Knowing Your Vehicle
The best way to know what your vehicle is capable of, and how it handles in slippery conditions, is to drive it. The more you drive it, the more familiar you will become with it.
You can even practice skidding in empty parking lots to experience what it will be like in dangerous situations. Beyond that, there are a few other things you should know about your vehicle as you prepare for winter in Rexburg.
Anti-lock Brake Systems (ABS)
As mentioned in “Driving in Snow and Ice”, it is safest to pump your breaks when encountering slippery roads. This helps to avoid the “sled effect”. With ABS, however, a brake pumping system is built into the car. All you need to remember is to “brake and steer”. Simply press the brake firmly and steer in the direction you need to go.
Because the brake is actually pumping itself you will feel a pulsating feeling in the pedal and may even hear a short beeping sound. Do not panic or let off of the brake because of this. If you do let off the brake and attempt to pump the brakes yourself you will actually disengage the ABS. This is a bad thing because the ABS pumps the brakes much faster than you can and preserves much more traction.
Driveline
If you are in the market for a new vehicle and planning on driving in snowy weather, you should take into consideration the type of driveline you want. Typically all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive vehicles handle the best in slippery conditions. This is because all four wheels are given power to spin, which helps avoid getting stuck. The next best option is front-wheel drive systems. This means that only the front two wheels are given power to spin. As the front wheels sit underneath the heavy weight of the engine, they typically get good traction. The least effective type of driveline in slippery weather is rear-wheel drive. This is due to the fact that the rear is much lighter, and therefore gains less traction. See “Accidents and Getting Stuck” for tips on how to get unstuck.
Cruise control
You should never have your cruise control activated while driving in icy or snowy conditions. Cruise control causes your engine to accelerate when your tires lose traction. When your vehicle encounters a slippery surface, the tires lose traction, which slows down your speed. The cruise control feels this loss of momentum and automatically attempts to speed up to compensate for the speed that was lost. As mentioned in “Driving in Snow and Ice”, accelerating in hazardous conditions is not a good idea. As your tires spin faster, they lose even more traction which causes your vehicle to skid.
This is such a problem that Toyota has begun to manufacture all their vehicles with a new safety feature that does not even allow the cruise control to be activated if the windshield wipers are turned on. This is because if the weather conditions are poor enough to need wipers, it is too dangerous to drive with cruise control.
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