Idiot drivers in snow

[GordonH]

Here we go again, winter is coming to an end and some drivers still have not mastered driving in snow. Slow down to road conditions, maybe try that.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/21 ... erous-road

[Dizzy1]

Here we go again, winter is coming to an end and some drivers still have not mastered driving in snow. Slow down to road conditions, maybe try that.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/21 ... erous-road

- Speed limit is 90km/h - driver does 90km/h - gets into accident - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- Next driver has an accident at 70km/h - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- Next driver has an accident at 50km/h - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- Next driver has an accident at 30km/h - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- Next driver has an accident at 10km/h - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- yada, yada, yada.

And no, you shouldn't drive to conditions - you should drive to your and your vehicle's abilities - for some its higher and for some its lower. Road conditions are subjective to people with varying amount of abilities.

Just make sure to pull over when its safe to do so and let those with a higher ability go safely by

[GordonH]

^^^ doesn't matter how fast one can go in winter conditions, it's how well one can take curves & slow down/or stop (anyone can do the posted speed limit, thing is should they. If they can't make curves or slow down.... without sliding)
We all know highway sanding & snow removal sucks.

[alanjh595]

Here we go again, winter is coming to an end and some drivers still have not mastered driving in snow. Slow down to road conditions, maybe try that.
https://www.castanet.net/news/Vernon/21 ... erous-road

- Speed limit is 90km/h - driver does 90km/h - gets into accident - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- Next driver has an accident at 70km/h - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- Next driver has an accident at 50km/h - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- Next driver has an accident at 30km/h - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- Next driver has an accident at 10km/h - Castanet posters respond "should have driven to conditions"
- yada, yada, yada.

And no, you shouldn't drive to conditions - you should drive to your and your vehicle's abilities - for some its higher and for some its lower. Road conditions are subjective to people with varying amount of abilities.

Just make sure to pull over when its safe to do so and let those with a higher ability go safely by

All of those things are "conditions", like.

Road surface.
Visability.
Stopping distance.
Tire conditions.
Driver ability.
Speed and weight of vehicle.
Potential hazards.
Brakes and/or ABS.
4WD/All wheel/ front wheel/rear wheel drive.

Everything is to be taken into account as a condition of safe travel and should be factored in when operating a motor vehicle.

[alanjh595]

Same applies to driving.

[Dizzy1]

All of those things are "conditions", like.

Road surface.
Visability.
Stopping distance.
Tire conditions.
Driver ability.
Speed and weight of vehicle.
Potential hazards.
Brakes and/or ABS.
4WD/All wheel/ front wheel/rear wheel drive.

Everything is to be taken into account as a condition of safe travel and should be factored in when operating a motor vehicle.

Exactly, And each of those “conditions” vary - hence drive to the your personal ability and of your vehicle. There is no set matrix on any given road determining that such and such condition warrants a set speed (other than a speed limit of course),

[dodgerdodge]

Exactly, And each of those “conditions” vary - hence drive to the your personal ability and of your vehicle. There is no set matrix on any given road determining that such and such condition warrants a set speed (other than a speed limit of course),

And there you have it, the speed limit is the "maximum" permissible speed in ideal conditions. Clearly yesterday was not ideal conditions on that road so slow the heck down. Too many people think they have some kind of expert driving ability because they have a 4 x 4 and winter tires.
Saw the same thing coming out of Vernon last winter, multiple people in the ditch as it was real slick yet still people were passing at stupid speeds clearly oblivious to the conditions

[alanjh595]

Exactly, And each of those “conditions” vary - hence drive to the your personal ability and of your vehicle. There is no set matrix on any given road determining that such and such condition warrants a set speed (other than a speed limit of course),

And there you have it, the speed limit is the "maximum" permissible speed in ideal conditions. Clearly yesterday was not ideal conditions on that road so slow the heck down. Too many people think they have some kind of expert driving ability because they have a 4 x 4 and winter tires.
Saw the same thing coming out of Vernon last winter, multiple people in the ditch as it was real slick yet still people were passing at stupid speeds clearly oblivious to the conditions

Yes. 4x4 and tires only affects traction during acceleration, maybe helps with some cornering. The fact is that there is still the same amount of tire surface area that has contact with the pavement during deceleration. A "locked-up" tire will make little difference between bald and snow tires. The best braking is obtained when a wheel is still turning and maximum friction is applied by the brakes. (Ever apply the brakes so hard as to lock-up the wheels and it feels like you are going faster all of a sudden?) Because you are.

