Anyone ever practiced driving in the snow?

[Colargo]

I'm wondering if there are courses that teach you how to drive in the snow or if anyone has practiced on the roads when there were no cars around so you'd be abit more experienced? Seems like alot of people don't know how to drive in snow and then when a big storm comes around there's always a bunch of accidents.

I tried practicing a few weeks ago during the first big storm when I was coming home late from a friend's house. It was 4am in the morning and alot of snow was on the ground on the 401 and the plows hadn't cleared it yet. There were hardly any cars on the highway and everyone was driving 60km or less. So from Etobicoke to Scarborough I purposely put my car into skids and then practiced recovering from them. While I did spin out a couple of times, most of the time I recovered from the skids/fishtailing alright. Has anyone else ever tried this or was I just nuts?

[weales]

Check out some driving schools, I know mine offered a skid control course.

As far as practicing in major storms, I admit I'll religiously head out first of the year and do donuts etc. in empty parking lots in the whee hours of the morning.

I do this for 3 factors:

1. It's fun as hell :cheesygri
2. I feel it helps me in gaining experience in the snow and gives me an understanding and respect towards snow/ice (aka. it doesn't take much to **** up).
3. I find out if my tires suck ass and need new ones.

If you feel a need to practice on the roads, don't. Take it to a empty parking lot , go nuts and have fun.

[kleptodathief]

ya i WISH i cud practise donuts/burnouts in an empty parking lot :D, say bye bye to my POS tranny tho!:mad: >:( :idea:

[Spray]

I usually go out to a big parking lot when the first storm hits. Great to test out a new car/tires and the cops wont bug you. Put my car into some huge drifts and skids...even did some standstill donuts :D

Had a blast and learned the limits of my car. It's VERY good in the snow AND ice.

[gerbil]

i wish you don't practice your snow-manuevering skillz in a busy hwy such as in 401 ... you don't want to end up facing west in the east side, you know :)

i normally do it in a parking lot a lot more safer ...

[nalababe]

Skid Control courses are great fun. You end up going around and around and around.....a couple fo people ended up getting sick. My was a required course from work.

[S14_Raven]

Practice in a parking lot

[Desolatax]

Practice in a parking lot with a rear wheel drive vehicle, it'll be loads of fun :D

[Asad_A203]

yeah it is best to figure how your car reacts in an empty parking lot versus on a street. Nothing is more fun that drifting your car around. Sadly the first time I really had time to go and do this; the parking lot was relatively clear; sure made it boring...

[cereal83]

I say practise on the 404 or 401 after 10 am until 3 pm.

[felixdd]

I did some drifts and donuts in parking lots. Or around quiet streets in the dead of night. Even did some 180 turns for the hell of it.

Pretty hard to do in a FWD Camry, but it's still pretty fun :razz:

[VorteC]

I practiced on quite streets and go-station parking lots..

I pretty much induced a skid with the handbrake and throttle countersteer.. actually, kinda like drifting lol.

[MC25]

Ya same, I love ripping around and do donuts in the snow. I also practice skidding in a straight line, and counter steering etc. Make sure you have lots of space, and that it isnt to icey. Use good judgement

[blue mountain raider]

if a cop sees you doing those things, will u be in trouble? ie charged with "stunt driving"?

[bubble.tea]

heavy snowfalls and rentals...that's where it's at. \the 4X4 rental types that is :).


I actually had a sedan in a far off country for a rental once...Our last day we went out to the beach, and raced up and down the coastline on the beach. What a RUSH!!! 3?A?M? and we were doing 120km over little humptdumpt sand hills....what a rush.

[65505201]

if a cop sees you doing those things, will u be in trouble? ie charged with "stunt driving"?

I believe so - they certainly have the law behind them if they want to be an ass about it.


Definition, “stunt”

3. For the purposes of section 172 of the Act, “stunt” includes any activity where one or more persons engage in any of the following driving behaviours:

1. Driving a motor vehicle in a manner that indicates an intention to lift some or all of its tires from the surface of the highway, including driving a motorcycle with only one wheel in contact with the ground, but not including the use of lift axles on commercial motor vehicles.

2. Driving a motor vehicle in a manner that indicates an intention to cause some or all of its tires to lose traction with the surface of the highway while turning.

3. Driving a motor vehicle in a manner that indicates an intention to spin it or cause it to circle, without maintaining control over it.

...


To everyone that learned to better handle their cars in the snow from practicing in parking lots, what do you think of 203 now? Don't you feel safer knowing that practicing in empty lots is now against the law? O, if only the 203 supporters were out in empty parking lots teaching their kids how to react in the snow and had their asses handed to them by the popo.

EDIT: I should add that playing around in the parking lot has already saved my ass once. Knowing the feel of my car losing control and feeling confident enough to correct it (without panicking) has kept my baby in one piece.

[Desolatax]

I believe so.



To everyone that learned to better handle their cars in the snow from practicing in parking lots, what do you think of 203 now? Don't you feel safer knowing that practicing in empty lots is now against the law?

Do you see the word HIGHWAY????

Also, according to what you are saying, that would make all race tracks completely illegal if it applied to a parking lot too.

[65505201]

Do you see the word HIGHWAY????

Also, according to what you are saying, that would make all race tracks completely illegal if it applied to a parking lot too.

Uh....I believe they just call all "roads," "highways." Otherwise, we would have a "City Road Traffic Act" in addition to the "Highway Traffic Act." Even if 3.2 only applied to actual highways (and not roads or parking lots), you'd still get nailed with 3.3. It's up to the officer's discretion to determine if even a 90 deg spin (ie. a skidding left/right turn) is still grounds for immediate suspension.

