Four or five things I know about winter driving
- Bridges freeze first. You’d be amazed how many people who have lived in the Northeast for their entire lives treat this as if it were a new fact during each and every snowstorm, or don’t treat it as a fact at all and go careering off guardrails and into the inky drink below. (Many road signs say something like “Bridge may be icy” or “Surface may be icy,” which is a ridiculous thing to say anytime 3 months wide of Bastille Day — “Bridge freezes first” is always true.)
- Anti-lock brakes are worth whatever you have to do to get them, and I was surprised during my last car-buying round to find that they weren’t standard equipment, since I’ve had them on every vehicle I’ve bought since my ’89 Ranger. The Mazda salesman we bought from last tried to pooh-pooh the entire idea of anti-lock brakes, which I found bizarre, and could only have been because the models he wanted to unload on us didn’t have them. And, as it turned out, the Protege 5 only offered ABS if you got the moonroof package. I’ve used ABS at night, so I know it’s not solar-powered; any other reason why it would be tied to the moonroof is still a mystery to me.
- People without four-wheel drive are always explaining to me why four-wheel drive vehicles are a menace to everyone around them, and while I agree that you will often see SUVs bombing at a higher-than-safe speed, I get passed by a lot of other idiots with two-wheel drive, too. I usually end up passing them after they’ve slid into the ditch. 4WD doesn’t mean you can go faster, and it’s only a slight advantage in tight corners and ice, but for everything else it’s a huge advantage, and without it there would be nights when I couldn’t get up the hill to my house, so you will pry 4WD from my cold dead fingers, thank you very much. (I also used to get people incredulous that I had 4WD when most of my driving was in the city. Have you ever seen Albany’s snow removal? Do you understand that you essentially park on tundra for three months of the year? Have you ever tried to dig yourself into and out of a parking spot? Years of battling the tundra in Syracuse, plus years of battling it in Albany, and I learned that I would never have to get stuck again if I just had 4WD.)
- Sure, I may be in control, but don’t count on that other guy.
- Sliding uphill is generally better than sliding downhill. As long as you can get all the way up the hill.