white stuff

[cellio]

Whee. Snow. Looked like about 4 inches this morning and it's still coming down; I wonder what it'll be like for the evening commute. Gotta love the effect on the commute.... (I don't dislike snow in the abstract, but I'd rather admire it from the comfort of my living room, instead of being out on the roads.)

It appears that those out driving before 7:30am are a better class of snow-drivers than those out around 9am. (The latter is approximately when I left morning services/breakfast for work. Services were long because it's Chanukah and Rosh Chodesh, first of the new month. And we started late, because it took longer to get a minyan because of the snow.) At 7:30 people were sane and competent; at 9:00 I encountered the reckless, the over-cautious, and folks who were skidding all over the place.

Even the major roads like Boulevard of the Allies hadn't been plowed at 9am. The Birmingham Bridge was throughly encrusted with packed, slick snow. I would have thought that bridges would get priority, but I guess not.

I am pleased that by driving sensibly and knowing how to use a stick shift, I did not have problems stopping on the slippery roads (even though I was nervous about some of the people around me, including the one behind me who didn't understand following distance). I will remember this when Dani lobbies for me to get an automatic transmission in my next car so he can drive it. Bah. Manual transmission rocks! And I'm not especially skilled -- solidly average, I'd say. (It's certainly possible that brake technology has gotten good enough for this not to be a real issue, but I will test-drive an automatic in the worst of weather conditions before considering it.)

I really need to go grocery shopping this evening. I hope it's not a zoo.

Comments

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

What is the advantage of the manual transmission in bad weather? I learned to drive in an area with mild winters, but my car is a manual so I'm curious...

[cellio]

You can slow yourself down by down-shifting into a gear that's too low for the speed you're going. While you can do this in an automatic, I've never met anyone who drives an automatic and considers this instinctive.

If you can slow yourself down without using the brakes, you greatly reduce your chances of skidding. This morning when people ahead of me were randomly hitting the brakes (but never quite stopping) on the Boulevard of the Allies, I just kept alternating between third (normal) and second (to slow down in case I needed to stop), and I didn't touch the brake except for red lights.

Some cars get decidedly cranky if you down-shift into first while moving. And this probably isn't great for the transmission; you shouldn't do this year-round, only when you need to.

[jducoeur]

You can slow yourself down by down-shifting into a gear that's too low for the speed you're going. While you can do this in an automatic, I've never met anyone who drives an automatic and considers this instinctive.

Actually, I do this pretty automatically in bad weather -- when there's serious snow on the road, I treat my automatic largely like a stick. (Including shifting in and out of the overdrive when I'm on the highway.) I've got ABS, but I prefer not to explore its limits the hard way.

That said, I started out driving five years with a stick before moving to automatics, so I may not be the usual case...

[cellio]

I would like to think that I would do this if driving an automatic, but the few times I've driven them in adverse conditions I've found that if the transmission control isn't in "the usual place" for a manual transmission, I don't seem to do it. On the other hand, I'm not sure I would want that control in the usual place for a manual; a decision to upshift could be unfortunate. :-)

It's also possible that I would get over this if I drove automatics more. When I was learning to drive my two choices were the small, managable, manual Pinto and the huge automatic Country Squire wagon. I decided that learning to drive a manual transmission sounded like a fine idea.

[jducoeur]

Heh. I learned to drive simultaneously on the Toyota Corolla and the Country Squire wagon. (Truly one of the all-time scariest land yachts.) After dealing with switching between those semi-regularly, pretty much nothing bothered me afterwards...