Thursday 5 January 2017

Driving in snow

This was quite an interesting first-time experience.  It basically snowed heavily just before heading home for work.  The snow ploughs were out and about, but they hadn't been able to start their job yet because the traffic was so heavy.

We all had to crawl along at 20 kilometres an hour, so it took quite a bit longer to head home than usual.



In the light of my previous post I am still thoroughly enjoying all this.  It was fascinating to realise that my car didn't just spin out of control like you sometimes see on Youtube (like this one).  I saw the exit of my office as a rather steep slope where you have to stop and I was worried the car would just slide backwards! I approached it tentatively but had no problem stopping near the top and getting going again.
I did have one moment when I got going again after a red traffic light and on a slight upward slope.  My front wheels started spinning and I didn't realise it, I found the car was angling slowly to the left and I couldn't figure out why, I just turned the wheel left until I could figure it out, but it started angling more to the left.  Then I heard the vehicle's engine was running a little quicker than the speed I was travelling so I lifted off the accelerator and it was all good again.  I realised you have to be careful accelerating in snow, of course, that applies to the braking as well.  No sudden deceleration either.

In my first year here it has snowed many more times, but I haven't driven in snow again, but then winter isn't over.  Every time it has snowed the ploughs have come quickly and cleared everything before I got onto the road again.  So far it's mostly snowed at night and then everything is cleared by morning.

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