Good braking technique is a compromise between the two following factors:
If you have locked your front wheels, you lose steering control
The point of maximum deceleration is just before the point of wheel lock

[LTD]

quality winter tires will stop ten times better your info is false

[lesliepaul]

quality winter tires will stop ten times better your info is false

WOW ........again.

So, if you take a 100 feet to stop with "All Season" tires..........."Winter" tires will stop in 10 feet.

[LTD]

the difference between "bald"and winters learn to read pretty much goes for garbage all seasons tho to

[dodgerdodge]

So after bad weather causes roads to be slick and vehicles sliding off the highway between Vernon and Lake Country the other day we get an exact repeat today. What is wrong with people do they not read the news and read the conditions before they head off with their right foot buried?

[Tony]

quality winter tires will stop ten times better your info is false

OK... not quite 10 times better, but here's a whole article on the test results....
https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/fea ... ummer.html

It's a chilly February morning in northern Minnesota, and a broad expanse of groomed snow stretches before our thermally booted feet. We're standing on the 54-acre snow VDA (Vehicle Dynamics Area) at Automotive Enviro Testing (AET), a company that builds and maintains a sprawling, snowy proving ground in Baudette, Minnesota, each winter for those bent on testing the performance of cars and tires in winter conditions.

And testing tires on snow is precisely why we're here. It's Step One of our quest to quantify the differences among three types of tires (summer, all-season and winter) in three types of driving conditions (dry pavement, wet pavement and snow).

When we're done playing on the white stuff, we'll ship these tires to a specially built facility for wet-asphalt tire testing in Arizona (of all places) for Step Two and then haul them back to California to finish off the rubber with our usual testing regimen on dry pavement. This test sequence — snow before wet before dry — is critical because it ensures that the tread stays in top condition for each successive test.

When we're done, we hope to answer some important questions. Do snow tires represent a big advantage in winter driving? What's the best type of tire for wet pavement? Are all-season tires really a helpful compromise? Are the differences really all that significant?

The Tires
You've heard it before: Tires are much more than black, air-filled cylinders that provide protection for your shiny alloy rims. The four fist-size contact points that exist where the tires meet the ground represent the only link between the multiple thousands of man-hours of complex engineering in the car above and the wide range of road and weather conditions that can exist below.

Tires matter — a lot. The variety of possible road conditions is so vast that you can significantly alter the performance of your vehicle with a simple change of tires.

Let's meet the players in our little experiment:

Summer tires — known simply as "tires" before all-season tire use became widespread — are currently marketed as "performance" or "high-performance" tires. The tread is generally comprised of large tread blocks with high lateral stiffness, while wide circumferential grooves expel and sequester water. The rubber formulation is calibrated for warm weather and pays little heed to snow and ice.

Snow tires, on the other hand, utilize rubber compounds specifically formulated to produce grip at low temperatures and a tread that features a pattern of elements that are oriented to physically bite into snow. A network of hair-thin cuts — known as "sipes" — crisscrosses the tread blocks, subdividing them into numerous edges for added grip. The result is a squishier, less stable tread than you'd see on any summer tire.

All-season tires can't be as singled-minded as these others. Their tread pattern seeks to serve both dry-weather grip and snowstorm bite, so we see medium-size tread blocks that provide some lateral stiffness along with an increased number of biting edges. Sipes are present, but not in great numbers. An intermediate rubber compound with a wider temperature range is often employed.

And because all-season tires are the default tire on many new cars today, they have to somehow simultaneously minimize noise levels, maximize tread life and promote fuel economy with low rolling resistance. In short, all-season tires are asked to do everything.

Selection Criteria
As you might imagine, this test represents a big undertaking, with many potential pitfalls. We took pains to eliminate as many variables as possible before we booked hotel rooms in the wilds of northern Minnesota.

For starters, we would test same-size tires to isolate the effects of the various tread patterns and rubber compounds. We also sought a trio of test tires that were produced by a single tiremaker — it didn't matter which — to ensure that they were developed with a shared engineering philosophy. Beyond that, we wanted original equipment tires (OE) that were developed specifically for a particular car and installed on the assembly line. Finally, we planned to test the tires using the very car for which they were developed.