The reason why I believe the officer can nail you with this is because there was already a case where a kid in an ATV/4x4 flipped in an empty field and still got charged (under 3.1 I would think).

Also...

Exceptions

4. (1) Despite section 2, “race” and “contest” do not include,

(a) a rally, navigational rally or similar event that is conducted,

(i) under the supervision of the Canadian Association of Rally Sport,

(ii) under the supervision of a club or association approved in writing by the Ministry, or

(iii) with the written approval of the road authority or road authorities having jurisdiction over the highway or highways used;

(b) motor vehicle owners engaged in a tour, scenic drive, treasure hunt or other similar motoring event in which the participants drive responsibly and in a manner that indicates an overall intention to comply with the provisions of the Act; or

(c) an event held on a closed course with the written approval of the road authority having jurisdiction over the highway, including any event lawfully using any of the trademarks “CART”, “Formula One”, “Indy”, “IndyCar”, “IRL” or “NASCAR”. O. Reg. 455/07, s. 4 (1).


So it wouldn't apply to race tracks.

EDIT...I just noticed it...treasure hunt? WTF?

[new_vr]

EDIT...I just noticed it...treasure hunt? WTF?
I am pretty sure that's for people doing scavenger hunts...they are just saying it's ok, if you follow the rules of the road

[phucyall]

It has already been said, but practicing in an empty parking lot is the way to go.
Not to say that I personally haven't done it on a snowed in road when there is no traffic, but it's much safer in an empty parking lot. The most you will damage is your own car.

It is a great experience and I would even go as far as to say it's a must do. Just don't spend hours at it. If you do 15 minutes in a parking lot and then leave then cops don't have time to show up and you got a bit of practice. Things to try is getting up to 60km/h and then locking your wheels. This will let you see just how it feels, how useless the steering becomes, etc. You will also know what it feels like when you front wheels are locked so when it happens on the road you will know to let off the brake until front wheels catch tractions again.
Try sharp turns at 40-50km/h to feel oversteer/understeer (depending on your car being FWD or RWD) and how you can make the turn sharper (by either letting off the gas or giving it more gas).

And finally something to do for fun if you have a FWD car, try making a turn and pulling a handbrake while you are doing it. This will simulate your car going into a skid. You can then practice recovering from that to either return to same direction of travel or to do a 90 degree turn.

If you have a RWD car then there is a lot more fun to be had, but also a lot more to practice. I learned to drive on a RWD car in a very snowy town so it made for some great fun. But I did try a lot of different things in parking lots that ended up getting me out some really bad situations more times then I can count. With RWD it's a lot easier to get your car into a skid so you have to practice your acceleration through a corner and what happens if lose traction and oversteer. Practice recovering form that and controlling a skid in case you ever do need to keep accelerating through a skid (say to get out of the way quickly).

[hytong]

http://www.carcontrolschool.com/
http://www.skidcontrolschool.com/
http://www.team-oneil.com

[Spray]

It's the same thing with anything involving the police. If you act like a douche, then the officer will find someting to charge you with. If you have a loud fart can and you're beside houses, chances are he'll charge with noise pollution or disturbing the peace. Also it's not a good idea to do this with a bunch of friends. If you're by yourself, well spoken and respectful chances are you'll never ever get a ticket.

I've been stopped twice by police when tooling around in a parking lot. You just explain to them you're testing out new winter tires so you can drive safer on public roads, they wont charge you. There's always that risk, but really if you're respectful it's a snowballs chance he's gonna do anything. The OP doing it on the 401 is just dumb, if I was a cop I'd definately charge you for doing that.

[ES_Revenge]

Winter's been fun so far, with me still having two summer tyres on the back.

In my residential area and in parking lots I have a little fun with sliding out the gripless rear end, oversteering around turns and turning the wheel opposite to go around a corner without losing control. Plus when I go to get my mail I have to go down the the wrong way to get to the mailboxes so I need to turn around to go home--a quick 180 is quite easy with the parking brake and rear tyres that don't protest to sliding even in the least haha.

But only when no one else is around and there are no parked cars around either, which is most of the time :) My fun will probably end this week for the most part (except maybe some handbrake turn-arounds albeit with a lot more effort) when I get the two remaining wheels switched to winter ones.

On main roads there's no sense in fooling around and getting your car impounded and your license revoked for "stunting" :rolleyes: And hey everything is cleared anyway so you can't really do stupidness even if you wanted to (well not without making a lot of tyre screeching noises anyway).

[maniacshopper]

I've practiced in parking lots, you need to train your reflex reaction to avoid crashing. If you are too slow, you will not save yourself. But that goes for driving at the limit. If you drive slow, and not stupid, you can get away with a little lag time.

[Atomic Chip]

Go to Leons.

[Colargo]

For everyone suggesting the parking lot, that sounds good except it doesn't seem as fun. :)

This was the first time I've driven on the highway in deep snow and I definitely wouldn't mess around if there were more cars around, but it was 4am and the nearest cars to mine on the 401 at that time was about a kilometre away at least and I wasn't driving all that fast before I put my car into the skids, probably 70km at most, but usually it was more like 50-60km. If I had gone faster, there might have been a chance that I may have skidded into a guardrail or something, but since I wasn't going too fast, the couple of times I spun out I didn't hit anything.

I just figured why not practice in a real world setting on the highways while I had the chance and no one was around. Even if the cops were around I seriously doubt they would pull me over considering how bad the conditions were. All in all it was pretty fun to have the whole highway to yourself and skidding on fresh snow. :D And I did feel I gained some valuable experience as to what skids feel like and how to regain control from one.