Winter driving safety

[scottish007]

Hi,

Just been told my yeti is being built this week, having originaly been told 2nd week in January.I only ordered this car about 2 months ago (if that) and was getting myself used to the idea of a longish wait despite the initial promise of a January build ( which i was expecting to stretch out a little).

Anyway i digress, the actual topic of this post is winter driving safety.

I have put winter tyres on my cars now for the last few seasons and like most who do, find the difference these make to be amazing and not just in the snowy conditions you might expect, however good tyres alone dont make you a safer driver and i just wanted to point out to you all that Nokian tyres website has a really good and intersting section to it this year which might be worth a look to anyone interested in winter driving.Most of it is basic stuff but still good nonethless.Another good site is canadian driver (i think!!!!)

Have a great Christmas and new year when it comes.

Safe driving to all

[Ooopnorth]

Hi,

Just been told my yeti is being built this week, having originaly been told 2nd week in January.I only ordered this car about 2 months ago (if that) and was getting myself used to the idea of a longish wait despite the initial promise of a January build ( which i was expecting to stretch out a little).

Anyway i digress, the actual topic of this post is winter driving safety.

I have put winter tyres on my cars now for the last few seasons and like most who do, find the difference these make to be amazing and not just in the snowy conditions you might expect, however good tyres alone dont make you a safer driver and i just wanted to point out to you all that Nokian tyres website has a really good and intersting section to it this year which might be worth a look to anyone interested in winter driving.Most of it is basic stuff but still good nonethless.Another good site is canadian driver (i think!!!!)

Have a great Christmas and new year when it comes.

Safe driving to all

Many thanks. I found that really interesting and while some of the information was familiar I was amazed to see the Scandinavian driving 'expert' suggest its ok to cross arms on a tight steering turn! I was taught never to do this and to feed the steering wheel around while keeping the hands closely as possible in the 'ten-to-two' position. Mind you I did learn to drive a few decades ago!

Also, I didn't realise the difference between nordic non-studded winter tyre and central European winter tyres. Assume the latter are sold in the UK too.

[bluecar1]

passing the wheel hand to hand gives you more control, but, crossing hands allows faster changes in direction, so in my mind both have there place at the appropriate times and conditions

[briwy]

One of the reasons crossing hands is frowned on is that if the air bag goes off then your arms will be forced straight back at you and almost certainly result in some sort of injury.

I certainly don't want my hands flying back at me at 200mph

[speedsport]

Here's a link to Nokian's winter driving information... http://www.nokiantyres.com/winter-driving-school

[scottish007]

Thanks speedsport for the link,should have done that myself.

[ejstubbs]

One of the reasons crossing hands is frowned on is that if the air bag goes off then your arms will be forced straight back at you and almost certainly result in some sort of injury.

Well, possibly. But the advice has been to feed the wheel though rather than crossing hands for many, many years before airbags were available. As bluecar1 says, crossing hands allows faster steering corrections - so it's really a performance driving technique. Just look at the in-car footage of professional rally drivers: if you're that close to the edge of the envelope, you don't have time to feed the wheel through! Think also about F1 cars: the "wheel" on those is basically just a couple of handles either side of the steering column - you couldn't feed it through even if you wanted to. Then look at how far they have to cross hands negotiating eg the hairpins at Monaco.

(My recollection is that one of the primary motivations for the development of airbags as a viable consumer vehicle fitment was US manufacturers who didn't want to have to fit seat belts. This was back in the days when people complained that seat belts were 'restrictive', and dragged up tenuous arguments such as how they made it difficult to escape from a submerged car.)