Hehehehe, white-out!



Now we have some "snow" worth talking about. Roughly 12 cm or something. 
The roads have vanished under a carpet of white. (At least, the roads I 
can see.) And, unsurprisingly, a number of road traffic accidents have 
gridlocked most of the road system. So apparently I'm staying at home 
today. :-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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More snow is falling. Unlike yesterday, this time my dad decided we 
would attempt to get to work today.

Usually that takes 1 hour. Not today. Every time we reached a hill, 
there was a lorry at the bottom of it spinning its wheels. We managed to 
illegally overtake a few of them, but then we'd drive a mile or so and 
hit another 4-mile traffic jam behind another lorry stuck on another hill.

At 9:30 AM we decided to turn round and come home. Except the route we 
came by was now blocked as well. We got less than half way to work, and 
it took until noon to get back home again - several times longer than 
the outbound journey. :-D

Oh, and we also helped a damsel in distress on a deserted backroad we 
found. She was sitting in her heavy car with its powerful engine, 
spinning the wheels. Me and my dad were able to rock the car until it 
attained traction. (I make it sound easy. It wasn't. My office shoes 
have no tred; they are flat at the bottom. I couldn't get any traction 
to push with.)



While I'm here, can we straighten this out? I was under the impression 
that the correct way to drive in snow is the following:

- The correct way to get traction is to turn the wheels as slowly as 
possible, not spin them at maximum power.

- If your car skids, turn into the direction of the skid.

- If you skip under braking, ease off the brakes. If you skid under 
acceleration, reduce power a little.

- If you need to go up hill, do it fast so the momentum will carry you 
over. (I saw lots of people slowing down for the hills in case they 
skid, or trying to go up a hill from a stationary position.)

Can anyone confirm or refuse these claims?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Can anyone confirm or refuse these claims?

That's about right, yes.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Ouch ouch ouch!"
   "What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
   "No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."

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On Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:04:41 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> While I'm here, can we straighten this out? I was under the impression
> that the correct way to drive in snow is the following:
> 
> - The correct way to get traction is to turn the wheels as slowly as
> possible, not spin them at maximum power.

Yes, that is correct.  Spinning the wheels will generally dig you in 
deeper.

> - If your car skids, turn into the direction of the skid.

Correct, but you have to be careful not to over-correct, lest you hit a 
dry patch on the road and spin the car.  I did that and ended up in the 
ditch, once - after doing a 360 in one direction and then a 720 in the 
opposite.

> - If you skip under braking, ease off the brakes. If you skid under
> acceleration, reduce power a little.

Well, brakes tend to be "on or off", if you don't have ABS, pumping the 
brake pedal generally works well, but also if you can drop to a lower 
gear, do that.  Don't do anything that would normally cause a fast change 
in speed because you'll lose control.

What I do on ice if accelerating is take my foot off the gas and drop the 
car to 3rd gear (I drive an automatic, but this works in a manual 
transmission car as well).  Don't touch the brakes, because in general it 
won't do anything but cause you to lose control.

I also will occasionally tap the brakes to see if the car will slow 
down.  It's important to do this while the wheels are pointing forward, 
though; if you do this and have the wheels turned, you could spin out of 
control if the circumstances are right.

> - If you need to go up hill, do it fast so the momentum will carry you
> over. (I saw lots of people slowing down for the hills in case they
> skid, or trying to go up a hill from a stationary position.)

It depends on the hill.  If you go fast and there's a stop sign at the 
top of the hill, your chances of blowing through the intersection are 
really good, and there's always a chance when you do that of running into 
cross traffic if it's not a 4-way stop.

The best option is to find a different route if you encounter an icy hill 
- up or down.

The important thing when driving on ice is to not make any sudden changes 
- sudden turns, slamming on the brakes, fast acceleration - all of these 
can cause a loss of control.

Jim

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>> - The correct way to get traction is to turn the wheels as slowly as
>> possible, not spin them at maximum power.
> 
> Yes, that is correct.  Spinning the wheels will generally dig you in 
> deeper.

