Safe Speed Forums

SamandBen,

If it's of any interest, they've started putting the little piles of salt by the side of the roads round here now, ready for this winter. (That's West Cumbria, Whitehaven / Workington / Cockermouth etc). I don't know if it's just me, but there seem to be more of them, closer-spaced this year, and on some very minor roads too! I don't know whether that's good or bad news - I guess it might mean they're not going to bother gritting this year! (or reduce the frequency)!

My mates on "winter maintenance" standby, despite it being warm enough for shirt sleeves at night....
Aparantly it starts during October, regardless.....no wonder council tax bills are going up....

_________________
My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Mole - where I hail from they had these by the roads for years .We used to drive round in the winter - get stuck on a hill ,wait for another car ,sand one up ,then the other .Major part of kit in winter was shovel , plus couple of old sacks and a bit of rope .Seem to remember that an old comic/singer (Andy Stewart ) used to have this as part of his act -mentioning road signs pointing to a place "it's called salt for roads" -we were unfortunate enough one year to have a snowplough turn up - whilst we were skiding around getting where we wanted to go , the snowplough slid off the road ,blocking it for several hours .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

We have had gritting lorries out already and much ice on the roads already ! The bigger hills, well mountains, have thick snow too, an indicator of a cold winter ahead.
When I came home to other day it occurred to me, (as another has posted already), that hedges close to the side of the roads keep the air still(er) and in doing so make a colder area and that encourages ice on the road. The shadow of trees can however make an area hold some warmth too and so make it less snowy over a longer time frame.
Now we cannot go around cutting down all the trees and shrubbery 'just' to make a road safer from time to time. It would create problems in many rural areas. [Farmers need hedges to limit soil erosion for crops especially, and then all the wildlife need protecting too etc., so it is an impractical possibility.] Trees and hedges help break the wind and help prevent now drifts across the road too. When new roads are constructed, it would be very rare indeed to see hedges and shrubbery anywhere near the roadside, perhaps some feet away but rarely right up against the roadside. Some Councils have allowed growth to get out of control, and in the summer we see regular control of this.
So are the general populous aware that hedges and roadside appearance, can tell you a lot about the likelihood of road surface condition, along with general weather conditions?
(edited for phrase & grammar).

_________________
Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Claire - driving in winter in the middle of winter , might I suggest that IG's C= CONCENTRATION +O=OBSERVATION plays a great part in seeing where one might have a problem .Unfortunately a lot of cars now have power steering ,as opposed to power assisted -so the road "feels " the same the whole year round: icy or dry .But observation of things like where the sun is not as strong as elsewhere ,estimating where the shadows are and ice patches might lurk - it's a matter of experience ,coupled with observation .Coupled with concentration on the feel of the steering and rear end .(again disguised by electronics).Then there's the last two in the equation -S = SPEED coupled with T= time to stop ( and if the roads are sheet ice ) -unfortunately again ,speed estimation only comes with experience in these conditions .Too slow and you end up not having enough forward motion to get up a hill .Too fast and you reach the summit not capable of control on the down section -leaving you with little chance of stopping/contro;;ing any skid and finding out that the co efficient of friction between ice and rubber is VERY low,and ditches in the middle of nowhere have a fatal attraction to cars in a skid .Again ,Ive seen a lot of those who worship at the temple of high revs =making good progress in snow( ) ,and gone past them with low revs/high gear .
It's a matter of experience ,with those in the more remote places having a higher learning curve ( it's that or trying to keep warm in an of roaded car ,waiting for someone to pass by)than those in the higher populated regions .

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

There are many many points to drive to and of course concentration, courtesy, consideration, observation, awareness, attitude, attention, anticipation, space (to allow for your and other's mistakes) 2 sec gap rule, and time for your journey and time to react they are not actually IG's 'creation' they have been about for a far longer time. Nothing against IG bringing this to everyone's attention but it is not actually 'his' if you see what I mean !
Interesting and annoyingly my car has (and in many ways I wish it didn't) powersteering but it is 'weak' than a strong 'power' ratio, so I can still feel the road and the changes with it very easily. Modern cars and especially FWD (front wheel drive) cars are worse as they have all that torque going through the front wheels too. Whilst I think some alterations can be learned through damped down feedback, the question still needs to be asked by the road user in the first place.#
The is also the variable ratio power steering that can feed back better at slower speeds, but when I used (once) it it seemed horrid, and ideally we need as little power steering as possible or none !
I totally agree that excellent and thinking observation, will feed back masses to the road user. This info when interpreted can give so much to the road user that driving / riding safely can become easy and 2nd nature. Recognising hazards and anticipating them is crucial. Driving / riding so that you can stop in the distance that you can see to be clear - is a crucial phrase to remember for good safe driving / riding practice. Understanding that the 'clear' includes all conceivable seen and anticipated hazards help make road users to travel very safely indeed.

_________________
Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Damned slippy out this morning up here! A deceptive one because unusually, we didn't have to scrape the windscreens when we left. Not 2 miles from our house there were no less than THREE cars embedded in the lych gate of the local church! SAMANDBEN, if you're still around, I'm happy to PM you with a grid reference for your "collection". None of the incidents looked serious in fact two of the vehicles were gone when I passed back after dropping the kids off at school.

Also just saw this on the Yahoo homepage - don't know if it's any use to you:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20091214/tu ... 23e80.html

Samandben,

Something from our local paper that youmay be interested in


.http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/12/2 ... ment-82514

_________________
My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

A little youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MPRmOUxRMY clip.

Not sure what they could have done, but what they did was not exactly the brightest idea imho.

_________________
Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

And they bailed, they could have run themselves over


Other than not fully applying the brakes?

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Nah, it was all well below 20 MPH - they'd have ben fine no matter what!

