"They don't know how to drive in snow"

In My Humble Opinion
61

Rule 1; take everything slow, acceleration, braking (it’s brAKing, people, not “breaking” that’s what happens when you slide off the road and hit a guardrail…), the “egg under the pedals” guideline is a good guideline, slow, steady and controlled

Rule 2; plan extra time for the commute, taking into account low-grip conditions, morons who think the laws of physics don’t apply to them, state plow/sand vehicles, accidents of all kinds, ranging from simple sliding off the roads all the way to multi-car pileups

Rule 2A; assume all the other drivers on the road are morons and are about to do the most clueless thing you can think of, right in front of you, oftentimes you won’t be too surprised when it happens

3; Grip is your friend, get the most aggressive, grippiest snow tires you can, and put them on all four corners, you don’t need the Überexpensive high-tech “Supersnows”, just a nice, blocky, aggressive tread, sure, it’ll be noisy on dry pavement, but it won’t easily bog up with snow, the tire will throw the snow clear of the tread as the tire rotates, I’ve driven on Supersnows and the basic, blocky snows and the difference is marginal at best, certainly not worth paying the premium for the Supersnows

4; If your car is a manual transmission, make sure you start off from a standstill in second or third gear (my Saturn Ion’s 2.2L Four Ecotec engine is capable of starting me from a dead standstill in third gear without straining or lugging, powerful little motor that Ecotec…) to keep the torque down, as that’s what causes grip-reducing/eliminating wheelspin, my co-worker’s DSG manumatic equipped VW GTI has too much torque for the snow, and he says he’s unable to start off in second gear, Heh, win yet another one for the manual transmission :slight_smile:

5; in slippery conditions, braking distance increases dramatically, especially with ABS, so plan accordingly and brake earlier, plan for your car to slip or slide and react accordingly

6; when descending a steep hill, gear the car down to a lower gear and let engine compression help control your speed, when climbing a steep hill, keep RPM’s low to cut down on wheelspin, if the wheel(s) begin to spin, you’re losing traction, let up slightly on the gas until the spinning goes away, even if that means crawling uphill at 5 MPH

7; find an empty snow covered parking lot and practice emergency handling, deliberately slam on your brakes, to see how/where your car slides, manually induce fishtailing or spins, on a front wheel drive car, you can do this by yanking the handbrake on, put your car into a spin a few times and let it spin out so you can experience how the car behaves, then after you are familiar with the sensation, induce some more spins, but try to recover from them, practice often to keep your skillset up
…oh, and don’t mention that it’s fun to do as well…

62

Rule 8: There is no rule 8.

Rule 9: Plan ahead. In Auntbeast’s case, that 22° grade with the hairpin at the bottom may be the only way down the mountain; but in many cases there’s an alternative, and even if it’s longer, it may well be worth the reduced wear&tear on the car — and your nerves.

63

Not to pick on you, EmAnJ, but I see this advice given to people who aren’t used to driving on snow and ice a lot. While you and I know exactly what it means, what it usually means to somebody who’s never had to do it before is “pump your brake pedal like you’re airing up a super soaker.” What EmAnJ really means is: experiment in a safe, wide open area. Figure out how much braking force is required until you lose traction at different degrees of “sliperyness”. Once you know that for your vehicle, tires, and brakes, you ought to be able to get pretty close to that threshold without locking your tires up (aka sliding). If you do lock up (you’ll feel it), slighty let go of the brake, and then depress it again, if necessary. That’s what the shorthand “pump your brakes” means.

64

As far as I know, the roads are pretty well maintained where I am moving. However, practicing on a small hill is probably not doable, as I’ll have to drive down a mountain to get to it. :wink:

Please keep the hints coming. I can’t be the only one learning from this.

For the record, I have a history of this, I bought a motorcycle without knowing how to drive one and did not drive it until I took the motorcycle course. Are there “Learn to drive in the snow, you moron.” classes?

65

I don’t mind people slowing down for conditions, but it does bug the crap out of me when everyone is driving…really…slooooooowly when they could be going somewhat faster. I encountered this in Arizona when there was a sprinkling of rain. Everyone slowed from their usual 80+ to under 50. Same thing happens here in the first couple snows of the year, even though people deal with it every year. A couple of weeks later, people are driving at maybe 75% of their normal speeds in the same conditions. In other words, adjusting to the conditions is fine, but overcompensating is annoying.

It makes me even more pissed off when people slow down to about half their normal speed, but don’t leave enough stopping space for the conditions, or don’t turn on their lights in the fog/rain/snow. You’re being cautious in only one way, which isn’t good enough. People here actually flash their lights at me when I turn mine on because of rain or snow. Uh, duh, I know they’re on. The sky is so dark that it’s basically twilight and I have the wipers on a medium setting to keep the windshield clear. I could barely see your ignorant ass before you flashed me because you DON’T HAVE YOUR LIGHTS ON. Asshole.

A few years back, after bitching about it for so long, I finally realized why Japanese speed limits are so slow; they post limits for the worst possible conditions. The only time I drive 30 km or 50 km (18–19 mph, 30 mph respectively, the actual speed limits on local roads) is in the winter. At night. In a blizzard. After a warm day that has melted the snow into an ice sheet.