And yet, the girl we helped had her big, powerful BWM running at maximum 
revs. Perhaps she thinks if she revs it fast enough, eventually it will 
have some effect?

(Logically, if you spin the wheels long enough, you'll dig down to where 
the road is. Unfortunately, you now have to drive up a rather big hill 
to go anywhere...)

Anybody remember Ice Cold in Alex? Didn't they do something weird like 
put the car into 1st gear and turn the starting crank to make the wheels 
turn *really* slowly so it wouldn't disturb the sand?

>> - If your car skids, turn into the direction of the skid.
> 
> Correct, but you have to be careful not to over-correct, lest you hit a 
> dry patch on the road and spin the car.  I did that and ended up in the 
> ditch, once - after doing a 360 in one direction and then a 720 in the 
> opposite.

Well, the incidents I whitnessed today all happened at around 5 MPH or less.

>> - If you skip under braking, ease off the brakes. If you skid under
>> acceleration, reduce power a little.
> 
> Well, brakes tend to be "on or off", if you don't have ABS, pumping the 
> brake pedal generally works well, but also if you can drop to a lower 
> gear, do that.  Don't do anything that would normally cause a fast change 
> in speed because you'll lose control.

So not "OMG, I'm skidding, MAXIMUM BRAKES!!" then?

>> - If you need to go up hill, do it fast so the momentum will carry you
>> over. (I saw lots of people slowing down for the hills in case they
>> skid, or trying to go up a hill from a stationary position.)
> 
> It depends on the hill.  If you go fast and there's a stop sign at the 
> top of the hill, your chances of blowing through the intersection are 
> really good, and there's always a chance when you do that of running into 
> cross traffic if it's not a 4-way stop.

We're talking about hilly country roads that go on for miles without any 
junctions.

> The important thing when driving on ice is to not make any sudden changes 
> - sudden turns, slamming on the brakes, fast acceleration - all of these 
> can cause a loss of control.

And yet, almost every person I observed either immediately slammed on 
the brakes, or started wildly trying to correct the steering.

Jesus, people don't know how to drive in the snow... And this is... 
England?? O_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:45:36 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> - The correct way to get traction is to turn the wheels as slowly as
>>> possible, not spin them at maximum power.
>> 
>> Yes, that is correct.  Spinning the wheels will generally dig you in
>> deeper.
> 
> And yet, the girl we helped had her big, powerful BWM running at maximum
> revs. Perhaps she thinks if she revs it fast enough, eventually it will
> have some effect?

Well, yeah, a lot of people have mistaken ideas about a lot of different 
topics.

I suppose the logic is that if you dig in deep enough, you'll hit the 
real ground and the car will have enough momentum to jump out of the 
hole.  That can happen, but it also can be quite dangerous.

> (Logically, if you spin the wheels long enough, you'll dig down to where
> the road is. Unfortunately, you now have to drive up a rather big hill
> to go anywhere...)

Yep (guess I should've read a bit further, eh?)

>>> - If your car skids, turn into the direction of the skid.
>> 
>> Correct, but you have to be careful not to over-correct, lest you hit a
>> dry patch on the road and spin the car.  I did that and ended up in the
>> ditch, once - after doing a 360 in one direction and then a 720 in the
>> opposite.
> 
> Well, the incidents I whitnessed today all happened at around 5 MPH or
> less.

Yeah, it doesn't take much.  I spun out going onto a motorway, hit a 
patch of black ice while accelerating, and then overcorrected.

Experience is a good teacher, but some things shouldn't need to be 
experienced. ;-)

>> Well, brakes tend to be "on or off", if you don't have ABS, pumping the
>> brake pedal generally works well, but also if you can drop to a lower
>> gear, do that.  Don't do anything that would normally cause a fast
>> change in speed because you'll lose control.
> 
> So not "OMG, I'm skidding, MAXIMUM BRAKES!!" then?

Exactly.  Yet a lot of people's instinct is to slam on the brakes.  It's 
not always a conscious thing, though - and it's the sort of thing you 
have to be aware of as it happens.