Interesting though. I'd be amazed if that car DIDN'T have ABS. I'm wondering if it was going so slowly when they first applied the brakes, that the ABS didn't cut in. Once all the wheels were locked, the ABS computer whould have had no way of knowing that the car was moving, so as it gathered speed, the ABS would have assumed it was still stationary and wouldn't have cut in. I think I've had something similar happen to me. I was lucky though, because it was a country lane with grass verges, so I was able to lift off the brakes (quite a hard thing to do in a panic!) and then put them back on once the wheels were turning. It didn't stop me (FAR too slippy for that!) but it allowed me to steer onto the grass and the snow on there was deep enough to stop me.

In the same situation I may have tried steering to the right on to the parking area, off the brakes naturally, just as the car paused before starting to slide down the hill. Failing that the hedge looks like the softest option. It all depends on how bad the ice actually was and what was at the bottom of the hill hence my lack of suggestions initially, it may have been so slippery that minimising the impact/damage was the best to be hoped for.

It looks like she put the hand brake on, the front wheels start to turn as they abandon ship, but the rears don't. I wonder what they will put on the insurance form?

ETA - here is a photo of where the car ended up and some comments from the people who shot the video http://www.skiddmark.com/video-ice-skat ... s-at-home/

_________________
Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Ok fellow, I think that the video fully vindicates my earlier view..................it's not possibleto drive safely when there is ice about on the roads. There is no safe driving-speed where ice is concerned. Particularly if the journey had been dry and 'ice-free' up to the point that it changed without warning! Not to be discouraged from driving in icy weather by such police advice as "take care" and "drive carefully" is, IMHO, irresponsible.

NOW THE REALLY BAD NEWS..................IT'S HAPPENED AGAIN on the same stretch of road as my Daughter's smash, in v. similar weather conditions, and again caused by an icy skid!...................http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co. ... ticle.html.

Only THIS TIME instead of someone being made paraplegic, like my Daughter last year as mentioned in the link, 2 PEOPLE DIED. My family and I have had a terrible week-end, & I feel that I've failed

Samandben,

You haven't failed and can't hold yourself responsible for the latest crash and it sounds like the crash that your daughter had, was eqaully blameless on her part, if this bit of road catches out experienced drivers, then obviuosly, there was probably little she could have done to help herself.

We have had two lots of crashes on the M54/A5 (one continues onto the other, both being dual carriagewayed) in the last couple of weeks, which is something I haven't heard of before and they've been open at least 20 years now.

Our local council seem to be gritting the local roads quite well as far as I can see (I get a gritter go past my house at least once a night and I'm not on a main road) but there are always going to be roads which catch some people out. I had another local road, that I use regularly, closed because of an icy crash, yesterday morning. This winter does seem to be causing more "serious" accidents than I remember hearing about ever before (even the hard one of 1982/1983) but wonder what the cause of it is.

_________________
My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Thanks for the reassurances, G. However, I won't feel better until some changes are made and I'm applying appropriate pressure to that right now.

From my ongoing researches, and again IMHO, there is a dwindling budget for salting, at a time when there are massive changes in weather-extremes...........probably beyond the experience of those trying to operate within the strictures of ageing winter-maintenance procedures. Plus, there is a limited belief in the newer technologies which would afford much more dependable saltings. A bit like the railways last decade, where infrastructure, management and systems were finally set threadbare and overchallenged...............demanding root & branch review and investment

I think there are several reasons why there are more problems driving in snow and ice these days. I drove every day for the six weeks of snow and ice in the winter of 1962-63 without too much trouble and we lived on a hill. Cars then had much narrower tyres so had better grip on slippery surfaces. Most cars did not have power steering therefore the driver was more aware of what was going on between the road and the tyres. Engines had less power output so it was easier to pull away gently and most were long stroke that did not need high engine revs to get their torque.

From my experience of driving in snow and ice I would advise driving as if you had no brakes, because effectively that is the situation you are in, using the engine to slow the car by changing down through the gears. This is where double declutching becomes useful. Steer very, very gently and smoothly taking notice of the feel of the steering wheel and how light it is, in ice there will be no resistance and tyres will be silent. When accelerating, the peddle should be used as if there was an egg under your foot.

To which I would also add that cars were generally lighter (like-for-like) 30+ years ago than they are today. I've been wondering the same thing too recently. I have the use of two cars and they both seem AWFUL this winter. I'm not quite sure why! I've driven on slippy surfaces plenty of times before, but this winter seems unusually bad. Obviously, once a heavy car gets out of line, it wants to stay that way. Also, I think the warm, cosseted interior combined with the ability of the various electronic aids to get the very best out of the tyres' adhesion means that once it does "let go", it REALLY lets go! I think people seem to be driving faster on slippery surfaces than they used to, simply because the cars feel so much more competent - right up until they let go.

most cars now have big wide tyres on them that are for

a) impressing the neighbours

and b) giving more grip in the dry

and c) giving a bit more grip when it is very wet. these are pretty useless in the snow. Cars are rather powerfull now some easier to break traction in the snow/ice?

Road conditions up here have been petty serious. The side roads are barely gritted and the main trunk roads they have just closed the roads and many small rads they have closed and said if you ignore the signs you are on your own ! What if you live down there ? Not saying people do but it would be unusual for someone not to live down most roads !

I think people are often not able to have or hold a free travelling speed so don't experience many miles of responsible judgment drives. Couple this with modern car controls and aids and the driver is left 'feeling' less, so when things start to go wrong they have next to nothing to draw on to help them know what or when to do what.
Driving to conditions is less significant, as is keeping within a specific speed to a greater precision, and this will have an impact too, resulting in drivers that are less skilled, manage risk less and judge less.

_________________
Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Also, AIUI, modern tyre compounds are not very resilient at sub zero temperatures.

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown