Winter Driving.

[GardoneVT]

If you're on a road trip in the cold climates and the weather turns sour, where's your personal "Abort Limit" where you pull off and hit a hotel or rest area vs continuing on ?

Is it when visibility goes below your comfort level, or is it when your safe speed drops below a certain point? Perhaps just intuition?

I stopped halfway during a 700 mile trip because of the weather. I've toughed out bad spot of snowy weather before, but that time it looked like I was gonna be spending the night somehwere no matter what. The only choices seemed to be the ditch or a hotel, so I picked the latter.

[YVK]

Totally depends on a situation, i.e. reasons for driving and what I am driving. I learned how to drive on a shitty stick shift russian car driving over a packed snow and ice five months a year. I feel that I might have more experience in this than an average driver. I now live in mountains and the nature of my work makes me drive, albeit a short distance, in any weather. All our cars are AWD, all have a high power to weight ratio, and we rotate into snow tires every November. When bad weather hits, shovels and survival kits go into trunks. My take is very dichotomous. There is pretty much no winter weather that I wouldn't drive my cars if I have to, and I've done that. The snow or temp or speed don't matter; visibility does though. However, if I don't have to, I don't drive period. If you are asking yourself if you should pull over, then you should. It is not about just you, it is about everyone else losing control on that road.

[Clobbersaurus]

Have never had to stop and find a hotel. But I'm from Canada, snowstorms are for recreation here. :cool:


When I was in middle school my family lived in Newfoundland. My father was a Park Warden and was stationed at one of the National Parks there. Our nearest larger city was a two hour drive away. Snow storms were something to behold there, and we usually had snow on the ground until June. Snow was Just part of life there and a snowstorm didn't stop anything. Life carried on no matter what the weather was like. I remember in one particularly bad storm, a fish truck blew over in the packing plants parking lot. They still didn't close school. My mom kept my brother and I home that day.

Another time, during a brutal snowstorm, we were coming home from a visit to a town up the road. I remember my dad having to get out of the car and scout ahead on foot because he could not determine where the side of the road was and he was worried we would drive right into the ditch. Stopping in that stretch of road was not an option as the nearest small town was at least 40 minutes away. It was blizzard conditions and we watched him walk ahead of the vehicle and out of sight. He was less than 10 feet from the car. I was worried he would get turned around in the whiteout and not find his way back to our vehicle, so I asked my mom to honk the horn until we saw him again. It seemed like an eternity until he returned as we finally saw him coming through the snow. He never said a word about the horn, and I suspect he needed it too get back to us.

That was the most scared I have ever been in the snow and have never seen weather like that since.

[olstyn]

For me it would depend on the distance (total and remaining), in addition to whether it was currently light out and how long I could expect the light to last. I think my threshold for driving in crappy conditions is probably higher than most, but there are limits, and visibility is a big one. If either it's approaching whiteout conditions, or I'm sliding around enough to make me uncomfortable even in my Audi, or it'll be more than about another hour of driving in bad conditions or any combination of the 3, I'll probably throw in the towel. Intuition certainly plays into it as well. There's a certain point where everybody else gives up on being on the road where I can accept a little more traction-related weirdness because I know I can recover from a slide as long as I don't have to worry about sliding into other cars.

Sounds like you made the same decision I would have in your shoes (tires?).

[Shoresy]

Totally depends on a situation, i.e. reasons for driving and what I am driving. I learned how to drive on a shitty stick shift russian car driving over a packed snow and ice five months a year. I feel that I might have more experience in this than an average driver. I now live in mountains and the nature of my work makes me drive, albeit a short distance, in any weather. All our cars are AWD, all have a high power to weight ratio, and we rotate into snow tires every November. When bad weather hits, shovels and survival kits go into trunks. My take is very dichotomous. There is pretty much no winter weather that I wouldn't drive my cars if I have to, and I've done that. The snow or temp or speed don't matter; visibility does though. However, if I don't have to, I don't drive period. If you are asking yourself if you should pull over, then you should. It is not about just you, it is about everyone else losing control on that road.