Doing 30 kph in normal conditions is ridiculous. But some people do drive that slowly. Old dudes. They’ll drive 3–5 kph under the posted limit. I can almost literally run faster than that.

I have chains for unexpected snowfall. I change to studless snow tires for the winter. I’ve never been in an accident because of road conditions, probably because I drive appropriately. I plan ahead so that I don’t have to panic stop. I’ve never come close to rear-ending someone, even when everyone ahead of me seems to have stood on their brakes. But I don’t drive particularly slow.

66

Around Los Angeles, you can count on a spate of accidents with just rain. Anything that happens about 3% of the time just doesn’t get practiced for.

67

4 is the most dangerous attitude. Driving in snow is not just common sense; it is learning and practiced skill. You have to learn and practice to feel the skid just as it starts, how to feel how to work the brakes, how to accurately judge if you can change lanes across that ridge of slush, how to reach out and jab the flashers instead of the mute button, and how to magically sense when the driver of the car next to you is about to fail to to do these things. And how to lean back and go limp if the crash is inevitable.

Remember deliberately going into skids in mall parking lots on Sunday mornings? That was more than fun.

1 is a close second; no-one is getting anywhere faster than the flow of traffic; suck it up and listen to All Things Considered.

I’m with you on 2A, but 3 has a point. A 4-wheel drive manual transmission pick-up with the mirrors properly adjusted for cars!!! is easier to drive.

68

Yeah, but how do you GET to the parking lot in those conditions if you don’t feel comfortable driving to begin with? :slight_smile: I mean, it’s likely that whatever lot you’re in at the moment is probably not empty…

Seems to me that if you’re skilled enough to drive to the icy empty lot, you don’t need the practice.

69

LOL! I live at an altitude of 5,000 feet in Canada’s Northern Coastal Mountains. If’n y’can’t drive in snow and on ice - y’ain’t goin’ nowheres for 7 months of the year. :wink: - Jess.

70

You might want to think that through.

71

The buddy system works pretty well for that. Plus then you have an experienced driver with you to do some coaching.

72

It was a little nasty on the drive home last night. Thinking of this thread, I took some pics. Had a few full whiteouts.

Going up the pass.

Over the top and on the way down.

Off the highway getting closer to home.

73

Those are pretty bad conditions. What were you driving?
As far as the OP learning how to drive in the snow, I’d get someone that was comfortable with it to drive me to a big parking lot somewhere with plenty of room. Then practice taking off and stopping in snow, see what it takes to make the wheels spin, and see how softly you must accelerate to not spin the wheels. I like to practice stopping quickly at a moderate speed a few times, that helps you get the feel of what your car does when it is sliding. You might even try carefully sliding sideways a few times and try to correct the slide. All practice you do in a mostly safe location will make you a better driver out on the real roads.

Also keep in mind that hills, up or down, can change the behavior of your car quite a bit. If you brake hard going down a big hill the rear of your car may well try to pass the front.

74

'06 Pathfinder with BFG All Terrain T/A KO’s.

75

Cool. Hey, I bet your tires would fit my F-150. Just sayin’ :smiley:

76

I think a lot of it means understanding that you’re essentially driving without brakes. You’re going to need a lot of stopping room and you need to know how to handle a skid (hint: don’t hit the brakes)

77

Alberta Motor Association has winter classes, they take you out to a track and do what people are suggesting here… put you into skids and such to get the feel of the car and how to react.

I took my classes in winter, but not these particular classes, so though I got some experience that way it wasn’t anything like that. I kinda freak out internally still when I start to go into a skid but I’ve managed to so far not do more than a small fish tail and came out of it fairly well. knock on wood

I do want to take the special classes, unfortunately this year is pretty tight so I can’t really afford to.

78

Do they teach you how to drive uphill on a sheet of ice with a manual transmission? It’s not often a useful skill, but it occasionally it is critical.

A nasty storm is here today, and I could not believe the fools barreling down the highway, weaving in and out, determined to get home before the store got worse, but rather missing the point that just making it home is the first priority.

enipla, that first picture, with the road sign, is terrifying

79
  1. Definitely 2.

I live in a well-to-do neighborhood and it seems like every year there is at least one neighbor with a new 4WD, generally quite large (full-sized SUV type), who needs a good snowstorm or two to learn that 4WD vehicles do not come equipped with Magic Brakes or other exemptions to the laws of physics as standard. Fortunately for them the trees and light poles are generally set back from the road, so they only have the embarrassment of waiting for the tow truck rather than the more expensive embarrassment of explaining to the insurance company how their four-month-old vehicle came to kiss that big ol’ elm. :stuck_out_tongue:

Generally, though, this is snowy country, and any driver with some experience, regardless of what they drive, soon learns to make allowances for that. Some people are still in category #1 (“slowing down is for wimps, I got work to do”) but not too many. Lots of slipping and sliding during the first snowstorm while people vow to put on the dang snow tires tonight/adjust to new vehicles/generally struggle remember their snow driving skills, but by the second snowfall things have generally calmed down.

80

Even worse here in Vegas. Surpisingly, after the snow we got this week (8 inches or so in a lot of the city), people were really good about driving. As they tend to be in flood conditions. Light rain will mess them up badly though