There's been a couple of very public examples of not freaking out under 
extreme life-threatening pressure lately:  The guy who was in a tandem 
skydiving jump when his instructor had a heart attack and died, and the 
plane that went down in the Hudson river.

In both cases, the person in control (the student jumper in the skydiving 
incident, the pilot in the Hudson incident) didn't freak out, but 
remained calm.  The skydiving student had military training and that just 
kinda kicked in from the reports I've read of his account.  The pilot did 
ditch the plane in the river - which given the situation was better than 
hitting a residential section, and he managed to keep the plane level.  
IIRC there were some minor injuries, but all 55 passengers and the crew 
survived his "water landing".

This same need to remain calm carries into driving on slippery roads.  
You need a good situational awareness as well - keeping yourself from 
skidding out of control does little good if some lunatic runs into you 
because they're not there.

The best place to be when the roads are slick is not on the roads, 
obviously, but keeping an eye out all around (which requires very intense 
concentration IME) is important so if someone's driving like a lunatic, 
you're not in their way by the time they get to you.

>>> - If you need to go up hill, do it fast so the momentum will carry you
>>> over. (I saw lots of people slowing down for the hills in case they
>>> skid, or trying to go up a hill from a stationary position.)
>> 
>> It depends on the hill.  If you go fast and there's a stop sign at the
>> top of the hill, your chances of blowing through the intersection are
>> really good, and there's always a chance when you do that of running
>> into cross traffic if it's not a 4-way stop.
> 
> We're talking about hilly country roads that go on for miles without any
> junctions.

Well, having driven on country roads such as you describe in England, I 
observed that they rarely have long straight stretches; going fast on a 
slippery winding road also doesn't help.

Actually, there's a drive I took in New York State (north of NYC) where I 
was teaching a class a few years ago.  Ran into slippery, winding, snow-
packed country roads to get to the site (a school, oddly enough), and the 
rental car was from Georgia with all-purpose tires (not winter driving 
tires).  It took me about 90 minutes to go 10 miles, I just put the car 
in low gear and let the engine do the work, giving it very little gas the 
entire way.

Up hills, down hills, around corners, etc.  Fast wouldn't have helped 
there because of the lay of the roads.

>> The important thing when driving on ice is to not make any sudden
>> changes - sudden turns, slamming on the brakes, fast acceleration - all
>> of these can cause a loss of control.
> 
> And yet, almost every person I observed either immediately slammed on
> the brakes, or started wildly trying to correct the steering.

Yep.  Every year at the beginning of the winter season, I observe what 
I've come to term "vehicular darwinism" - people with big 4x4 vehicles 
driving like lunatics and letting their instincts/reactions guide them 
straight off the road.  Sometimes with very bad results, usually with 
slightly bad results.

> Jesus, people don't know how to drive in the snow... And this is...
> England?? O_O

Well, your weather tends to be pretty moderate; driving on snow and ice 
is something that can improve with practice, but in England you don't get 
a lot of practice.

I learned to drive on packed snow and ice - and when you're doing your 
behind-the-wheel instruction in those circumstances, the experience is 
very different.  There were days my entire lesson was "get the car from 
the high school to your house" (about 15 miles).

Learning to drive in that situation also had a downside - I couldn't 
correctly judge stopping distances on dry pavement properly because I'd 
had no practice at it at all.  I learned quickly, of course, but the 
first time I tried to stop on dry ice-free roads was interesting, and 
even kinda funny.  Fortunately, I didn't run into anything/anyone.

Jim

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>>>> - If your car skids, turn into the direction of the skid.
>>> Correct, but you have to be careful not to over-correct, lest you hit a
>>> dry patch on the road and spin the car.  I did that and ended up in the
>>> ditch, once - after doing a 360 in one direction and then a 720 in the
>>> opposite.
>> Well, the incidents I whitnessed today all happened at around 5 MPH or
>> less.
> 
> Yeah, it doesn't take much.  I spun out going onto a motorway, hit a 
> patch of black ice while accelerating, and then overcorrected.

I mean, I don't support you're that likely to spin the car when it's 
barely moving to start with. Just slide into the curb, really. (Or into 
some expensive car, at least...)