Pretty much this, minus the mountains. Grew up where winter goes from Oct-April, and have driven in just about everything (my experience with chains is a bit limited - the few times they came into play coincided with roads being closed and therefore a forced weather delay).

The real question is "how" - if your driving habits (and to some extent, equipment) don't adjust for conditions you're headed up s*** creek with a quickness.

[Lost River]

It depends on the environment/situation.

If it is just me on local rural roads, especially in a storm, I really don't get too concerned, until I am plowing snow with the bumper of my truck or land cruiser.

That said, if I go to town/ I am in a big city, all it takes is a 1/2" of ice and medium to heavy traffic. I immediately start looking for side roads to avoid other drivers. Lots of people end up driving like there is no ice at all on the road, and the disasters begin. Usually the first bit of ice of the season has some people going full bore up to a stop sign, then hitting the brakes at the last possible second (like they normally do) and sliding into or through the intersections, often into others. Plus the Bro-Truck drivers driving like total tards. "I gots 4 wheel drive Bro!". When I see them passing everybody in sight I get far out of their path.

Years ago I was a state trooper, and I cannot count the number of drivers that rolled their vehicles on the interstate when the conditions were icy. More often than not they had 4 wheel drive, and thought that 4 wheel drive meant that they could stop faster or better than others.

I bet better than 75% of the people who crashed while driving on the interstate said the same 2 things, or variations there of:

#1. "I don't know what happened."

and

#2. "I am a good driver, REALLY!"


I always enjoyed asking them, while they were collecting up the crap that flew out of their rolled vehicle, or climbing into their inverted vehicle to grab their insurance and registration :

So, First winter in Idaho? :p


The dirty looks always made me chuckle (to myself)..

[olstyn]

Plus the Bro-Truck drivers driving like total tards. "I gots 4 wheel drive Bro!". When I see them passing everybody in sight I get far out of their path.

Years ago I was a state trooper, and I cannot count the number of drivers that rolled their vehicles on the interstate when the conditions were icy. More often than not they had 4 wheel drive, and thought that 4 wheel drive meant that they could stop faster or better than others.

No joke. I love that my car has 4WD, but I'm well aware that it helps me go and it somewhat, in combination with traction control, helps me turn, but it doesn't help me stop. Always makes me chuckle when I see the big SUVs in the ditch in the winter. :)

[Shoresy]

Yup 4WD and ground clearance only go so far, especially when you have marginal tires on them. I guess when you go from RWD to 4WD on snow you feel invincible...

[Malamute]

I'll usually stop right before dark in the winter if travelling, weird stuff always seems to start at dark. Not just being cautious, but motels start filling up quickly after dark,and if conditions are bad. If theres the slightest question, I just stop. Ive slept in the back of the truck in teens or colder temps because I didn't stop in time to get a room. Aint gonna happen again. Whatever small difference in distance I made by forging on was pretty useless in actual practical results, and I was rewarded by an unpleasant night in the back of the truck in a truck stop with scads of diesels idling all around me. Ive also ended up in a ditch when trying to forge on in bad conditions and ended up spending a couple nights in motel to wait out the storm. It used to seem important somehow, now it just seems dumb to forge on. So far, Ive come to the conclusion that theres exactly nothing that's so important that its worth risking your vehicle, your animal, or your life to get there slightly sooner.

Blowing snow can also blind you with the lights washing everything out at night. Visibility is a huge thing, and most drive way too fast for conditions when visibility is poor. If you cant stop in the distance you can see, youre driving too fast.

Fog is a killer, literally.

I disagree that 4wd doesn't help you stop, but it isn't magic. With the axles locked together with the transfer case, I believe you brake more evenly with all wheels evenly rather than more braking with the fronts as is normally done, and engine braking helps more with 4wd. You also get more control steering and dealing with slides with having front wheels driving (front wd is also nice, but not as good overall as 4wd). I'm currently driving the first 2wd vehicle Ive owned since about 1982. Its fricking insane on ice and snow compared to a similar vehicle with 4wd. I hate it, but at the time badly needed a basic vehicle. It will be sold as soon as I can work out a replacement.

