Some bits of the country have already had a first taste of this year’s winter, warns Pete Rodger, Chief Inquisitor with pet-food-to-driving-instruction conglomerate IAMs. And things could be about to get a whole lot worse! There could be even more winter to come! Possibly a month or more of it, according to meteorologists, with temperatures reaching zero degrees centigrade or even colder!
Fortunately, given the time of year, Pete has six surefire tips to keep you out of trouble on Britain’s chilly roads. We’ve adapted Pete’s Top Winter Weather Tips to create a cut-out-and-keep “aide-mammaire” for winter weather warriors everywhere.
Tip 1
Stick to salty roads! Do not drive on little roads that may not have salt on them. DO NOT imagine you can add your own salt. It takes a lot more than you think, and you may need something called grit as well.
Tip 2
Keep a dicer and a scraper with you at all times, and don’t, IAMs Pete enjoins, “be one of those people who who only scrape a small area and drive looking through a slit.”
Tip 3
Put your gear stick in those positions marked with larger numbers to avoid spinning wheels. Be gentle with your feet, and possibly have a bit of a look at the handbook and see what it suggests about driving in winter weather.
Tip 4
Treat wet patches with care. That might not be water! That might be ice! If you do not respect dark patches you could end up in the ditch.
Tip 5
Stopping distances can increase by potentially as much as up to 10 times as much in winter. So make sure you always drive ten times further away than normal from anything you might be in danger of driving into. Your brakes will avail you little on an icy road. Use your gears to slow down or something.
Tip 6
If your car is sliding sideways do not panic! Simply remove foot from accelerator and point the front wheels where you want to go.
Bankstone News Bonus Tip:
Don’t buy one of those stupid BMWs with the rear wheel drive
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