> Experience is a good teacher, but some things shouldn't need to be 
> experienced. ;-)

Like practicing how to repair a punctured lung using only a coat hanger?

>> So not "OMG, I'm skidding, MAXIMUM BRAKES!!" then?
> 
> Exactly.  Yet a lot of people's instinct is to slam on the brakes.  It's 
> not always a conscious thing, though - and it's the sort of thing you 
> have to be aware of as it happens.

Yeah, well... some people don't seem to realise that this is even the 
wrong response.

>> We're talking about hilly country roads that go on for miles without any
>> junctions.
> 
> Well, having driven on country roads such as you describe in England, I 
> observed that they rarely have long straight stretches; going fast on a 
> slippery winding road also doesn't help.

Well, it all depends.

In Switzerland, the mountain roads are under snow for half the year, and 
nobody seems to care much. OTOH... snowchains?

>> Jesus, people don't know how to drive in the snow... And this is...
>> England?? O_O
> 
> Well, your weather tends to be pretty moderate; driving on snow and ice 
> is something that can improve with practice, but in England you don't get 
> a lot of practice.

I guess that's the thing. When I was a child, it used to snow *every 
year*. As in, the whole country would be under perhaps a foot or so of 
snow for at least a few weeks every single year. There was so much snow 
you could actually build a snowman.

These days, some years there isn't even any frost, let alone *snow*! 
Every time I see a snowman, it looks very anemic - because nobody can 
find enough snow to do it properly! ;-)

Which reminds me... the last time it really snowed properly, I was still 
at school. It was about, I don't know, 30 cm or so, varying from place 
to place. Anyway, being very bored schoolkids, somebody starting rolling 
snow, and... well I think we used the *entire* football pitch. Do you 
have any idea how much snow there is in an area that large??

By the end of it, half the school was rolling this boulder of compacted 
ice along. We rolled it down the hill - Jesus, if anybody had been in 
the way, they would have been killed! - and we dumped it into the school 
pond. Man, it was like a nuke or something! One hell of a splash! ;-)

It took about 4 weeks for that ball to melt completely...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:57:28 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>>>> - If your car skids, turn into the direction of the skid.
>>>> Correct, but you have to be careful not to over-correct, lest you hit
>>>> a dry patch on the road and spin the car.  I did that and ended up in
>>>> the ditch, once - after doing a 360 in one direction and then a 720
>>>> in the opposite.
>>> Well, the incidents I whitnessed today all happened at around 5 MPH or
>>> less.
>> 
>> Yeah, it doesn't take much.  I spun out going onto a motorway, hit a
>> patch of black ice while accelerating, and then overcorrected.
> 
> I mean, I don't support you're that likely to spin the car when it's
> barely moving to start with. Just slide into the curb, really. (Or into
> some expensive car, at least...)

Depends on the ice.  I've seen cars spin out at low speed.  They spin 
slowly, but they can spin out.

>> Experience is a good teacher, but some things shouldn't need to be
>> experienced. ;-)
> 
> Like practicing how to repair a punctured lung using only a coat hanger?

Yeah, that's a good example. ;-)

>>> So not "OMG, I'm skidding, MAXIMUM BRAKES!!" then?
>> 
>> Exactly.  Yet a lot of people's instinct is to slam on the brakes. 
>> It's not always a conscious thing, though - and it's the sort of thing
>> you have to be aware of as it happens.
> 
> Yeah, well... some people don't seem to realise that this is even the
> wrong response.

That's because they don't think about it, they just react on instinct.  
Their instinct is "if I press the brakes hard, I will stop".  Add to that 
a lack of experience that is contrary to what their instincts say, and, 
well, there you go....

>>> We're talking about hilly country roads that go on for miles without
>>> any junctions.
>> 
>> Well, having driven on country roads such as you describe in England, I
>> observed that they rarely have long straight stretches; going fast on a
>> slippery winding road also doesn't help.
> 
> Well, it all depends.
> 
> In Switzerland, the mountain roads are under snow for half the year, and
> nobody seems to care much. OTOH... snowchains?