Living in Flagstaff was fun seeing all the big macho 4wd trucks in the ditches after a snow on the Interstates. Most were from Phoenix, and were clueless about driving on snow.

[Hambo]

where's your personal "Abort Limit"

Now, any time the temp is under 45F. ;)

When I lived in the Midwest I had to report to work no matter what. For recreational travel I would just heed travel advisories on the theory that they don't issue them often, and when they do it's probably for a reason.

[Totem Polar]

I traditionally didn't stop for anything, unless it was my own fatigue–a very real concern. I grew up driving 60's-era Dodge Darts in snow every year, so I'm not afraid of much from pure weather in a modern car. Avalanche warnings; that's about it. The years spent on the road full time saw us driving on highways that were closed, etc., to make gigs. Always made it. Even now, when the weather anchors are on TV warning people not to go out unless they have to, that's usually when wifey and I unlimber the jeep and go out to run errands on purpose, because there are way less dipshits on the road to contend with. If it's only us, and our own traction to deal with on empty roads, no sweat.

Now that I've had corrective eye surgery, my concession is that I'll avoid driving at night unless I have to. In other words, I won't go out just to run errands on empty roads after dark; only if we absolutely have to be somewhere. OMMV.


It depends on the environment/situation.

If it is just me on local rural roads, especially in a storm, I really don't get too concerned, until I am plowing snow with the bumper of my truck or land cruiser.

That said, if I go to town/ I am in a big city, all it takes is a 1/2" of ice and medium to heavy traffic. I immediately start looking for side roads to avoid other drivers. Lots of people end up driving like there is no ice at all on the road, and the disasters begin. Usually the first bit of ice of the season has some people going full bore up to a stop sign, then hitting the brakes at the last possible second (like they normally do) and sliding into or through the intersections, often into others. Plus the Bro-Truck drivers driving like total tards. "I gots 4 wheel drive Bro!". When I see them passing everybody in sight I get far out of their path.


^^^This.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I used to live in Buffalo and didn't have to abort in the blizzards. However, I was cautious about when I ventured out if snow storm was in gear.

I did ditch driving and head for a hotel when a 500 year flood covered the freeway loops around San Antonio and no easy way to get home. We were coming back from the Northeast when the deluge hit.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I am also a Canadian and therefore never stop.

A few years ago I drove from Vancouver to Toronto in three days, starting on December 21.

I drove back January 2-4. No sweat. Actually we slept in the vehicle on the way which was kind of entertaining in the mountain passes and the prairies at 40 below.

I do take the individual stages very seriously and at any given moment along the way if you evaluated my driving you'd say "that's some very conservative driving". I can just do a lot of it for a very long time.

Probably the worst driving I've seen was either an early February trip from Montreal to northern Ontario through Algonquin Park - about four hours of literal blizzard and if I hadn't been following a semi on chains I'd have quit, or else a January run over the Crow's Nest pass, also during a blizzard, starting around 10pm and going until around 3. No plows were out and there was around a foot of snow some places, and no way to see the edges of the road in serious mountain country. If it weren't for the fact that there was nothing else on the road I'd have quit because you couldn't stay in a lane. I just ran down the centre of the highway for a hundred miles or so.

But I drive a 4runner on Haakkeeeppaalliiittaaaas or however many letters the Finnish require. I had to drive a work truck recently on really shitty summer tires and it was really, really difficult.

[farscott]

Ahh, my personal boogeyman. I came of age in the early 1980s in the snow belt east of Cleveland, Ohio and my first car was a 1972 Ford Gran Turino, so blizzards and snow are all too familiar to me. Later in life, I got paid to attend a lot of driving schools, and at one time, I was a really good snow weather driver. Good enough to hang six inches off the rear edge of a fence being dragged by a truck at 45 mph to do a snow ingestion test in a prototype vehicle that was worth more than five times my annual salary.

As I am all too close to the age of fifty, I have been forced to come to terms with the fact that I do not have the stamina, eyesight, and hand-eye coordination that I once did, and all of those are needed for moving in low-visibility, high snowfall environments. As such, my personal threshold has gone from, "No sweat" to "When the weather is better". The eyesight is the worst, and snow glare, even with really good eyeglasses, is a huge problem for me. Too much eyestrain and I do not focus enough on vehicle feel, and that can get ugly in a hurry. So I just wait it out.

