Show I No Excuse For Skidding Winter weather is ho excuse i 5 for skidding accidents and traffic according to Robert D. vice Traffic f. Utah Safety old ml or couldn't are seldom if ever a justifiable excuse for a traffic vice Bailey there are exceptions such as mechanical in the vast majority of skidding the skid was actually brought on by the driver through over-braking or FAILURE to stop in time is generally the result of driving too fast for the pavement he The safety official cited findings of the National Safety Council's annual test project at Stevens POINTING out that these tests have shown that the braking distance on glare ice may be as much as nine or ten times the normal dry pavement Bailey said that it seems obvious that very few drivers recognize the extreme hazard involved in driving on an icy especially since it is a relatively rare on loosely packed a much more common condition in this part of the these tests show that it still takes three or four times as far to stop as an a bare AS FAR as the average driver is Bailey recommended that the most important technique to develop is a sense of for the road surface to determine just exactly how slippery it really He said that this can be determined in either one of two ways by jabbing the brakes occasionally when out of the way of other traffic to see whether the wheels or by quick applications of the accelerator to see whether the wheels THE wheels spin or he it's obvious that you should drive at a much slower speed and perform all whether braking or accelerating with a gentle Referring again to the Council's the safety official said that traction aids such as snow studs and chains can provide definite assistance when used but in no case do they provide the same amount of traction on snow or ice as that normally available on either a wet or dry by the Council's Committee on Winter Driving Hazards have shown that conventional snow tires can improve pulling ability on ice by about 28 percent and they provide half again as much pulling in loosely packed snow as regular although they are of no help in stopping on Studded snow tires provide about three times the pulling ability of regular tires on glare ice and reduce braking distances by 19 severe snow and ice reinforced tire chains provide the ultimate in both stopping and pulling he tests show that reinforced tire chains reduce braking distances on glare ice by about 50 percent and provide from to seven times the pulling ability of regular tires on snow and |