While we don’t see the circumstances that led up to this series of shunts, it’s possible these embarrassing and expensive videos could’ve been avoided if a few winter driving tips were followed. Take it from someone who daily drove a rear-wheel-drive crapcan in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains, commuting in similar conditions on similar roads to what’s seen in these videos.
Slow Down
As in any situation where you don’t have the grip afforded by dry asphalt, it’s best to kick things down a notch or two in the snow. Now, this doesn’t mean go drive 30 mph on an interstate taking up two lanes with your hazard lights on, it means never driving faster than the road, your equipment, and your abilities can safely support. However, slowing down in winter conditions doesn’t just mean reducing speed, it means slowing down all driver inputs. A common saying in the world of track driving is “slow hands.” Basically, tires only have so much grip and fast steering inputs can often overwhelm the tires past the point of adhesion. Once that happens, a driver will generally experience oversteer, which can result in a spin if not caught, or understeer, which you’re seeing in these videos. Slower, more careful steering inputs can help a driver maintain traction in slippery conditions, a must when driving in snow. In addition to fast steering inputs, hard accelerator and brake inputs can also cause a vehicle to break traction. When in doubt, drive like a chauffeur with exceptionally smooth and reasonably slow pedal inputs. Generally, this will help keep a driver out of trouble, although the steep downhill in this video calls for another tactic of slowing a car down in slippery conditions.
Engine Braking Is Your Friend
The wheels on all vehicles involved in this shitshow aren’t rotating. Hardpack snow and ice has a very low coefficient of friction compared to asphalt, so it’s best to keep the wheels rotating or else the handling of a vehicle will soon resemble that of a hockey puck. Generally, anti-lock braking systems have an ice calibration that attempts to mitigate locking, but there’s an even better way to slow a car’s roll down a slippery hill than with the hydraulic brakes. Generally, if you downshift smoothly, engine braking uses manifold vacuum to slow the rotation of your engine. So long as said engine is connected to the drive wheels, those drive wheels will also slow down. Engine braking on long descents is great because it’s gentle and unlikely to lock the wheels. However, if you don’t downshift smoothly, torque to the drive wheels can spike which isn’t great for traction.
Leave Distance
It’s hard to leave any less distance between cars than what’s between the fire department’s K2XX GM truck and that undercover Tahoe. They’re really putting that pushbar to work, right? Anyway, the greater the distance between two vehicles, the more time the trailing vehicle has to stop. Remember the three-second rule from driver’s ed? Take that, throw at least a two-times multiplier on it, and you’ll get a general sense of how much distance you should leave for winter driving. The American Automobile Association recommends a following distance of five to six seconds in the snow. When in doubt, it’s always better to leave extra distance than leave too little.
Tires Matter
While we can’t say for sure what tires the vehicles in these videos were running, it’s worth reminding everyone that winter tires are one of the best changes you can make to a vehicle for winter driving. Let’s start by looking at how winter tires help you stop on hardpack snow and ice.
On dry pavement, the limitation of single panic stop distance isn’t typically a car’s brakes. For any car that can lock its brakes up, tires are the limiting factor. See, when a driver locks up a vehicle’s brakes, that means the friction between the brake pad and brake disc is stronger than the friction between the tire and the road. So, how do we fix this? Just like how switching to an ultra-sticky set of tires can shorten dry braking distance, switching to a proper set of winter tires can shorten braking distance in winter conditions. Sipes bite into the snow and ice, deep channels clear slush out from under the tires, and a soft compound keeps everything flexible when the going gets cold.
This bite on the frozen stuff during braking directly translates to increased cornering ability and better traction under acceleration than with a comparable set of all-season tires. As a bonus, running dedicated winter tires means you can get fun, sticky summer tires for fairer seasons. Of course, even the best set of winter tires can’t overcome the laws of physics, but a better grip on the road could be the difference between avoiding a collision and having one.
While it’s not always possible to avoid snowy road conditions, good practices, good equipment, and a cool head can go a long way towards reaching your destination safely. Now bolt on those winter tires, re-torque after 60 miles, get your car undercoated with Fluid Film, Krown, or a similar product, and feel good about driving through Jack Frost’s backyard.
Lead photo credit: daviddean140/TikTok
A skidding tire cannot steer and a steering tire is more likely to skid.
“I don’t need winter tires, I have 4WD and all season tires” “I don’t need winter tires, I have 4WD and all terrain tires” “It never really snows and all season or all terrain tires are fine even at freezing temperatures on cold pavement.” “I have traction control, that shortens braking distances” “So it takes an extra metre or so to stop, big deal. What am I going to hit anyway?”*
*answer, that thing that was a metre or so closer.
:ROLL:
Also, engine breaking is a particularly good reason to recommend a manual transmission for winter driving, especially because it makes it easy to moderate via the clutch. It’s also much better for skid control responses.
Man, I’m old and fun at parties…
Also, people don’t seem to get that once temperatures drop below 5C/40F, you need winter tire compounds for grip. Summer/all season tires harden up. It’s not just snow and ice that are a factor.
Finally, maybe not a factor where you are, but I get a discount on my insurance for using winter tires.
Everyone wants to shit on all seasons (lol no seasons) but they absolutely excel in two seasons – autumn and spring. When temperatures can vary wildly and pavement is wet but not snow covered or frozen – all seasons are ideal.
But yeah, if you live in an apartment somewhere it only snows twice a year, snow tires are probably overkill. And “never be in a hurry” is the best winter driving advice no matter what kind of tires you have.
A combination of careful driving and not freaking out when you do slide goes a long way…
Crashes don’t happen because you are stuck, they happen because you can’t stop.
Move to Florida.
It’s 80 degrees today. I haven’t seen snow in years.
If those guys just let off the brake pedal and steered gently to the left, they wouldn’t have hit anything. You’d think cops in B.C. would be more tuned into the whole “you can’t steer and brake at the same time on ice” thing. Apparently not.
Also did the annual Fluid Film bath on both cars over the weekend before the weather got too chilly. Popping off the rubber plugs in the rockers, they’re intact. Which is awesome.
How on earth do you make an official recommendation of distance in SECONDS? I get it that varying speeds have an influence on braking distance, but why not just err on the side of caution and recommended a somewhat exaggerated distance in, you know, a unit of length? Since you’re (hopefully) monitoring this visually, I would say it’s easier to estimate your length than stopping time. But I realise this is based on a driver’s ed recommendation, so maybe it’s something that American drivers are just more used to?
You answered the question yourself. Following distance at 20 mph is drastically different from at 75. How do you sanely represent that to a new driver who doesn’t have an instinctive understanding of following distance? “You need to be somewhere between 20 and 300 feet behind the car ahead depending on your speed” is not a useful statement to make. “Follow 2 (or 3, depending on where you live, apparently) seconds behind the car ahead” is easy to figure out on the fly with no actual math. Other than being able to count to 3, I guess. 😉
The point of the video and subject of the write up is still clear in any case
