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Yesterday was a very icy day over in here in the South West. Some of you may be aware, there was a six car smash on the M5 (Bristol) which was due to the icy conditions. This morning, it was even icier. Now on both days, I travel about 6am, none of the motorways or side roads were or have been gritted yet both days were forecast to be icy. Also a friend who lives in Hampshire told me that none of the roads there have been gritted. Can anyone enlighten me as to why this may be?
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It used to be and still is up here in the icy north:-
Weather centre at Bracknell advises Local Authority the day before of the strong possibility of zero conditions. LA then from a pre planned priority road programme (which means some of the minors will receive little or no attention) will send the Gritters out the afternoon/early evening to cover salt on the roads for the night/ early morning the next day. Problem is that the salt will lie and will need traffic useage to make it work efficiently. A reason for taking a bit more care very early morning even though there is salt on the road.
Funny you never seem to hear the Swedes complaining of icy roads.
If ever your going along in very cold conditions and loose the noise of the vehicle going along the road (tyre noise) then ten to one your on black ice, very dangerous, so foot off everything until you get the noise back then careful.
DVD.
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What may be making things worse is that our recent mild winters have resulted in a large number of recently-qualified drivers having no experience of 'real' winter driving.
My favourite recollection is of a brief flurry of snow in Plymouth about 17 years ago which brought the entire city to a halt! Apparently it hadn't snowed there for many years, and people didn't have a clue how to cope!
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I was thinking to myself after the 9/11 attacks that all a terrorist organisation would have to do to bring Britain's road network to a halt would be to spill a few gallons of oil on strategic junctions.
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I was brought up in NE Scotland and drove an A30 very successfully in 3foot snow drifts.. after a snow plough.:-)
But seriously I would NEVER EVER again have a RWD car. We live 500feet up in Staffs Moorlands and I had a BMW318 and 320. Unbelievably bad in snow. TOTAL inability to negotiate any corner even at 5mph if the camber was wrong. No doubt winter tyres would make a difference.. (my A30 had Town and Country)
The key test fro me is the slight gradient out of our drive which falls into a dip at the pavement where the gutter is. When it snows there is a ridge of snow and ice from the ploughs/cars passing. Even when dry it is easy to get wheelspin from FWD or RWD cars if you apply too much throttle. In snow it is virtually impassable with RWD. I am sure traction control might help.. but..
MOST UK car tests are written by journalists who never appear to have to drive in winter conditions. All RWD autos with loads of power are just a total liability in those conditions as they cannot get any grip and most drivers have no idea how delicately they must use their right feet to avoid wheelspin.
So when I read the reports on high powered saloons, I just laugh - especialy those that hint of possible problems in the wet. If they are difficult in the wet they are impossible in snow and ice.
4x4s are just a waste of time. Stoke on Trent is built on hills. In snow the whole road system stops so even if you have the best grip in the world, everyone else is stopped waiting.. on hills. My wife once took 8 hours to travel across the City in heavy snow. In the same weather and same day I drove 75 miles from Burton on Trent to Leek and then to North Stoke where we live in 2 1/2 hours. Lots of snow and country roads at 1200 feet above sea level .. but little traffic. (In a Rover 800 - FWD)
A lot is to do with tyres: a 4x4 with road tyres is not a patch on FWD with winter tyres..
And all the attributes of a sporting car - wide tyres, loads of power, low ground clearance - are just what you do NOT need in roads with 4-6 inches of snow, ruts and ice. There you need narrow tyres, little grip and high clearance. Wide tyres= big drag.
madf
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Oh yes: forgot to add: I had a Rover 75 with the switchable freewheel. RWD of course. Awful in snow as weight distribution was about 55% at front. Going up snow covered hills in Aberdeenshire as a student was: virtually impossible. Going down was like.. sledging:-)
Scary? you bet.. Almost as bad as the 2.8 Granada Mark 3 Auto I once had.. or the Mercedes 260E..they had more power and wider wheels so were much worse...
madf
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If it vey snowy and icy I prefer to drive er-indoors's 19 year old 1043 polo. Good ground clearance, skinny tyres, b?$$£r all power&engine braking, no power steering and crap non servo brakes make the car excellent in the snow and ice! (Along with a good heater!)
The heat pipe between exhaust and air filter must be intact though otherwise you would suffer from carb icing.
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If it vey snowy and icy I prefer to drive er-indoors's 19 year old 1043 polo.
And I thought it was my excellent driving skills! Must say I agree Big John, a great car in the snow we had a couple of years ago. In fact, a better car in the snow than the wet. Especially if you refine your cornering angles with the handbrake!
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Interesting discussion on ice and rwd auto execs. Having recently bought an auto 528....first high powered rwd auto which I'm very much hoping not too stuff. How useful is traction control/full stability control on taming these natural rwd tendancies. I imagine they are useful for pulling away but no help on a bend? watched a neighbour in recent 323i last year have one hell of time just getting on a drive which our fwd jap box did just fine.
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I had a new shape 328 auto that I guess has the same box and electronic cornering control as yours. I remember trying it by driving around a roundabout in very heavy snow with my foot flat on the floor. It just went round like it was on tarmac. Very impressed. The next year the ABS light came on (turned out to be a sensor failure) as I started it up after it had sat at Gatwick for the Christmas week. Same snow and ice conditions, it was *very* interesting to drive!
PB.
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Going back 20 yrs, a few friends and I had RWD bangers and it snowed enought to lay a few inches (once a decade thing in the south) so we took a tow rope and went out to the sticks and carved up the virgin snow at 1 am. It was Great Fun! went into a few ditches and collected some dents (my avenger was all filler anyway) but it was a good experience.
I once tried to turn right from a iced junction in a rover sd1 and just didn't manage it, tracking needed checking after that, oops!. I always put that down to my bad driving rather than some inherent fault in the car.
IMO everyone forgets how to handle the winter and slowly re-learn the lessons, some have a prang in the process
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