[Totem Polar]

A few years ago I drove from Vancouver to Toronto in three days, starting on December 21.

I do take the individual stages very seriously and at any given moment along the way if you evaluated my driving you'd say "that's some very conservative driving". I can just do a lot of it for a very long time.

...But I drive a 4runner on Haakkeeeppaalliiittaaaas or however many letters the Finnish require...

No shit; I once drove from Vancouver to Calgary on that toll highway that eventually connects and passes through Golden and Banff... That's really spooky terrain in late December. That is the one time we pulled off early (in Golden, IIRC) because I could no longer follow the truck tracks because they kept veering to the right and off into space. The 2nd or 3rd time I almost followed them, we pulled into Golden and grabbed a hotel for a few hours (same desk guy checked us in and out).

I'm still sobered by the landscape from Golden to Banff the next morning, because now I understood what those tracks veering off into nowhere implied. WTF is up with that? Do trucking companies just write of a few trucks a year as shrinkage? I mean, nobody would ever find them; it's like 500 feet straight down a tree-covered cliff.

And, yeah, tires on an AWD make all the difference. We've always run either blizzaks or those haakkamunchacrunchas.

[Joe in PNG]

Back in my Bible school days, I delivered pizzas in Milwaukee in a 1982 Ford Crown Vic station wagon.
One night, we had a snow emergency day, and we were pretty busy that weekend.
I learned a LOT about driving in bad conditions that has been beneficial to this day.
#1 being don't drive in this sort of conditions. Happily, this really hasn't been a problem.

[Lex Luthier]

I learned a LOT about driving in bad conditions that has been beneficial to this day.
#1 being don't drive in this sort of conditions. Happily, this really hasn't been a problem.

As a native San Franciscan who has now spent about a decade in the Pacific Northwest and a few years in the Twin Cities, I concur.
We drove from Santa Cruz, CA to St Paul, MN in mid-September 2014 in an 18' truck towing a car trailer loaded with a full-size Subaru wagon.
In Wyoming we had wind and snow, in Nebraska we had snow, and some snow and wind in Iowa headed north. We pulled off the road for shelter in both Wyoming & Nebraska. The deciding factor in both cases was visibility.

[olstyn]

Back in my Bible school days, I delivered pizzas in Milwaukee in a 1982 Ford Crown Vic station wagon.

As a teenager, I delivered pizza for the local pizza joint. One night, this involved me forgetting to release the e-brake while driving through blizzard conditions in a beat to hell VW Jetta of late '80s/early '90s vintage. (I don't know the exact year; the pizza place owned the car, not me.) So there I was, driving a front wheel drive car with the rear wheels locked up in fresh, fluffy powder with more coming down constantly, fishtailing back and forth down the road. The block or two before I realized my error and released the brake was a significant learning experience in car control.

Tips were also way better than usual that night. :)

[peterb]

Ah, the e-brake. More than once I've used it to help bring the back end around when the front end was pushing in snow.

Agree that visibility makes a huge difference. Driving at night in heavy snow is no fun.

I grew up in NH and have lived in MA, MI, and back to NH, so lots of snow experience. Agree with most of what's been said -- other drivers are the biggest problem, good tires are essential, and stay home if you don't HAVE to go anywhere.

Snow is usually fine, but only a fool chooses to keep driving in freezing rain. I was once on a commercial bus that spun out and went into the guardrail on an interstate in freezing rain. If there's no friction the best AWD and tires still won't help. Studs and/or chains work, but the best bet is being off the road until conditions improve.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The thing I hated in Oregon was ice storms which turned the roads into frictionless crash paths. I ran studded tires on my Honda Civic and it usually worked. This is funny. Where I worked there was a big hill down to the employee parking lot. We had an ice storm. The hill had steep part, a small flat part and then a final steep part. A guy was trying to go up the hill and instead of keep going, stops on the flat part. He can't get traction on the ice. No snow tires, studs. So I stop on the hill and say to him : You and I will push and your wife will drive the car (she was a passenger). I tell her that when it gets going, don't stop. Ok, we push. The car starts to move. Up the hill. When she crests the hill - and is now on a flat road, she doesn't stop. Just keeps going down the road and Bozo Husband is seen running after her. I start my car and go up the hill and on my merry way.

