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Show Winter Driving Requires Many Special Precautions Many urban area motorists of the snow belt states who are good drivers on a "dry track" oecome nearly helpless in winter itorms because they don't know now to drive on ice and snow, according to Harry Porter, Jr., manager of the Traffic Dept., of the National Safety Council. "The drivers cause thousands of dollars in property damage and many fatal crashes each lime Old Man Winter swoops .nto their communities. They nave become so dependent on iood winter road maintenance oy snow removal and sanding jrews of the city and state and oy transit companies that they ignore their personal responsibility responsi-bility to be mentally prepared and to have their vehicles ready for unusually severe winter driving driv-ing conditions," he said. When such drivers crash into someone or get stalled they just blame the storm, the street or nighway department, or other driver, but . seldom themselves. Mr. Porter believes just a little know how about winter driving would keep them out of trouble. "Many drivers don't use good judgment in when to drive and fail to equip their vehicles if they must go out in a severe storm.They get stalled and block removal equipment and add to the tough job of keeping streets cleared. "Inadequate traction and reduced re-duced visibility are two of the six basic hazards of winter driving driv-ing that cause motorists trouble. The other four are: 1) Effect of temperature, 2) Reduced ability abil-ity to stop and steer, 3) Unexpected Unex-pected icy conditions, and 4) Ice and snow made slippery by traffic. traf-fic. To help drivers help themselves them-selves in the prevention of accidents acci-dents and costly delays, he has urged all snow belt drivers to consider the following facts and recommendations based on research re-search by the Council's Committee Commit-tee of Winter Driving Hazards: Always drive with the thermometer ther-mometer in mind. Braking distance dis-tance about doubles as the tem-Derature tem-Derature rises from 10 to 32 and reinforced tire chains, which the committee recommends every driver carry in his trunk for emergency conditions. 409 per cent better. On loosely packed snow, the snow tires are 51 per cent better than regular tires and reinforced tire chains 313 per cent better in traction ability. the winning hand who wants to It's usually the person with put his cards on the table. degrees. Everyone realizes that the melting ice cube is far more slippery than the very cold cube as it comes from the freezer but many drivers have not associated asso-ciated this fact with icy road conditions where wet ice at 30 degrees is more slippery and offers about half the traction of ice around 10 degrees above. A car going 20 mph takes 114 feet to stop on glare ice at zero degrees, de-grees, but at 32 degrees the same car will take 235 feet to stop. Reinforced tire chains will reduce re-duce it to about 77 feet. Road slush and grime, ice and snow, early hours of darkness, all make it hard to see on winter roads. Drivers must double efforts ef-forts to keep lights, windshields and windows in top lighting and viewing condition. Since drivers must see a hazard to avoid it they should see that windshield wiper blades are in top condition. condi-tion. Wiper arm pressure of one ounce per inch of blade length is needed to sweep snow and sleet off instead of sliding over it. Pulling away from a standstill, stand-still, climbing hills, or going in deep snow can all cause more trouble from aggravating delays de-lays to major tie ups and accidents. acci-dents. Consider these test facts at severe conditions: On glare ice, snow tires proved 28 per cent better than regular tires, regular tire chains 231 per cent better, |