Hell freezing over

[Chris79]

Try the million dollar highway between Ouray and Durango CO in the winter. The pucker factor on that bad boy is high enough when the roads are nice in the summer.

[Skuzzy]

Stoners + Snow = Bad Trips.

Hey, I have seen "Disjointed".

[1stpar3]

 

Stoners + Snow = Bad Trips.

Hey, I have seen "Disjointed".

[Arlo]

Stoners + Snow = Bad Trips.

Hey, I have seen "Disjointed".

Kelly and I love that show. 

[MiloMorai]

Acceleration and Deceleration should be minimized -- Your tires will spin when you try and go, and slide when you try and stop.  Best practice, let your engine/transmission do the work on both ends.  Idle up to rolling before you put your foot on the gas.  When braking, take into account the fact you'll need much longer to decelerate, again letting the engine dictate the spin of the wheels, this will keep them gripping.  When your breaks become needed, pump them slowly and gently to a stop, don't stop on them.  ABS doesn't work when there's ice on the ground.

Basic rule -- don't drive like a jackwad, and/or learn to drive like a 90 year old woman.   

That is why a manual transmission is nice to have.

[branch37]

Dont get worked up over it, driving while nervous just makes it worse.  4 wheel drive can help you go but it wont help you stop.  Start slowing down WAY in advance, and use the brakes as little as possible.  Give the other cars on the road more than enough room, so when they bellybutton it up, they dont take you out with them.  Carry on as usual, just a little slower. 

[Bizman]

As my dad used to say, in the winter you should drive with the best winter tires as if they were worn out summer slicks.

About 2 ft of snow here, but it has been raining pure water for the last day and it's above freezing point. Wet ice, what could be more slippery?

[Zimme83]

when it rains on the icy road and its below freezing temperatures...

[bustr]

When I was a teenager in Maryland I hit black ice once on a 50ft raised road bed with trees and swamps below each side. My car did two 360's going down the road and stopped once it was off the ice. I turned 100 that day and have driven like that since. Every last thing they said in Drivers Ed came true in 10 seconds and there was nothing you could do to stop it. I got an A in Drivers Ed three years earlier when I was 15, and the practical driving part of the class was during the spring in sunny weather.

[Wiley]

My education in what ice can do came when we'd had a particularly nasty ice storm (which we never got in that area) when I was about 16.

I had to go someplace in a small town that had virtually no street cleaning.  The main street had a layer of ice on it at least an inch thick.  It literally looked exactly like a curling rink.  Uniformly flat, with pebbling.  Never seen anything like it before or since.  I was driving a 76 Buick Century with all season tires on it.

I was going down the main street of the town at 5 mph and braked to turn on the cross street.  Instant tire lock.  I put the car in neutral and braked.  Instant tire lock.  It took me half a block before the car was slow enough to turn, so I wound up taking the next corner to get where I needed to.

The interesting part came on the way home I got out on the highway and babied the car up to about 35mph.  The highway didn't seem to be too bad so I gave it a little bit more gas.  The car didn't even shift down, but the back end fishtailed.  Mercifully there was nobody else on the road because it took me the entire highway, ditch to ditch, and two oscillations back and forth to get control back.  I settled back in at about 30mph and continued on my way.

That was the fastest I've ever been going when I lost traction, and I have not cared to repeat the experience since.  It was no fun.  I have always been lucky in cars for the most part, largely due to that incident making me a lot more cautious.

Wiley.

[Oldman731]

learn to drive like a 90 year old woman.

This is key.

- oldman

[Zimme83]

Looks like NE US is going to get some snow.. Pressure droped 54mb in 24 hours

[Skuzzy]

We were fortunate here.  We had about 3 days of sub 32F temperatures, but it was mostly dry.  Thank goodness.  All it takes is one snow flake on the ground and everyone panics.

Our house has a vantage point overseeing a really busy intersection.  Last snow/ice fall we had we counted 41 accidents at that intersection, in less than 16 hours.  Most were minor.  We played a drinking game while watching.  Got plenty plowed myself. 

[wil3ur]

I moved to California from Montana, so I was pretty used to driving in crappy conditions.  Here, the mere mention of rain and traffic grinds to a halt, cars mysteriously burst into flames and the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse can be seen charging in to seal the fate of the non-believers.

There's a crappy interchange here on a couple of freeways and it combines a downhill, then uphill 90 degree turn and it's banked the wrong way.  All sorts of signs with the squiggly car lines and showing tipping over semi trucks, and it's been that way for years...  you would think people would get it, but no.

One morning on my way to work, it was sprinkling lightly.  As I come around that turn there's one car crashed into the wall, another flipped on it's top halfway down an offramp and another somehow high centered onto the railing past the ramp.  The only thing I could think was "put the hammer down Cole, hold your line and drive on through!".  Needless to say, I made it through that deathtrap just fine by slowing to the suggested speed and driving to the conditions of the road.   

[Skuzzy]

We have an onramp similar to that.  It is a decreasing radius turn, which shifts from positive camber to negative camber.  You can see all the tires marks on the road at the camber change and the obvious damage the concrete and steel rail have had to endure.

Guys, in their pickup trucks, who like to tailgate my Mini are quite funny to watch as the load shifts in the camber change and they screech into the rails, every time.  I just call 911 and tell them they need to send a tow truck to the location.

The Mini is so light the moment of inertia, at the camber shift, is just a quick undulation and it settles in.  People do not get it.