In Buffalo, when the Blizzard of '77 started, they told us to get out and go home. I ran every stop sign (slowly) to avoid getting stuck. I went by a big electric tower (one of the huge ones) and a big cable was down and flopping around on the ground. When it hit, it made a big flash and bang and blasted a hole in the ground. There was a crowd watching it. That did not seem like a plan to me and I drove on by. Stuck in the house for three days. They helicoptered army guys into suburban car dealerships and confiscated four wheel drive vehicles to get ones that could reach people in trouble in the boonies. One poor bastard froze to death. There was a intersection in the newly buidling up burbs. It had gas stations on three corners - a field on the fourth corner. This guy was stuck and decided to hoof it to a station but in the low visibility, he chose the wrong corner - walked way into the field and froze. He was wearing just London Fog raincoat and leather shoes. The Canadian Army went out in Centurion tanks to get folks off their highways.

[Cypher]

If you're on a road trip in the cold climates and the weather turns sour, where's your personal "Abort Limit" where you pull off and hit a hotel or rest area vs continuing on ?

Is it when visibility goes below your comfort level, or is it when your safe speed drops below a certain point? Perhaps just intuition?

I stopped halfway during a 700 mile trip because of the weather. I've toughed out bad spot of snowy weather before, but that time it looked like I was gonna be spending the night somehwere no matter what. The only choices seemed to be the ditch or a hotel, so I picked the latter.


When I get scared

[joshw0000]

Here in the south we shut down everything for a little sleet/snow/freezing rain

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[Glenn E. Meyer]

I found that amusing also. However, I was torn between saying - You wussies - I can get to work VS. Hey, It's terrible out there and it's a day off!

[SeriousStudent]

As someone who has lived "up North", I drove all the time on snow.

We just don't get snow down here, we get ice. It's much different to drive on a three-inch thick sheet of ice, than on compacted snow. Ice that will stay for days at a time.

So yeah, it's gets crazy down here. But when I lived in Indiana and Kentucky, nobody drove on ice either.

Snow and ice are different, that's why they show up in different parts of the dictionary.

[Shoresy]

Here in the south we shut down everything for a little sleet/snow/freezing rain

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Or even the slightest threat of snow.

[joshw0000]

Or even the slightest threat of snow.
Forecast says snow next week and every store is instantly sold out of bread, milk, and toilet paper.

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[vcdgrips]

KCMO here. The last few winters have been quite mild so perhaps we are due. I have an old school Jeep with Michelins such that snow on the ground is simply not a problem for all practical purposes.
Ice OTOH is what makes me want to shut it down or not go out at all. The collective KCMO ice driving IQ is so low that I simply do not go out in it if I do not have to.

At 50 plus and endeavoring to not to stupid things with stupid people in stupid places, driving in bad weather, particularly at night, is something I will simply avoid. Life is short and I love life.

[11B10]

The thing I hated in Oregon was ice storms which turned the roads into frictionless crash paths. I ran studded tires on my Honda Civic and it usually worked. This is funny. Where I worked there was a big hill down to the employee parking lot. We had an ice storm. The hill had steep part, a small flat part and then a final steep part. A guy was trying to go up the hill and instead of keep going, stops on the flat part. He can't get traction on the ice. No snow tires, studs. So I stop on the hill and say to him : You and I will push and your wife will drive the car (she was a passenger). I tell her that when it gets going, don't stop. Ok, we push. The car starts to move. Up the hill. When she crests the hill - and is now on a flat road, she doesn't stop. Just keeps going down the road and Bozo Husband is seen running after her. I start my car and go up the hill and on my merry way.

