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Pique's guide to winter driving
Page 4 of 8
By law, you need to have winter tires with a minimum 3.5mm of depth. Actually, most winter tires are made with two compounds — the first half is true winter rubber, the second part is more of an all-season mix. Therefore a half-worn winter tire is not going to do the job. Another note on tire wear: if your vehicle's summer or all-season rubber is half worn, your wet weather traction has decreased by at least 30 percent. Understanding this, and adjusting speed and following distance accordingly, is part of being a skilled driver.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure can designate that winter tires are required on certain roads and roadways. The Sea to Sky Highway is currently exempt, although sections of the highway can be closed to vehicles without chains or winter tires in stormy weather. The highway can also be closed to all vehicles at any time until it can be properly plowed and salted.
5. Brakes over transmission — This is an extension of the first point, but Sidorov emphasizes the importance of braking while driving. "There are a lot of misunderstandings that people have about driving. For example, some people think it's good to use your gears to slow down but that information is about 40 to 50 years out of date. Brakes are for slowing down; gear selection, done before a corner, is for acceleration."
6. Skid Control — Sidorov's winter driving courses involve skid control training. First, he teaches his students how to react in a skid situation — where to look, where to steer, and so on. Then he teaches drivers how to avoid skids using various driving techniques.
Front wheel skids are common, and if the driver responds incorrectly they can become a rear wheel skid as well. Loss of traction at the front wheels is usually caused by too much acceleration or too much braking. "Ease off on the offending pedal, and don't add too much steering. Time acceleration so no significant power is added until you are beginning to unwind your steering input. That is a go-fast tip from the racetrack and a stay safe tip for everyday driving," he says.
In a rear-wheel skid, Sidorov gives this advice:
- More people get into more trouble with the rebound than with the first skid. This is sometimes called "overcorrecting" but Sidorov says it's more of an issue of "under-recovering. Stay off the power. "This is very hard for your average male to accept, but a rear-wheel skid is not a parking lot slide," says Sidorov. "A true skid means the back wheels are seriously trying to pass the fronts. Standard advanced driving rule is 'when in doubt, both feet out.' In other words, when you are still trying to correct the skid, no power, no brakes."
- "Having corrected for the original skid, it's imperative to bring the steering wheel back to your direction of travel as close as possible at the rate at which the skid is diminishing," he says. "Not doing that is why we fishtail, go one way and then the other... I'd rather have people not correct a big skid if they're not ready for part two, which is where you can end up in a ditch or backwards or on your roof." However, if the vehicle has spun beyond 90 degrees the rule is both feet in. Hard braking, and depress the clutch if applicable. At that point you just want to stop, and this increases your chance of staying on the road.
- Knowing where to look is critical for skid recovery. Even if we are looking well ahead while driving, in stressful skid situations we tend to focus our eyesight on the dangers — the tree, the ditch, the vehicle in front of us — rather than the way we should be going or the safe gap that is available. That makes it less likely we will steer effectively and more likely we will panic.
- Push-pull steering is more precise than hand over hand. It has been part of police training for over forty years, and has been required to get a license in Europe for longer than that. Unfortunately, even trained drivers often let skills lapse. In risk management terms this is called drift, and not the fun kind. Drift is a gradual movement away from known safe procedures. "This happens often because less safe procedures are easier, more fun, and we are not immediately punished for being lazy. The proper way to drive is with hands at nine and three o'clock, thumbs resting lightly on the spokes, then use large push-pull steering moves, each hand staying on its side of the wheel. Definitely less painful should the airbag deploy," says Sidorov.
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