I had a similar experience to Barney but two wheels in the gulley at side of the road and stopped - just.
Verges are usually full of untamped down snow so better grip
|
If you really need to drive, avoid driving a RWD (unless winter tyres). Please see the other thread on this topic.
|
Just done one job I had to drive to but the second one I have posponed till tomorrow for two reasons
1) It is in the evening, it will be colder and more icy and dark so more dangerious
2) I am feeling tired.
When I went out today the small roads felt a little slippy but it felt a lot safer than walking!
|
|
|
If you really need to drive avoid driving a RWD .............
............. or drive it in reverse, because you've then got FWD!
;-)
Edited by L'escargot on 18/12/2009 at 13:53
|
Just found out there was an accident on my road last night, a car lost control and mounted the kerb caused quite a bit of damage.
Even more reason to stay in and learn some Polish so I can fix this laptop of a customers.
|
Just found out there was an accident on my road last night a car lost control and mounted the kerb caused quite a bit of damage.
Cars don't loose control, drivers loose control of their cars.
We all know which is the most important nut in a car. :-)
Edited by Old Navy on 18/12/2009 at 16:36
|
|
|
|
Don't bother with skid pan training.
When there is snow, go find yourself a big deserted car park, for me it was my local Lidl.
Practice till your heart's content, see what speed you can do before losing grip, try steering into skids etc. maybe invoke a tail out by pulling on the handbrake and see how to counter act it.
Obviously make sure there are no barriers, kerbs etc before doing so but a great hour or so's entertainment and, more importantly, driver training!
|
Rattle, I dont think you did anything wrong. A little bit of slow speed skidding in snow means that you know where the limits are.
Car parks can be great fun in the snow - just watch out for kerbs and other immoveable objects hidden under the snow.
Even very low speed skids into a kerb can easily knock out your tracking, or worse dent an alloy or bend suspension arms.
|
I agree with those who advise practising on an empty car park, and join them in urging you to look out for hidden kerbs and so on.
But ordinary roads with snow or ice on them are what you will really have to cope with, and they are not to be scorned. You do have to crank your intellect up a few notches to minimise the chance of damage, embarrassment or worse.
Caution is essential. But there's no need to exaggerate and annoy people.
|
No one can offer you advice or guidance. Driving in snow is nothing more than experience and feel. You wont get any unless, as Bobby says, when the snow arrives you rush out there and throw the car around in a deserted car park.
Get out there,m get the car out there, and enjoy it
|
No one can offer you advice or guidance.
Driving in snow is nothing more than experience and feel.
1st part I slightly disagee with.... do everything gently (steer/accelerate/brake)... feel/listen to what the car is telling you... and dont panic! (thats my advice)
2nd part, I fully agree with! empty carparks are the ideal place to learn, although I get the feeling come members of the Police force may disagree, if they come across you 'playing' - sorry 'learning!'
Edited by the swiss tony on 18/12/2009 at 15:32
|
Swiss, last time was out playing in the snow in Lidl, a police X5 drove past, slowed down as I did a perfect handbrake turn, and then carried on.
I don't know if they weren't interested as I was in a diesel Altea XL, with wife and kids. Not exactly boyracer stuff!!
|
|
BobbyG, in my book they are the type of Coppers we need, seems to me there are too many 'rule book' Police nowdays...
|
Swiss last time was out playing in the snow in Lidl a police X5 drove past slowed down as I did a perfect handbrake turn and then carried on.
Ditto in 1999, Scenic Mk1 full of wife and child, Bracknell Liesure Centre, poilce briefly watched in amusement..
|
|
The roads in the area of North Kent where i live are still covered in deep snow which has now frozen, so driving conditions are interesting to say the least. However when i ventured out this morning i found myself following an immaculate H reg MK1 Capri 3.0ltr, these were a handful in the wet, so goodness knows how hard it must have been to keep it under control today !
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 20/12/2009 at 02:56
|
Black ice is always fun....just sit back, fold your arms, brace yourself and the car will do what it has to do. Done the ' icedance pirouette ' a couple of times.
Hit some on the Velocette a few years back.....only going slow 'cos of cold, about 10mph.
I was on the floor with the bike facing the other way before I'd a chance to even think what was happening..............no major damage to bike or me...tear in trousers and a bruised ego, but it was at night so not too big an audience !