In Buffalo, when the Blizzard of '77 started, they told us to get out and go home. I ran every stop sign (slowly) to avoid getting stuck. I went by a big electric tower (one of the huge ones) and a big cable was down and flopping around on the ground. When it hit, it made a big flash and bang and blasted a hole in the ground. There was a crowd watching it. That did not seem like a plan to me and I drove on by. Stuck in the house for three days. They helicoptered army guys into suburban car dealerships and confiscated four wheel drive vehicles to get ones that could reach people in trouble in the boonies. One poor bastard froze to death. There was a intersection in the newly buidling up burbs. It had gas stations on three corners - a field on the fourth corner. This guy was stuck and decided to hoof it to a station but in the low visibility, he chose the wrong corner - walked way into the field and froze. He was wearing just London Fog raincoat and leather shoes. The Canadian Army went out in Centurion tanks to get folks off their highways.



Glenn, my Aunt lived in Buffalo for 60+ years and kept photo albums of life there. I would look at those with the snow when we were having a "bad" storm here in Pa., and instantly feel better. I particularly liked the pictures of the "tunnels" to her garage. I'd ask her: "And when you got there, then what?"

[SeriousStudent]

Forecast says snow next week and every store is instantly sold out of bread, milk, and toilet paper.

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Don't forget eggs.

I think there is something about snow, that triggers an insatiable desire to make French toast.

[Corey]

I'm about an hour or so south of YVK and when I was driving a 4Runner with snow tires I didn't worry about the weather other than visibility. Now I am driving a Honda CR-V with AWD but with only the all-season tires that came on it so I am being more conservative regarding the weather. Once I get a set of snow tires for it, it will be game on again.

[BN]

I'm not too concerned about my driving. It's everybody else out there. I've seen too many of those multi car pile ups on You Tube. :(

[olstyn]

I think there is something about snow, that triggers an insatiable desire to make French toast.

Well, I mean, French toast is delicious, so there's that...

[ragnar_d]

It depends for me. Snow and cold temperatures don't bother me much. High winds, poor visibility and drifting/blowing snow give me some pause and I slow down a bit more. Ice forming is a no-go for me.

The last time I threw in the towel for the day was when I was travelling down to Florida from Indiana right after the first of the year in 2008. I got to about Lexington and the roads froze (quickly) and conditions were deteriorating by the minute. At that point, I got to a safe place to park the car and made my way to a family member's place to stay the night. Got a late start the next morning because there were a lot of passes frozen that morning.

Considering where I live now, if snow/ice comes along I'm parked in the garage and not even bothering trying to go anywhere. It's not that I don't have the skills to handle crappy conditions, it's that I really don't want to be the crumple zone for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. Also, since it's not just me travelling now but me, the wife, and my 1 y/o daughter, I'm much more risk averse and if it looks like it's going to be bad then I point towards the nearest Hampton Inn if we're on the road or we get started later/earlier based on the weather.

[SeriousStudent]

Whenever we have snow and ice here, I tell the minions to perform a simple math equation before they hop in the car and drive.

Take their insurance deductible, and subtract their net pay after taxes and withholding for a day's work. If that is not a positive integer, then stay home.

With a $500 deductible, a lot of folks get smart real quick and stay at the house.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I had a part-time gig in Niagara County. After a snow storm - the president had a meeting as he keep the joint open but few showed. He yelled at us and said the students expected us to come in (Ha Ha). He said he made it to work. A senior prof got up and said: YOU live next door in a free house. The campus cops pick you up. Get in your personal car, drive to my house and take me to work.

That ended the lecture. One place I worked was notorious for telling you come in and shutting down when you got there. Thus, when other area institutions closed early, I went back to bed. Turned off the phones and TV.

[mmc45414]

We snowmobile in northern Michigan, so frequently we are traveling into the snow, for recreation. Typically the weather systems are such that the last hour is all that is a concern, though one time it was storming in Michigan AND Ohio for the trip home, and I went 400mi engaged in 4x4 the whole trip, towing a trailer. That took 9 hours.

