Tribute to Winter

[tofurkey]

Just a compilation of some winter driving scenes quickly pulled from a few weeks of my footage. Nothing terribly exciting, passed one accident scene (midway through the clip). Lots of snow this year, and I won't be sad to see it go!

 

[Alan Collinge]

Do you fit snow tyres when the conditions are like that?

 

[tofurkey]

It isn't that common here - my vehicle has all-wheel drive so I get by without winter tires. There is also the hassle of finding a place to keep your all-season tires (if you rent or have a condo, that can be a problem).
Worse than snow is the really cold temperatures when the snow gets packed down and then polished by traffic - it gets very icy. The all season rubber gets hard faster and looses a lot of grip in those conditions, whereas winter tires stay softer to a much lower temperature and you get much better grip. We do a lot of wheel spinning at intersections to get going which sometimes causes traffic to back up as people don't clear the intersections.

Other provinces in Canada have a much higher usage of winter tires - for instance, in Quebec, winter tires are required by law between Dec 15 and Mar 15.

 

[Gabolinche]

It isn't that common here - my vehicle has all-wheel drive so I get by without winter tires.

Don't mean to threadjack, but I think we're actually still on the "winter" topic. I've only once driven in snow and, thanks to my inexperience, I lost control at some point. Thankfully I ended up stopping in a pile of snow so nothing happened. I think it was in this forum where I read that someone said AWD only helps acceleration but not braking. I imagine winter tires do help in both scenarios (accelerating and braking), right?

 

[tofurkey]

Yes, acceleration is much better with AWD and traction control, but you are right, braking on snow/ice doesn't have anything to do with FWD or AWD.
But when you've been driving on snow/ice all your life, you adjust quickly and learn not to follow too close in slippery conditions.
Really the highest accident rates are at the start of winter during the first few snowfalls and icy conditions when people still try to drive like it was summer or somehow forget all they learned about winter driving. After everyone adjusts, things go back to normal.