sylvia-morris-reblogs: lies replied to your post “opalsinearrings replied to your video “Sylvia’s…
lies replied to your post “opalsinearrings replied to your video “Sylvia’s snowy adventures!”This…”
p. much. having lived in a ski resort at 9,000 feet in the sierra nevada for several years, i wanted to be there to give you a quick driving-in-snow tutorial. you figured it out though. :-)
it would have been very welcome! i v much wanted to access both google and my mum but sadly neither were available… (would your advice have been to only drive downhill? because that was really all I figured out in the end…. and slowly, of course.)
Heh. Well, you need to consciously unmap all your conditioning as to speed and stopping distance and turning radius, and realize that you are operating in a context of radically reduced traction. So Newton’s first law (body in motion tends to stay in motion; body at rest tends to stay at rest) becomes the most important thing in your world.
You can use your precious supply of traction to apply acceleration in any direction (forward, back, or to the side), but you only get to use a teency amount of it. If you exceed that amount you’ll break free and start sliding with no control. So don’t do that. :-)
Being on a hill (angled up, down, or to the side) imparts its own gravitational component of acceleration that counts in terms of your traction budget. So yeah, proceeding downhill is relatively easy – including when there is a tree or a snowbank or another vehicle stopped at a red light in front of you.
Slow, steady momentum is your friend (because body in motion). If you’re going uphill, try to keep it at a steady pace and avoid stopping (because the extra force needed to get you moving again may exceed your traction budget – which is what it sounds like happened to you). If you’re going downhill, take it really slow and give yourself a ridiculous amount of stopping distance. You basically want to just creep along without ever coming to a complete stop, if you can manage it.
For keeping things slow when going downhill, downshifting is preferable to braking. If you’re in an automatic, put it in 2 or even 1 and let the engine slow you down (but do it gradually so you don’t break free). This works better than braking because you’re not trying to stop the wheels (which is what brakes tend to do, making you skid). You’re just trying to slow them down a bit while letting them keep turning.
If you have snow tires, chains, and/or four-wheel drive, your traction budget goes way up and everything gets easier.
Reposted from http://ift.tt/1IChKrZ.
Tags: driving in snow, mammoth locals represent, chains are for tourists! :-).