The ideal tire candidates would therefore come from a vehicle that offered same-size, same-brand summer and all-season OE alternatives, straight from the factory. Winter tires, of course, are always aftermarket replacements.

Only one car satisfied all of these specific requirements: the Honda Civic Si. It can be bought with your choice of Michelin Pilot HX MXM4 all-season tires or, for $200 more, Michelin Pilot Exalto PE2 high-performance summer tires, both in size 215/45R17. And Michelin builds an aftermarket snow tire in that very size, the Michelin Primacy Alpin PA3.

The Tests
Online tire seller Tirerack.com agreed to provide new mounted and balanced test tires for our effort and it shipped them straight to AET's door, ready to go. They're sitting outdoors in the snow, acclimating to the temperature as we survey the test course and install our VBOX data logger in the bright red 2009 Civic Si four-door we drove up from Minneapolis last night.

Typical tire validation tests in snow focus on a tire's performance in city and suburban traffic situations, so 0-40-mph acceleration and 40-0-mph braking tests are the norm. We're adding these tests to our usual 60-mph evaluations and will continue to use them on all three surfaces.

But we're not running our usual 600-foot slalom because the multiple runs required to get good data create deep ruts in the snow that skew the results. But we can still use a skid pad for lateral grip measurement because we can get representative data with no more than a single pass in each direction on AET's snow circle.

Lest you think that performance testing is inconsistent with the careful driving necessary to survive on slippery roads, consider this: Reduced traction on slick surfaces makes at-the-limit situations likely in everyday driving. And along these same lines, we'll be keeping our Civic's traction control system up and running during all of our tests because, if not now, when?

Snow Test Results
No one expects the snow tires to come in anywhere but 1st place on this wintry surface at AET. The point here is to see how big their advantage really is over all-season and summer tires.

It takes 11.7 seconds for our Civic Si to accelerate to 40 mph on snow tires, and 14.5 seconds to get there on all-season rubber — nearly 3 seconds and 24 percent slower. As for the summer tires, well, they require, ahem, 41.7 seconds as they struggle to 40 mph. That's no typo; it takes a half-minute longer — 257 percent more time — for the summer tires to reach this modest speed.

What about our traditional 0-60-mph test? Well, snow tires get to 60 mph in 19.1 seconds, while the all-season treads arrive in 22.9 seconds, nearly 4 seconds later. Forget the summer tires, however. The available 3,650 feet of snow — seven-tenths of a mile — isn't enough. We figure 67 seconds and 3,100 feet are needed to get there, and then there's the small matter of needing to stop again.

And that brings us to our next test: full stops with ABS engaged. Here again the snow tires dominate, stopping from 40 mph in 156 feet, some 28 feet shorter than the all-season tires' 184-foot performance. Meanwhile, our summer tires skate to an ultimate distance of 351 feet, the ABS actuator rattling for all it's worth the whole way.

Increase the starting speed to 60 mph and these distances more than double. It takes 362 feet for the snow tires to stop and 421 feet for the all-season donuts. The summer tires sit this one out because they can't manage to get themselves to 60 mph in the first place. (We do the math instead and come up with an estimate north of 800 feet.)

Skid pad results follow the same now-predictable pattern. Our snow tires pull 0.30 lateral g, the all-seasons manage 0.28g and the summer tires produce a pitiful 0.15g despite a heroic effort by our shivering hot shoe.

[GordonH]

Bumped

Since every year the debate happens about winter tires or something else, I figured I'd bump up this thread.
Of course this will not guarantee that poster will not start a whole new thread on the subject, here goes nothing.

I will start it off with that I'm proponent for vehicles to have proper winter tires (this includes valley bottom traveling). My personal choice is Nokian winter tires, since I don't usually travel mountain passes during winter (I buy non-studded tires).

[alanjh595]

Bumped

Since every year the debate happens about winter tires or something else, I figured I'd bump up this thread.
Of course this will not guarantee that poster will not start a whole new thread on the subject, here goes nothing.

I will start it off with that I'm proponent for vehicles to have proper winter tires (this includes valley bottom traveling). My personal choice is Nokian winter tires, since I don't usually travel mountain passes during winter (I buy non-studded tires).

"Studded" tires are great for icy surfaces. We don't get many of those here. We get more snow, slush, and water problems than ice.
We need tires that are suited for those conditions, and drivers that understand and correct for those situations BEFORE they get into trouble.
Any kind of tire does not compensate for driver stupidity.