard any advice at all on the subject. But most people don’t interpret the advice that way: You’ll get a driver whose back end is sliding to the left, and the driver thinks “I’m now pointed to the right of where I want to be. I would turn to the left, but my driver’s ed teacher said you should turn into the skid. Since I’m skidding right, I’ll turn the steering wheel to the right”. Which just makes the skid worse.
Good point. There ought to be a better way to word the advice. And it’s always been my first instinct to turn in the direction the car ought to be going. But then, I grew up driving on icy roads. I’ve been told though, that some inexperienced drivers will react in just the opposite way…i.e. will instinctively turn the wheel in the direction the car seems to want to go, or freeze up and not do anything (except maybe lock the brakes).
Jeeze - I heard the highways were really bad - glad to hear your story has a happy ending! Did you pass lots of SUVs in the ditch? It seems like it’s always SUVs in the ditch.
Regarding steer into the skid - I think that isn’t worded very well, either. I basically don’t steer at all - just take my foot off the gas, keep it off the brake, and wait for traction to resume.
It’s interesting to see the different responses. For 20 years I have driven over the continental divide at 11,500 feet twice every day. I live at 11-2.
The biggest problems on the roads around here are tourists, and people that drive too slow in snow. With the right vehicle (a 4x4 for starters, they do give you better control) and the right tires, it really is safe to go the speed limit on snow packed roads. You MUST of course increase following distance and consider visibility. And yes, I understand that 4x4’s do not allow you to stop faster. If you don’t understand that, you shouldn’t be driving any type of vehicle.
Also interesting is that tire choice where I live is water cooler discussion. If you mention that you are getting new tires, you will certainly be asked “what type, brand”?
I understand that the visitors are unfamiliar with the roads or driving in snow. So for them, it is best to go slow. That’s OK, but sometimes a bit aggravating when a couple of snowflakes puts you behind someone going 30mph on a highway.
How do you people manage this? I had a friend visiting from Wenatchee and he showed me videos on Youtube of people slipping and spinning on the ice. I can’t even imagine the panic: Trying to stop but being unable to as the car at the light ahead of you gets closer and closer. Then, after you’ve hit, another car, in the exact situation you were just in, hits you in the rear. Then another car. Then another car. And another. And another. And up ahead there are cars slipping sideways through the intersection.
Thanks guys, for making me love Arizona just a little more. No tornadoes, no ice, no earthquakes, no hurricanes, no giant fucking spiders, no humidity…
There were some SUVs, but really, there were all kinds of vehicles, and SUVs didn’t constitute the majority. Still, I’d love to know why the Honda Civic who blasted by me, and later wound up in the ditch, thought he was invincible.
I’m also wondering why the snowplow a half-mile ahead didn’t have his blade down. It may not have helped with black ice, but it would have helped with snowy patches.
Just kinda skimming the thread, so I’ll probably repeat some stuff here:
Leave early, take your time, and make sure you budget for time to de-ice and clear your car of snow completely before you leave. That includes the snow on parts of the car that aren’t windows too. Last thing anyone needs while driving is for you to be laying down the Spyhunter smoke screen with the snow blowing off the roof of your car.
Also, if your windows aren’t cleared completely, you have less visibility and less ability to detect and react to developing conditions. Don’t be that guy driving down the road squinting through the six inch square he has cleared in his windshield. You will also save yourself a lot of trouble if you invest in a good snow brush (they make them so that it’s basically a two foot long ice scraper with a stiff brush on the side for snow) and remember to raise your windshield wipers off the windshield if you are expecting snow.
Oh, and depending on where you live, they sell these windshield de-icer and anti-icing solutions. I’m pretty sure they’re the same thing with different labels on the bottles, but one melts the ice when you are getting ready to leave, and the other is a pre-treat coat that keeps the ice from sticking to begin with. That stuff is a lifesaver.
As far as skids go, I was taught to “Steer in the direction you want the car to go”, though I think the opposite is true for Rear Wheel Drive cars. The idea is that if the wheels are turning, they are pulling your car in that direction, however little they might be doing so during the skid. So you want to turn them which way you want the to move in (presumably along the road, or failing that, towards a safe ditching spot so you can try to recover the car from a standing start instead of mid-skid).
With Anti lock brakes, the idea is the brakes release whenever the wheels are about to lock up. The idea is to allow you to steer around whatever you are trying to avoid crashing into, rather than standing on the brakes, locking them up, and sliding directly into whatever you are trying to avoid crashing into. Your mileage may vary depending on where and why you’re stopping though, I suppose.
This last summer I was standing around outside a movie theater with some friends at around one in the morning, waiting to get in for a screening. One of the guys we were with checked the temp on his droid and it was over 100 degrees. In the middle of the night.
Dunno about the north part of the state, but in the region south of Tucson, it only rains once a year! Once, from June to October in a long stretch. Entire roads get washed away.
At least it’s a dry heat in Arizona. In Houston, it’s not AS hot, but it’s hella humid. Was at the Operahouse there one night, and it was in the high 80’s with 100% humidity at close to nine PM. Felt like I was in a mouth. And not in one of the fun ways you can find yourself in a mouth either.
I agree that the heat isn’t that bad. It’s dry as a bone. When I was in Florida it was only in the 90s but the humidity made it torture. I can walk around in 100 degree heat without breaking a sweat.
See, when I was in the Boy Scouts, we learned that if someone is in 100 degree heat and not sweating, it’s because they’re suffering Heat Stroke.
I haven’t had the pleasure of spending a summer in Arizona, but I did spend a winter there. That was weird. Never before or since have I found myself in sub zero temperatures with zero humidity. Your skin is surprisingly good at holding heat in when it’s not wet. Of course, if you start to sweat from moving around, it freezes as soon as it’s out of the pore, so you get this crazy pinprickly sensation.
I remember my 1st 4 wheel drive vehicle. First good snow I took it out into a big empty parking lot and was spinning it around and slamming the brakes and so forth. First in 2WD mode, then in 4WD mode. I determined that 4WD was damn useful to avoid fishtailing as it was a rear wheel drive vehicle (74 International Scout). Still managed to spin it out on a patch of ice one day when I wasn’t expecting it - no harm done, but I sure was surprised.
Of course, I didn’t have the SDMB to give me all the good advice you are getting - I got all my lessons from Dad. He told me what he did to learn driving in ice and snow and so I emulated that. Basically, it’s called try out everything to see what is going to happen so you know what to do when it happens in real life. Never had an accident in the snow and ice in Central and Western New York (Syracuse was home, Buffalo was college). Been living in LA too long. I kind of miss the winter driving.
It’s not that bad really. You get used to it. You learn. Real fast. I agree that it’s a good idea to practice in an empty snowy/icy parking lot, but it makes me smile. We slip an slide around every damn day for 6 months out of the year, we don’t need no stinking practice. Sliding is sort of an art form and can actually help through some corners. That’s why I am a little bit pissed at VDC (vehicle dynamic control [for the most part though, it’s an amazing system])
