[hijack] Another fun thing we used to do is pass one of our friends in the spring when the roads were covered with slush. Then when past, drop it in second, gun it and a stream of slush as from a fire hose would shoot out from the rear wheels and smack your buddy in the windshield. If he happened to have a window open it was hilarious. Yuk, yuk, yuk.[/hijack]
Some of these points have been made, but I’ll give my advice to her anyway.
1.) Go much slower than usual.
2.) However, remember that on hillsides and some banked curves you need to have some speed to keep you on the road. Accellerate some when going up a big hill. I’ve seen curves where you will slide off if you try to go too slow.
3.) When you have to use your brakes, try pumping them.
4.) If there’s 2 or more inches of snow on the road and no ice, you can use the friction of the snow to slow you down to a degree. Move your vehicle out of the tracks left by other vehicles and drive in the unploughed snow to slow it down.
5.) Try to make turns gradually if at all possible.
6.) No distractions. Don’t eat while driving, turn off the music, and tell any passengers your attention needs to be on the road.
7.) This may not be possible in your daughter’s case, but tell her to get to know any roads she may be using well in advance of bad weather. I live 'way out in the country in Indiana and there are basically six different routes I can use to get to my house. I try to drive the ones I don’t normally use at least once or twice in the summer so I will know the curves and possible danger spots in winter.
8.) Watch for places where water runs off properties and freezes
These are dangerous as hell.
9.) When the thaw comes, you still have to watch out in shaded areas on back roads. Snow & ice melt much slower in those areas than on blacktop or gravel roads lying in full sunlight.
10.) Don’t drive on ice unless you absolutely have to.
For emergency traction, I keep a gallon jug of kitty litter in the trunk. I have had to use said kitty litter exactly once in my thirteen years of living in Denver.
I knew a guy who got a wreckless driving ticket for doing that.
Second “Parking Lot Traininig.” A a member of the Air Force she is surely familiar with the phrase, “Performed as Practiced.” The Number One reason for parking lot practice is that without it people overcompensate for skid only making the return skid worse.
I thought of one other thing that may be helpful – getting there. She’s going to be driving from somewhere in “Alasippee” to Colorado, right?
The states that get bad winter weather as a normal event do a better job of keeping the roads drivable than those that experience it only occasionally. If you have snow and ice for three months every year, you have full-time crews on duty to plow and sand and salt the roads daily, because they need it. If you get it once or twice a year, they need to mobilize and get out there to do it, and there won’t be as many crews doing the work – which means it’ll be longer before and between winter road treatments. So unless weather conditions show that she’ll have clear dry driving across to, effectively, NM, she should go as far NNW as possible before heading west, getting as quickly as possible to states that are used to dealing with the weather. I’ve skidded off the road three times in my life – twice in the first two years I had my license and wasn’t used to winter driving, the third time just a month ago in NC because the road was unexpectedly slick at an unlikely place.
I just wanted to emphasize that with anti-lock brakes (since her car is pretty new, she probably has them), you actually do not want to pump the brakes if you are sliding, but let the brakes do their job by applying even pressure. It’s easy to tell when the anti-locks are engaged because you can feel them pulsing under your foot. Also remember that anti-locks allow you to steer normally and it is easy to panic and over correct in a slide, so the trick is to stay calm and not jerk the wheel. If for some reason her car does not have anti-locks, then you want to pump the brakes gently when coming to a stop.
Also, make sure to leave extra time for other cars to stop in an intersection. I have avoided many an accident by pausing long enough to make sure the oncoming traffic can stop before proceeding.
Building on this, I suggest that she contact the DMV in her new state to find out if they’re one of the states (like this one) that has a “100%” law on the books. In this state if you do not clean 100% of the snow and ice off all windows of your car, you can be ticketed for it. This is something they mention in driver’s ed, and no one ever hears about again until they’re pulled over. :smack: The same applies for doing donuts/cutting kitties etc in parking lots, that’s a fine here and other places too.
As someone who has grown up in snowy climates and has been driving in poor weather for nearly a decade, the best piece of advice I can pass on is this: She should trust her instincts. If she looks out the window and sees a snow storm, and feels that it might be dangerous, she should stay home unless it’s absolutely necessary to be out and about. Erands can almost always wait until after the roads have been plowed; it’s not the end of the world to call in sick if road conditions are unsafe. The fewer people who are on the road unnecessarily, the safer the roads are for everyone on them. If you ignore that worried feeling in the pit of your stomach, you might find yourself waiting for a tow-truck later on (once was more than enough for me, and that was after seven years’ worth of winter-driving experience.)
And if she must be out, she should learn to remind herself that snow travel takes Longer . You need to leave for work earlier, and expect that it’s going to take a lot longer to get home. Feeling rushed makes a person a more dangerous driver in foul weather.
There’s a lot of good advice in this thread.
One winter-driving tip that I’ve found helpful but relatively rare: Be sure the wheels (all 4) are well-aligned.
Of course, it’s always best to have the wheels correctly aligned, but problems with wheel alignment are magnified by slippery roads. One of my cars could roll straight as an arrow down a straight road, with no hands on the wheel, for 30-40 seconds at a time! Good alignment, right? Nope. The alignment was off, but each wheel was coincidentally set up to counter the skew of the others. On dry roads, it handled perfectly. But hitting a patch of ice would cause the car to fishtail strongly. I almost spun out in that car more than once, while driving at a steady, low speed on a slippery road. A proper wheel alignment by a good shop completely fixed this.
My more limited experience with tires would indicate that a fresh set of high-quality all-seasons can excel in the snow, but cheap or halfway-used-up tires do a lot worse. I don’t plan on driving through another winter on half-used all-seasons, now that I’ve seen how well new tires or snow tires can handle the snow.
And, another bit of data to add: don’t use cruise control! From here and here. Essentially, the cruise control could apply power (or take it away) at the worst possible time, making a bad situation even worse.
And if you carry kitty litter in your truck for weight and/or for traction on the ground, just use the cheap-o regular stuff, and be sure to place it properly in your trunk. Don’t just pile it all on one side: spread the weight around.
Another thing that comes in handy: cheap alcohol. Pour it on the windows to help melt ice faster. Rubbing alcohol works just fine, as does cheap vodka. 
<< Beep-beep. >>
Since you’re looking for advice and tips rather than simple facts, I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
What the heck, bibliophage, she’s half way to Colorado by now. 
Lots of good advice here.
One thing to note is that we are in the middle of a drought.
Don’t know about Colorado Springs, but here in Denver, we have only had 14 inches of snow since September. (Usually we have had close to twice that much by now.)
However, we have a good 8 more weeks in which snow is possible, and March tends to be our snowiest month.
Another tip I was reminded of last night as I drove down an unplowed neighborhood street with a chaotic weave of ruts: keep a light touch on the steering wheel. Don’t grip the wheel tightly, that slows down your responsiveness in making corrections. In very slippery conditions, I drive with the heel of my hand pressed on the 6 o’clock position, as if it were connected by a ball bearing, and drive as much by the seat of my pants as I do with my eyes.
I amend my earlier advice about not exceeding 6-8 inches in a front wheel drive sedan. You can handle deeper snow, as long as it’s packed. It’s the loose stuff that can get you, especially on the secondary roads and the neighborhood streets. So in bad weather, stick to the main thoroughfares, especially since you’re more likely to get help if you get into trouble.
For some reason, I’ve been unable to post for the last couple of days under Adoptamom (moderators - can you please help me?) so I’ve signed up again in order to thank you all VERY much for your suggestions and tips