applied physics

[cellio]

Dear certain drivers I had the misfortune to be near today: Write "momentum is not always bad" 500 times or until you learn that on icy uphill stretches there is such a thing as "minimum speed", whichever comes second. Having to plan around your antics is a PITA. Thank you.

Driving this morning was "interesting". Nothing had been plowed when I headed out to the morning minyan, which wasn't too surprising (barely past sunrise). Nothing in my neighborhood had been plowed an hour later either, which was cranky-making. They had managed to plow in Greenfield and the south side, but Forbes Avenue (Forbes Avenue!) and Beacon Avenue were untouched when I left for work. I got up Beacon with a running start, but I had to delay until someone got out of the way and that made the guy behind me initially cranky. I think he figured it out as he followed me up, though; that looked like a wave at the top of the hill.

I got stuck on the way to minyan. I could see that I was going to have to stop on a slight incline; I had enough warning to try to aim for the least-bad spot, and it would have worked if someone hadn't decided to pull up right behind me (so no "roll back slightly" option). When traffic moved I couldn't go forward, and I had to wait for the guy behind me to conclude that I wasn't going anywhere and back up himself before I could move. I was wondering if perhaps my tires are just crap (how are Hondas for that in general? it's not age; the car only has 4000 miles), but on the way back later I saw two accidents in that block, so maybe not. On the other hand, I did some unexpected sliding in other places. I think of myself as an average driver; there are undoubtedly things I could learn that would help in situations like this, but I think I mostly do ok.

Things were better tonight, but parts of Beacon still hadn't been plowed. I guess they're just waiting for next week's thaw.

Comments

[brokengoose.livejournal.com]

Were it not for the logistic complications, I'd be a big fan of

1) Forcing people to take on-road driving tests in the snow in manual-shift rear-wheel-drive vehicles with no power steering or power brakes (we'll still do the parking test on dry roads) and

2) Forcing retests every few years

Obviously, that's never going to happen, but "learn how to drive in bad weather" and "learn that other vehicles have different requirements from yours" (i.e. "leave room behind people on uphill stops") would be good things.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Ugh.

I have had to put my car in reverse, and then sit there with arms folded until the guy behind me figures out I need more space, on a few occasions. (Of course in Boston this situation is more commonplace; drivers in the front often screw up, pull too far forward, and block a bus from turning or somesuch. Then the entire line of cars needs to back up...)

Wave hi to Angus (Fishbane) as you drive down Forbes for me. ;)

[cellio]

If more driver-ed programs even covered these topics at all, that would be an improvement. It was not until later that I really appreciated that when my father taught me to drive, he did so in the snow in a manual-transmission Ford Pinto. There was also a program at school, but when you have five students in the car and 45 minutes for the lesson, you don't get much technique.

An area where I'm definitely deficient, but it's not easy to fix, is driving large vehicles. I think most people are -- and some of them are out there driving U-Hauls. But I've also been uncomfortable the few times I've driven vans and similar vehicles. What are the tricks for visibility, sensing where your boundaries really are, etc? I don't drive such vehicles enough to really practice.

[cellio]

I put it in reverse and turned on the blinkers and it still took the bozo more than three minutes to figure it out.

I've seen the bus thing here, too. There's nothing quite like having the guy behind you blasting his horn because I've left room in front of me because I can see what's coming, only to then have the whole line back up for the bus...

[sue-n-julia.livejournal.com]

Hondas aren't terrible in the snow, though they don't seem to handle it quite as well as American-made cars (that seems to be one thing the Big 3 got right). The only trouble I've had with ours is when the city leaves 1" of ice on the road and it gets badly rutted/washboarded by semis with chains.

I hate driving Toyotas in the snow (it was a Toyota that I had to let get perpendicular on the interstate because it wasn't handling the road conditions very well at all).

S

[cellio]

My Mazda 323, power nothing, anti-lock nothing, just plain old car, was pretty good in the snow/ice, as was the VW Golf (new enough to have helpful features). I suspect that the Honda is also ok but that yesterday's roads were very challenging, based on what I've heard/read others say about it. That wasn't clear to me at the time, though.

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

From the stuff I saw in the paper, it sounds like it was pretty bad. I'm pretty lucky on that point since I haven't even needed to leave the building until today to walk to the gym.

I don't know about your car but my Civic handles better than my Saturn did under any circumstances I can think of (that Saturn would hydroplane on the Turnpike all the time). In fact, I liked the original tires on the Civic so much that I tried to get ones like them when it was time for replacements.