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Show Winter Weather No Excuse for Skidding Accidents and Traffic Tie-Ups Says Bailey technique to develop is a sense of "feel" for the road surface to determine just exactly how slippery it. really is. He said that this can be determined in either one of two ways one, by jabbing the brakes occasional occasion-al when out of the way of other traffic to see whether the wheels skid; or two, by short, quick applications of the accelerator accel-erator to see" whether the wheels spin. "If the wheels skid or spin," he warned, "then it's obvious that you should drive at a much lower speed and perform per-form all meanuvers, whether stering, braking, or accelerating, accelerat-ing, with a delicate, gentle touch." Winter weather is no excuse for skidding accidents and traffic tie-ups, according to Robert D. Bailey, vice president traffic safety, Utah Safety Council "Those old alibies, "I skidded' or T couldn't stop' are seldom if ever a justifiable excuse ex-cuse for a traffic accident," Vice President Bailey said. "While there are exceptions, the skid was actually brought on by the driver through overpowering, over-powering, overbraking or over-steering. over-steering. Failure to stop in time is generally the result of driving driv-ing too fast for th pavement conditions," he added. The safety official cited findings find-ings of the National Safety Council's annual test project at Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Pointing out that these tests have shown the breaking distance dis-tance on glare ice may be as much as nine or ten times the normal dry pavement distance. Bailey said that it seems obvious ob-vious that very few drivers recognize rec-ognize the extreme hazard involved in-volved in driving on an icy surface, especialy since it is a relatively rare occurance. "Even on loosely packed snow a much more common condition condit-ion in this part of the country, these tests show that it still takes three or four times as far to stop as on a bare pavement" As far as the average driver is concerned, Bailey recommended recommen-ded that the most important |
