How To Drive In Snow
Winter is perhaps my favourite season, especially when there is ice and snow. It’s great fun while it lasts, but obviously severe weather comes with its challenges. Driving in snow and ice is hazardous, but with a bit of common sense should be possible. I’m amazed at some of the basic mistakes I’ve seen motorists making in the last few days. Here are a few tips for the entire generation out there who have never seen proper snow before, let alone driven in it.
Caveat emptor: if you crash, it’s your fault, not mine. It’s up to you to learn to drive in the snow for yourself, by trial and error, as I did. My advice might help you, or it might be completely wrong. You must make that judgement call for yourself and accept responsibility for the outcome.
- Be smooth
- keep your distance, stopping distances can increase by an order of magnitude (tenfold)!
- allow plenty of distance for the unexpected to happen – trying to do an emergency stop on snow will result in a grotesque slow-motion ballet of misery.
- steer, accelerate and decelerate gently and smoothly
- Keep power to a minimum
- Spinning wheels means no control, no steering and no traction
- If your car isn’t going, accelerating harder is not the smartest thing to do
- If you feel your wheels spinning, ease off the power and/or dip the clutch until the wheels regain grip, then reapply power gradually and smoothly.
- Drive in a higher gear (i.e. 3rd instead of 2nd) than you normally would and use the clutch to regulate power.
- Avoid the brakes.
- In snow, brakes are the easiest way to get into a skid and if you’re already in a skid, they’ll make it worse
- ABS mitigates this to some extent, but its better not to rely on the car’s computer to do your driving for you
- Slow down using engine breaking so that the wheels are always turning and maintain traction.
- Think ahead and start slowing down in plenty of time, so you don;t need to use the brakes.
- If you do get into a skid, try not to panic. It’s easy to say but hard to do: keep your head.
- ease off on the power
- steer slightly into the direction of the skid until you regain control.
- trying to steer out of a skid usually just puts you into a spin.
- trying to ‘power’ out of a skid is futile and just means you have no control.
- if your wheels are slipping sideways, even your ABS will be useless – you need to regain traction by easing off the power and steering into the skid.
- Once you’ve regained control, remember to be gentle and smooth.
If you can find a set of snow chains for your vehicle, they’d be a big help when the going gets tough. Snow chains are common in America but for some reason hardly ever seen in the UK.
Carry equipment in your car in case the worst happens. Plan to be able to spend a night in your car in an emergency. Try to keep your fuel tank at least half full so that you can cope with unexpected diversions or if you get stranded, you’ll be able to run the engine to keep warm. Pack a bag with the following items and keep it in the car:
- warm clothes, thermals, thick socks, hat, gloves, waterproofs
- hiking boots or wellies
- a shovel
- some non-perishable food & drink
- a mobile phone to call for help
If you have any further advice to add, or if you disagree with me, then please feel free to tack it on to this post as a comment – or make your own blog post and link back to me. When the going gets tough, the tough get going!