How to Drive in the Snow

Driving on snow, blizzards, and on icy roads is extremely tough and wants your full focus and presence of mind. A little careless attitude can cause you major accidents. Driving on snow needs more control and skills. You cannot afford to pull over and wait for the roads to thaw or chill to warm up. You need to know the basic skills and important safety precautions to have a safe journey while driving on snow.

Inspect your Car

You need to treat your vehicle differently in different seasons. All vehicles have certain specifications for certain weather conditions, which we have to keep in mind. Your vehicle wants special maintenance for cold weather conditions. If you do not give proper attention to your vehicle in cold season you might end up with seize engine. Besides, oil, fuel, water may freeze and fail to flow properly inside the engine. Here are some maintenance steps for your vehicle in cold weather conditions.

• Warm Up: Warming up is necessary to make all other parts ready for proper functioning. It gives the engine to get ready to bear the cold conditions rather easily. If you drive without warming up your engine; this will cause more fuel consumption and might cause it to seize up because of the freeze oil or fuel particles present inside.

• Synthetic Lubricants and Fuel Additives: Living at places with low temperature such as freezing temperatures might cause fuel or oil to freeze. To keep the temperature at required optimum level and avoid freezing of oil and fuel, many synthetic lubricants and fuel additives are available in the market which help to maintain the optimum temperature and also prevent the oil and fuel from freezing.

• Safety Features: It is important to inspect your fog lights, defoggers, windshield wipers and flasher lights regularly. Always thaw your windshield properly to keep it free from ice crystals. Make sure that the windshield wiper blades are flexible and soft.

Don’t Drive on Icy Roads

Icy roads are worst for driving. They don’t provide enough traction and grip to your car tires. In extremely cold weather, roads cover with thin ice layer, which are hard to drive on. Thin ice is purely an ice form which doesn’t give traction and grip like concrete roads. Speed is not a matter on icy surfaces. No matter how fast or slow you drive, there are always chances to slip and skid because of low traction and no grip. It is very much like driving on a frozen lake or river, which provide no support to drivers. It is better to wait for ice to properly thawed or deiced before driving on them. Only in that way your tires will get support from the road.

Winter or Snow Tires

Snow or winter tires are specially designed having deep treads to support the drivers living in the areas with high snowfall. Snow tires are made with a rubber compound, which is much thicker than the ordinary tires and provide more resistant to cold weather. They are specially designed for areas having severe cold conditions. For mild winter season, normal tires are enough to serve the purpose.

There is always a wrong perception that at a time you need only two snow tires. Basically you need all the four tires replaced for driving on snow. It is better to replace the old tires with new snow tires in every winter season to ensure the safety.

Tire chains

Tire chains are another safe way to drive on a snow or either on hard icy roads. Tire chains are attached to each wheel. They are mostly used with conventional or non-snow tires to provide extra grip and traction to two-wheel drive vehicles. The chains used are of specific size and gauge, depends upon the wheels of the vehicle.

It is necessary to inspect the chains regularly. This will give you an idea of the condition of the chains and also that they are securely fixed to the wheel. Remember with chains on tires don’t exceed the speed over than 25 miles per hour.

Drive Slow

It is important to drive slowly in heavy snow conditions. You have to be as slow as you can while driving on snow. Your limit speed should be in between 20-30 miles per hour. Anything faster than that can be a big blow. You need to be extra careful round the corners and remember overtaking on snowy road is extremely dangerous so avoid it.

There is always a solution of everything. You can drive on snow safely by keeping few important facts in your mind. Its all about you and your safety so be careful while driving extreme weather conditions.