Ted
|
|
Came out of a garage on a very powerful bike, opened it out to get in front of some mimsers and the back wheel did one of those dances - forgot the wheel was wet ...... very loosening
|
|
There is or there was anyway, a Honda bike dealership in Edinburgh just at the bottom end of the "old town" Many of the roads in that neck of the woods had setts. Back in the days of August registrations they would release the new bikes at a few minutes past midnight on the first day of the new letter. Rather infamously a chap taking delivery of his flashy new steed opened it up coming off the dealers forecourt onto the wet cobbles and the result was...well....expensive and I imagine more than a touch embarrassing.....
|
Ah black ice, probably the worst conditions always painfull on a bike.
Some 25/28 years ago i was heading out about 2am along the then A45 from St Neots towards Cambridge in an artic truck doing my usual 60 cruise.
The road was wet having stopped raining only minutes before...but the sky cleared and almost immediately the road iced over and became a sheet of wet glass.
I only realised that as everything had gone uncannily light in what seemed like a moment, you know that horrible feeling that means nothing good.
In the distance i could see hazards flashing at the Caxton Gibbet...took me about a mile to knock the speed off, when i eventually got safely to the crossing there were vehicles strewn all over the shop including trucks in the ditch...damned lucky escape for me.
Got out to see what the score was and you could barely stand up.
That was the worst winter for donkey's years, the offal carrier i drove at that time would have a thousand+ gallon block of solid ice in the rear compartment by the time i got back at 10am, didn't get above freezing for about a month.
|
Going to Huddersfield for the early shift, I climbed the road from Greenfield up to Wessenden Head, where the kids were buried, passing an HGV carefully in the snow.
I saw red lights ahead, it was a Jag in the peat. The driver was slumped over the wheel.
I thought I'd found a fatal !
He was alive !....' I was just leaning over with my hands in the footwell to get the benefit of the heater ' he said. He'd phoned for help so I left.......found another one a mile further on !
That was on a dead straight road !
Came back a different way in the evening and passed a car with major rear end damage..I think a snow plough had found it ! The drifts were well above 8ft high.
Ted
Edited by 1400ted on 19/12/2009 at 23:52
|
30 odd years ago I wa stuck in a jam on the road out of Hersham to Esher - Cars couldnt get up the hill.
Anyway in front a parked artic started to slide ever so slowly sideways, due to ice forming under its wheels and the very slight camber of the road. It was heading to the car on its right (he couldnt go forward or back due to the jam) so we all leapt out and helped the trucker rope it to the lamp post
we were there all day.
|
|
Black ice !!! I Was driving a Bedford TK fully laden with reams of paper early one morning on the Thames Embakment and a goon pulled out on me, I braked and it was just like being on an ice rink - no brakes, no steering ... I've always been of the opinion that I had help 'from above' on that morn as the lorry righted itself - with no help from me!
|
Heavy snow in Manchester now. Airport closed.
Advice to those about driving today - don't!
Although SWMBO has gone out in the car, I walked with eldest child to Sunday School. Got a lift back and frankly wished I had walked despite the weather. Driver was too close to the car in front, drove too quickly and braked to late.
Hope I don't hear tinkling glass near our drive :-(
|
Just been driving in the vicinity of Manc Airport, the issue is ice under the fresh snow, even innocuous looking roundabouts are like skating rinks.
Was a fun test of driving skills, anyway :)
|
|
What is the collective opinion on letting a few psi out of the tyres when driving slowly on snow ?
|
Had a pant filling moment in the Volvo yesterday. Descending a gentle hill approaching a T-junction. Travelling at about 10 mph. Maybe 100yds from the junction, I brushed the brake pedal, and the ABS pulsed away, with the car carrying on at the same speed. Underneath the snow/slush was sheet ice.
Had time, luckily to consider my options, and decided to aim for the kerb. As I did this, I felt the car slow slightly having found some grip from somewhere. With furious cadence braking (I know, old habits die hard), I managed to bring the car to a halt 3-4 metres from the give way line.
Driving on snow is fun. Driving on ice isn't. The trick with the latter is, I believe to give yourself enough time/space/distance to choose what you hit carefully. Assuming the steering still works of course (I suspect mine wouldn't have).