But one time we were on the way up and it started RAINING, and that was the worst. We bounced off the interstate so we could slow down, shifting priorities from getting there soon to getting there. Many of the roads there do not get plowed all the way down (great for getting around on the snowmobiles) and those roads quickly became solid ice. We made it to our hotel and walked to a bar, that was tricky enough. The next morning I saw something I had never seen before, a salt truck going backwards, so it could spread salt out in front of it.

[Malamute]

I tried bugging out ahead of a winter storm once, but managed to stay in it much of the way headed to Az. My late 80s F250 4x4 long bed extra cab with the steel utility shell was very stable on the road with the snow. At one point heading south the storm started turning into freezing rain, suddenly cars were off the road all around me, one in the median still had the wheels turning, the vehicle was on its side. I carefully slowed down, backed up the shoulder a bit and got out to check on the guy, who was crawling out. As I stepped out, my feet almost went out from under me, it was so slick. The truck was pretty heavy and long, and wasn't giving me much clue of how bad the road was, it was driving pretty well from the feel of it. Guy was OK, I took off again, and slowed down even more. Finally got out of the ice.

[Mjolnir]

Depends on traction and visibility. Number of vehicles on road compounds things, too. Definitely get inside before nightfall.


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[johnson]

KCMO here. The last few winters have been quite mild so perhaps we are due. I have an old school Jeep with Michelins such that snow on the ground is simply not a problem for all practical purposes.
Ice OTOH is what makes me want to shut it down or not go out at all. The collective KCMO ice driving IQ is so low that I simply do not go out in it if I do not have to.

At 50 plus and endeavoring to not to stupid things with stupid people in stupid places, driving in bad weather, particularly at night, is something I will simply avoid. Life is short and I love life.

KCMO here too. I drive a RWD E46 and snow isn't bad with winter specific tires but I'm scared as hell when ice is at play. Probably one of the worst feelings are hydroplaning at high speed or sliding on ice with no control.

[olstyn]

Every winter, I'm tempted to drive out onto one of the local lakes, turn off the traction control, and get sideways at high speed. The only thing that really stops me is that this being Minnesota, the lakes are all dotted with ice houses containing people fishing. Potential catastrophe takes the fun right out of the idea. :(

[Lex Luthier]

Every winter, I'm tempted to drive out onto one of the local lakes, turn off the traction control, and get sideways at high speed. The only thing that really stops me is that this being Minnesota, the lakes are all dotted with ice houses containing people fishing. Potential catastrophe takes the fun right out of the idea. :(

Well, that and the fact that there are instances of ice fishing houses dropping right through supposedly adequate ice this week...

[jetfire]

Everyone thinks they're a good driver right up until they're upside down in the ditch.

And even then some people still think they're good.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

No shit; I once drove from Vancouver to Calgary on that toll highway that eventually connects and passes through Golden and Banff... That's really spooky terrain in late December. That is the one time we pulled off early (in Golden, IIRC) because I could no longer follow the truck tracks because they kept veering to the right and off into space. The 2nd or 3rd time I almost followed them, we pulled into Golden and grabbed a hotel for a few hours (same desk guy checked us in and out).

I'm still sobered by the landscape from Golden to Banff the next morning, because now I understood what those tracks veering off into nowhere implied. WTF is up with that? Do trucking companies just write of a few trucks a year as shrinkage? I mean, nobody would ever find them; it's like 500 feet straight down a tree-covered cliff.

And, yeah, tires on an AWD make all the difference. We've always run either blizzaks or those haakkamunchacrunchas.

Beautiful drive in summer...potentially harrowing in winter!

The funny part is...that's the Trans-Canada highway: our primary link from BC to the rest of the country. The other routes are smaller and more isolated.

[olstyn]

Well, that and the fact that there are instances of ice fishing houses dropping right through supposedly adequate ice this week...

Yeah, every year somebody falls through when they try to set up an ice house and/or drive on the ice too early, and the same for when they try to stay out too late when it's starting to melt. My imaginary fun lake ice driving time would be in January if it was to ever actually happen; we usually get a good solid run of temps never exceeding the teens for several weeks in a row then, which leads to a nice thick layer of ice on the lakes. I wouldn't even consider going out there right now - it hasn't been cold enough for long enough yet.