Just had a thought after hearing some young lads talking in the GYM at dinner. There must be quite a few younger peopel who have not driven in the snow, the last snow of any real measure was what 13 years ago so you have people of anything up to 30 that have not had a deal of experience in driving in the snow.

 

it's a good point. i recall getting stuck in my Astra GTE (16v of course) on a slight hill. People were sailing past me but wide tyres and not heavy left me stood still

all good fun. i drove from Portsmouth to Nottingham in weather like this once. noone else was on the roads so it was great

 

I need some minor body repairs courtesy of snow and a post today (it was the only post for about a mile)

and ungritted roads.......

not worth claiming on the insurance

and I was going to treat the beemer to a spring makeover anyway

every cloud and all that

 

Saw ancient neighbour attempt to drive slushbox W203 an hour ago.

It was very scary.

Eventually a combo of coordinative inability, RWD, open diff and summer tyres made him think better of it. TFFT!

 

Roads were horrendous today and I aborted my trip at 100 miles on the way from Nottingham to Hampshire. Parts of the M1 were treachorous, especially the high parts in between Jct 23 and Jct 21 where visibility was bad and the snow was settling on the carriageway.

I turned at Jct 20 and went back but cut of up the A46 at Jct 21a to avoid it... unfortunately for me the dual A46 was even worse and I had a few hairy moments, and quite a number of people had 'ran out of talent' and binned it into telegraph poles or in the ditch / verge.

I was really appalled with some of the driving, mainly by young drivers or truckers. Large HGV's were driving 10-15 feet from the bumpers of cars after cars had slowed to 40mph due to the snow on the road. WHY??? I dabbed the brakes when safe to see what traction was there and just got the judder of ABS, prompting me to slow, I also hard the traction control light come on in 6th gear... sometimes twin turbos and 350 Ib/ft is not fun!

Even driving back on the A46 when I was doing 40-45 with the backend moving out on the hills I had idiots right on my arse or driving past at 60+ on settled snow. That's when I went past at least 4 cars that had left the road.

Had a laugh trying to reverse into my garage - my driveway is on a slope and there was no chance! Managed to take a run up and go in head first, but only just.

Very glad that I didn't make it to Hampshire where I heard it was even worse. For once though I went well prepared with plenty of snacks, bottled water, big jacket and a spade

Had some fun on an empty road on the way home testing the traction control which is excellent on my 135i, I was very impressed.

Still snowing hard north of Nottingham, expect we will have 3-4 inches by the end of the day.

 

Twatted a wheel against the kerb this morning at about 1mph, I forgot about ABS and snow.

Yet another mark on the wheels though, I'll have to bring that refurb forward.


And learn how to drive.

 

Kate had some stuff for a customer that needed to be posted today, she didn't want to drive in the snow - as Mole said, she's had no experience in snow at all and since our drive is above the river, she was afraid of sliding off and 20' down into the water.

To be honest, it was just the excuse I needed.

The Subaru was great - loads of traction even on the steep hill out of our valley- it's times like this I'm glad I stuck with AWD.

 

Mine's great at going, I had an incredibly smug moment effortlessly driving up the steep hill outside the office this morning whilst all the FWDs where taking 16 attempts to scrabble out.

Just not so good at stopping

 

Now that cars have stupid levels of mass & power, 4WD is indispensible.

Just remember to pull the ABS fuse before setting off.

WTF's all this 'never driven in snow' before stuff? The entire population of Finland and myself had never driven in the snow before, once!

Mind you, I'm forever bouncing in & out of ditches and stuff; it's not just Gad!

 

I've never really driven in snow - the scoob would be fine I'm sure at pulling away, but give you false confidence in stopping !!

Just walked up to the post box and amazed at how many people are just slamming the anchors on at the last minute on roundabouts (as usual) and accelerating hard and slipping/sliding!