As I went to pull away, a young kid crossed the road behind me, did a weird kind of breakdance and fell flat on his backside. That made me feel a bit better.
|
|
Just wondering, how do cars with DSG get on in these condtions.
|
Didn't Top Gear/5th Gear do a feature with a Jag X Type on a frozen lake, one with stability control and one without? I seem to remember the one with faired much better in an emergency avoidance manouvere.
I've just driven my bx's back to back in very snowy/icy conditions. One is a TD with abs and 185 tyres and the other is a 1.9 n/a diesel without abs and 165 tyres. The one without abs stops much better and the 165 tyres feel much more secure on steep cambers/pulling away etc. Both sets of tyres have 6 mm of tread. I guess my ancient abs system is pretty rubbish in snow!
|
Re DSG box:
With a diesel engine very well, it will creep in first and you can then change to 2nd once it start moving and use it like a manual. I had no problems in the two A3s I've had.
The X type is the same - slush box auto with tiptronic. Simply move to manual, select 2nd and it goes on tickover.
On both the A3 and X type the tyres and underlying layer of ice are more of a problem than the gearbox.
Edited by daveyjp on 21/12/2009 at 09:42
|
>>> That made me feel a bit better <<<
Schadenfreude me ole son :)
|
>>With furious cadence braking (I know, old habits die hard), I managed to bring the car to a halt 3-4 metres from the give way line
Exactly my situation on Thursday night DP - steering towards kerb and mercifully stopping in time. Got me reflecting that this new-fangled ABS may present a problem in these low-speed braking situations in refusing to lock up the wheels. And having always in normal driving cultivated a light touch on the brakes, and especially so when it gets slippy, I find it counter-intuitive to exert continuous pressure on the brakes to make use of the electronic cadence effect... It seemed so much simpler in the old Morris Minors and Triumph Heralds!
|
What is the collective opinion on letting a few psi out of the tyres when driving slowly on snow ?
Complete misunderstanding. If you are stuck in a snowdrift and unable to move, THEN you should let a lot of air out and you should be able to move forward a few yards onto solid ground AT WHICH POINT you reinflate your tyres.
|
I would just park it up out of harms way Rattle. If we were in years gone by I would suggest practice on a deserted space - but It`s the risk from others that would worry me.
I have hundreds of thousands of miles under my belt - decades, some with severe snow and ice. All of that is negated though by numpties pressing on regardless. The `I have a right to make progress` brigade - who will just go straight up kerbs and bash into others in the continuing me me me of their limited psychs of passage.
Edited by oilrag on 20/12/2009 at 14:06
|
Tried to get the Suzi out earlier, she was down the drive forwards..no chance, wheels just turning on the snow. 4wd sorted her out, first time I've needd it. I had reversed the Note in so it should pull itself out when needed. We have a slight downhill from the gate.
Kept it in 4WD while I did some calls...numpties driving at about 4 mph all over the place.
Got tired of being behind a Lexus at that speed and overtook on the snowy bit..quite stable.
Went for a cuppa at friends..they'd dropped mum off at airport for 9.30 flight.
Airport closed so presumably still sat on plane waiting.
Ted
|
Just had to go out to rescue a friend in a FWD Previa stuck on slight hill three miles away. Took 45 minutes to reach her and about ten minutes with a shovel and some pieces of carpet to get her out.
I really did not want to out today in the car and the way out of my drive proved why. I almost had a repeat of last year's accident when I slid down my drive onto the main road on snow covering sheet ice. This year I kept the car in neutral, cadanced braked and also dropped the car into reverse occasionally. Managed to get to the bottom without injury but certainly a few nervous moments.
Mind you once on the road, there is nothing better than 4WD for getting away from the numpties spinning wheels and cars all over the show.
|
Today's conditions are not so much driving in snow but driving on ice. A lot of car parks are sheet ice under the snow. Also went for a walk along the River Mersey earlier today and nearly slipped a few times for similar reasons.
Later I had to (sort of) go to the storage unit where we have our possessions and went on main roads. All was fine until:
1. Coming out of the storage facility I had to go left temporarily and turn around. Doing a three point turn nearly had be stranded on a slight upward include. Oops. No big issue and got going.
2. On a main road near the M60 downhill the Golf R32 in front (so AWD?) started sliding into the cars coming up the hill. Rear end kicked out towards the centre line. So I gently broke and started to slide. Steered towards kerb and applied brakes and stopped. For a moment thought I'd not stop!
Not going out again today now!
|
|
|
|
|