Snowchains can help, but only in the right circumstances.  Using them on 
dry pavement is really bad - for the tires, for the roads.....

But also, in places where snow is on the ground a lot, people have 
adapted to learn how to drive in the conditions.

>>> Jesus, people don't know how to drive in the snow... And this is...
>>> England?? O_O
>> 
>> Well, your weather tends to be pretty moderate; driving on snow and ice
>> is something that can improve with practice, but in England you don't
>> get a lot of practice.
> 
> I guess that's the thing. When I was a child, it used to snow *every
> year*. As in, the whole country would be under perhaps a foot or so of
> snow for at least a few weeks every single year. There was so much snow
> you could actually build a snowman.

See, a foot of snow isn't a lot compared to what I grew up in - we could 
tunnel under the snow and make forts.  Which of course these days is 
described as incredibly dangerous, and it probably was back then too, but 
we lived to tell the tale.

And the snow was persistent from when it started in early November 
through March.  Not just a couple of weeks a year, but for months on end.

> These days, some years there isn't even any frost, let alone *snow*!
> Every time I see a snowman, it looks very anemic - because nobody can
> find enough snow to do it properly! ;-)

:-)  Right now the landscape here in the state where the license plates 
declare "The Greatest Snow on Earth" is pretty anemic.  But the base in 
the mountains is 75-100".

> Which reminds me... the last time it really snowed properly, I was still
> at school. It was about, I don't know, 30 cm or so, varying from place
> to place. Anyway, being very bored schoolkids, somebody starting rolling
> snow, and... well I think we used the *entire* football pitch. Do you
> have any idea how much snow there is in an area that large??

A lot.  Cubing stuff (any stuff) tends to make the numbers big. :-)

> By the end of it, half the school was rolling this boulder of compacted
> ice along. We rolled it down the hill - Jesus, if anybody had been in
> the way, they would have been killed! - and we dumped it into the school
> pond. Man, it was like a nuke or something! One hell of a splash! ;-)
>
> It took about 4 weeks for that ball to melt completely...

That sounds like fun. :-)

Jim

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> Well, brakes tend to be "on or off", if you don't have ABS, pumping the
> brake pedal generally works well, but also if you can drop to a lower
> gear, do that.

Watch out though when changing down (in a manual), you might lock the driven 
wheels if you let up the clutch too quickly, in a rear wheel drive car this 
can give you a good wake up call :-)

> I also will occasionally tap the brakes to see if the car will slow
> down.

Yep this is good advice, when it's safe to do so then *try out* how much 
grip you actually have, this will avoid a big surprise later up the road 
when you really do need to stop or turn quickly.

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> I mean, I don't support you're that likely to spin the car when it's 
> barely moving to start with. Just slide into the curb, really. (Or into 
> some expensive car, at least...)

Having a rear wheel drive car makes it vastly easier to spin around.  In a 
front wheel drive car you are more likely to just go straight in a corner 
and hit the barrier/curb, in a RWD car you are more likely to end up facing 
the wrong way.

> Yeah, well... some people don't seem to realise that this is even the 
> wrong response.

If you want to stop your car actually spinning around and are happy for it 
just to carry on sliding in a predictable manner then slamming on the brakes 
is the best thing to do.  If you don't then at some point the car will get 
some grip back and make some sudden movement you probably weren't expecting. 
Depends on the situation of course, but it's wrong to say never brake if you 
are skidding.

> In Switzerland, the mountain roads are under snow for half the year, and 
> nobody seems to care much. OTOH... snowchains?

And thick snow is predictable, patchy ice isn't.

> I guess that's the thing. When I was a child, it used to snow *every 
> year*. As in, the whole country would be under perhaps a foot or so of 
> snow for at least a few weeks every single year.

Sorry, but IIRC I'm roughly the same age as you and I certainly don't 
remember it ever being like that.  I can remember ONCE when we had as much 
snow as you seem to have had recently, that was the only time I got to see a 
snow plough come down our road.  Certainly it never lasted for more than a 
day or two, and certainly not every year.

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