Edit: Wonderful information in this thread. Good work comrades! I'm proud of y'all :Care-Comrade:
Mods delete this if there's already a tip thread, but now is the time to share any information we can that can help people. I see good advice in the related threads, but I don't see one that's just dedicated to tips so I'm making this post.
Onto the tips:
If you have a tent, pitch it inside your house. It is a considerably smaller space to keep warm, and your ambient body heat will warm it.
If you don't have a tent, get bed sheets and hang them to create a "smaller room" within a room.
Sleep together in the same room with your other household members and pets. Your body heat will help warm the space.
Put your sleeping bag inside your bed and sleep inside that under blankets. Down comforters are great. Wool is great at insulating if you can deal with the itch and you aren't allergic.
Socks: Put on two pairs of socks, a warm insulating one on the inside and a thinner one on the outside. Put on your shoes (boots preferably) and pull the outer layer down over the top of your shoe. Snow will no longer fall inside your shoe. The only thing worse than cold feet is cold wet feet.
Fold newspaper into inch wide strips and pack it into anywhere cold air can seep in, like the bottom of the door. 3-4 large sheets can be taped over windows to provide extra insulation.
Layers layers layers. If you need to do any work outside peel off layers as your labor begins to warm you up. You do not want to sweat. You do not want to be wet. You can always put the layers back on.
Throw tomorrow's clothes in your bed with you to warm them up so you don't have to put on cold clothes in the morning.
Use every hour of daylight you have to prepare for the following dark. :af-heart:
If you're driving on ice, the most important thing by far is to PUMP THE BRAKES. When you gotta slow down, go on and off the brakes repeatedly. Do not just slam them. If you have the chance, better to drive on snow than solid ice.
I think every modern car has ABS
Startled the shit out of myself when I realized the old car I bought didn’t have ABS while driving on ice. Thought I was gonna be a champ in my wrangler but the thing a so old it doesn’t even have an alarm system so when I hit the ice there weren’t any electronic stability control systems or ABS so I did a full 360 on the interstate. 4 wheel drive isn’t everything
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A/S tires are made of way harder rubber than snow tires.
Snow tires in the summer have traction like slicks, but they don't last long.
Yeah 4 wheel drive is just for traction when accelerating. It doesn't effect braking or the ultimate cornering grip of the car.
I learned on a rwd car without abs or stability control, no weight in the rear, and skinny tires. I'm honestly grateful I had to learn organically how to pump the brakes because the habit has saved me even in cars with ABS.
For folks who don't know how it works, imagine when you're scrubbing off speed going down hill, you brake a little until you feel the forward acceleration, then slowly release, then slowly apply until you feel it again, and repeat. Getting deeper in the brake as you slow down.
It's required as of September 2013, but I don't know how that translates to what model years of cars would then have to have it. The 2014s would probably be the earliest.
Before that, cheaper cars still had it as an option; my friend's mid-2000s Toyota Corolla did not have ABS, for example.
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Here's the problem they try and solve: if you slam on the brakes and the wheels completely lock, this is OK on asphalt, which provides enough friction to slow you down reasonably quickly. But it's not OK on ice; ice provides basically no friction, so you end up with locked wheels just sliding along the ice, not slowing you down at all. (It's not ideal on asphalt either, but you'll stop).
So, my understanding is that ABS ("anti-lock brake system") tries to not let the brakes engage so hard that they completely stop wheel motion. I think older/crappier ABS just emulate "pumping" the brakes (engaging and disengaging them) but I'm not sure. My 2006 with ABS makes a repeated thudding noise when I slam on the brakes, which I take to be the ABS pumping the brakes.
Can you not feel the brake pedal move up and down rapidly in your car when it engages? My cars with abs have always done that.
Huh, I guess “thudding noise” is also accompanied by/more accurately a “thudding feeling”, but I really don’t notice the pedal actually moving so much as having a vibration transmitted through it.
I’ll have to test it out though, now I’m curious
well don't test it out too much so you go flying into a ditch Conway.
But yeah I'm pretty sure an ABS system literally flushes fluid into the brake system and the pedal rises and lowers because of it.
It looks for the wheel slowing down way faster than it should, the lets up on the brakes until it stops. It feels like rapid pulsing in the brake pedal every time I've experienced it, but you're usually not taking notes when you're in a situation that requires ABS.
Slamming the brakes locks the wheel and makes it so the only slowing force is friction on the stopped wheel, which on ice is virtually non-existent. ABS doesn’t lock the wheel and instead decelerates it by allowing its motion to continue while rapidly slowing it
Good tip for cars without ABS or with shitty ABS systems. Also do not turn and brake, or turn and accelerate at the same time. Only do one of the three at a time: turning, braking and accelerating.
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Rule number one of winter driving is to go slow. Really slow. Brake lengths are much longer than you anticipate, steering responds in unfamiliar ways, visibility is shit, the road surface can change from normal to skating rink in an instance. Unless you are used to driving in snow and ice you don't know how your car will react.
Stay safe and go slow. You are never in a hurry when you're sitting behind the wheel.
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Day one I had a blast driving around on the snow but the next day when it started melting into slush it was kind of scary because I couldn't stop. Then later on it turned to a solid block of ice and I fell down drunk a few times.