What's So Damn Hard About Winter Driving?

[Sailor Steve]

Geez, Mike, I'm sorry to hear that. I was hospitalized for an accident once, and once was enough.

On the other hand, the guy's comment to the cops...

Yeah, here in Salt Lake we see a lot of that too - people thinking that ice is the same as asphalt. Whooooops!!!

Back when I was driving skiers from the airport to the resorts, I was bringing a load down in a driving snowstorm. Twenty mph on the freeway. One guy kept ragging about how he was going to miss his flight. I held my temper, and was saved by another guy who finally said "Hey! I'd rather miss my flight and have to take a later one than not get there at all!

Here's hoping for a speedy recovery.

[ETR3(SS)]

Wow man hope you can get better soon. Vicodin is no joke, I lost a week of boot camp on that stuff. I live just south of Madison and they didn't even start plowing until midday. But I understand ya about winter driving, when I moved back here it seemed like everybody had forgot wth snow and ice are.

[CaptainHaplo]

Heal well and speedily my friend.

[Platapus]

FWD on ice just means that all four wheels are prone to sliding The traditional corrective actions that are used on two wheel drive vehicles are different in FWD vehicles.

Here in Virginia it is a real problem. People who don't understand physics buy these huge FWD SUVs and think they are invulnerable on ice. I have seen people driving on ice roads at 60+ MPH (and seen quite a few of them wipe out in front of me) (not a lot of sympathy from me)

The concepts of inertia, moment, and congruent resultant forces really needs to be understood by drivers in icy conditions.

And don't get me started with people texting while driving on ice.

[Task Force]

Hmm... sorry to hear about you and yer car...

around here... its rain... rain= PANIC!!! forget how to drive!!!

Your back? Any idea how serious it might be?

Road traffic is a frightening thing, just too much craziness going on all the time, not just when (surprise surprise) winter comes.

[Shearwater]

First of all, get well soon.

4WDs aren't as common over here, but I'm frequently pissed off by people who think they can save themselves the trouble of putting own snow tires hoping that it won't snow or freeze.
Thus jerks who can't drive turn into jerks who can't stop.

Originally Posted by Platapus

And don't get me started with people texting while driving on ice.

Another from me. Last New Year's Eve, I was together with a friend of mine and had a couple of beers. It was so slippery we almost couldn't walk (and foggy to boot). When he drove me home and saw that he'd got 14 text messages in the meantime, he simply took his cell phone and started replying. After about half a minute, I told him that this wasn't exactly the way I wanted to die