Car or Driver

[Silk]

How many pedestrians, cyclists, HGVs, junctions, speed limits, traffic coming the other way etc. would you find on a typical race track?

Speed limits - Pit lane, safety car, yellow flags.
Junctions - Pit entrance, pit exit
Opposing traffic - At race speeds, a stationary vehicle might as well be "coming the other way".

And do you really think Lewis Hamilton is worrying about wearing out the gearbox when he's trying to beat his lap record?

Yes. If he is too hard on the equipment, it will break. As I said before: in order to finish first...

Hmm. A lot of straw clutching, methinks.

[jcochrane]

How many pedestrians, cyclists, HGVs, junctions, speed limits, traffic coming the other way etc. would you find on a typical race track?

Speed limits - Pit lane, safety car, yellow flags.
Junctions - Pit entrance, pit exit
Opposing traffic - At race speeds, a stationary vehicle might as well be "coming the other way".

And do you really think Lewis Hamilton is worrying about wearing out the gearbox when he's trying to beat his lap record?

Yes. If he is too hard on the equipment, it will break. As I said before: in order to finish first...

Hmm. A lot of straw clutching, methinks.

But by who?

[jont]

So to tie this up with the other thread.... average driver on winter tyres or skilled driver on summer tyres?

[waremark]

So to tie this up with the other thread.... average driver on winter tyres or skilled driver on summer tyres?

Not sure if I have got the context right. As I posted recently I was quite unable to get my daughter's Fiesta to move on a very slight snowy slope (let alone my M3), whereas there had been no issue at all driving uphill in our CRV. So if we are taking about the ability to get about, in my experience the equipment makes more difference than the driver.

[Silk]

So to tie this up with the other thread.... average driver on winter tyres or skilled driver on summer tyres?

Skilled driver almost every time. I say almost, because there will obviously be times where a winter tyre will get you moving when a normal one won't. Those occasions would be very rare in most of the UK. or rather, the parts of the UK where most people live.

Part of being a skilled driver is about taking it easy or simply staying at home.

[Gareth]

Part of being a skilled driver is about taking it easy or simply staying at home.

Or knowing which equipment to choose, and picking equipment that is suitable for the worst conditions that are likely to be encountered.

[Silk]

Part of being a skilled driver is about taking it easy or simply staying at home.

Or knowing which equipment to choose, and picking equipment that is suitable for the worst conditions that are likely to be encountered.

Take that to its logical conclusion and we'd all be driving around in tanks.

I've always used "normal" tyres and I've never had any problems getting around.

[TripleS]

Post deleted.

[Gareth]

Part of being a skilled driver is about taking it easy or simply staying at home.

Back in (about) '85 when I had a MkV Ford Cortina, 1600L, a step-brother and I stayed in a village west of Darlington for the Christmas period. On Christmas Day, and on the spur of the moment, we decided to go to Hadrian's Wall. It was fine when we set out, dry & clear. The cottage didn't have a TV and we'd not heard anything on the radio about the weather changing, or even that it'd previously been inclement in those parts.

There was enough petrol to get there and back, and a bit more besides, which was just as well as there'd have been no filling stations open that day.

I'm fairly certain we took the A68 up since it would have been the nearest main road that would get us there in the quickest time, then turned west along the B6318. I remember we stopped off a number of times to look at different sections of wall and fortifications, then we decided we'd better head back to the cottage to arrive before dusk, and because we wanted to (cook and) eat our Christmas dinner, (which actually wasn't going to be very Christmasy, us being two single blokes who really hadn't prepared very well).

I remember looking at the atlas and deciding we could use a fairly direct route back by using a mixture of A- and B-roads; I thought this would be quicker than retracing our steps along the B6318 back to the A68, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I've tried to work out our route a number of times over the years without being certain of it, but I remember when we were perhaps a third or half the way back we went through a small village then a little way out the road seemed to go up with a series of crests and mini-plateaus, steadily getting higher. Up 'til then the roads had been clear but here there was some snow that had laid, been compressed and frozen. Today, because I'm reminded of it, I think this was probably the A689 east out of Nenthead.

Part way up I didn't manage to get the car over a crest to the next plateau and had the awful feeling of sliding backwards with locked wheels. My older step-brother, who was a more experienced driver but who wasn't insured to drive my car, talked me through reversing back then trying to take a run at the crest, with the aim of using momentum to get us over it.

We tried this a number of times without success.

We'd found ourselves in a bit of a predicament. The only clear route we knew was retracing our steps from the entire day, but we didn't have enough petrol to do that, and the chances of finding an open filling station were close to zero. There were other routes we could have tried but we didn't know which, if any, we'd be able to pass.

We returned to the village to ponder our choices, but really we didn't have any choice at all. With strong encouragement from my step-brother, we followed his idea of trying to maintain a higher average speed with the hope that we could get all the way up. Fortunately it worked, but it was a heart-stoppingly worrying time for me.

That wasn't the end of our snow adventures that holiday. On the day we headed back to Bedfordshire we decided to detour to Bridlington, partly because that's where my step-father used to live, and partly because we thought it would be fun to paddle in the sea. I remember driving through the town, looking at some of the places we'd previously visited, and on a minor road covered with ice having the wheels lock as I tried to slow down approaching a main road. The car slithered alongside a traffic island and came to a halt at the main road. Very fortunate indeed!

We did go paddling; there was snow on the top part of the beach, but sand was showing further down. It was very cold but silly stupid fun!

The tyres were 165SR13, standard fitment, so not especially wide, and certainly not low profile. Probably radial. Some years later I heard about Town & Country tyres and then wondered if they'd have made a material difference. Probably, going on reports I'd heard, but I was young and lacking in knowledge in those days and wouldn't have had the foresight to fit them.

Certainly, with what I know now, I'd have had a much easier time of it if, then, I'd had the all-season or winter tyres we have now.

In each case we set out in good conditions and, part way though our journey, came upon very slippery road surfaces. It's a nonsense to say that not setting out is the answer to not having appropriate tyres, since one never knows whether the weather is going to change, especially when suitable rubber is readily available and, for most cars, could be chosen whenever the existing tyres need to be replaced.

Moreover, I wonder at people who say they've driven for so many years and never had problems when there's been snow or ice on the roads. I could claim this, I suppose, since I always managed to get where I intended going, but it wasn't in as much safety as it could have been, and it wasn't without worrying moments. I rather suspect many people look back though rosy-tinted spectacles, or else never really drove very far in those bygone days.

[waremark]

When I was a child we lived in the country with a hill to the house, as I do now. My (rally driving) father used to use M & S tyres in the winter, and put heavy weights in the boot. I remember tales of my mother having to bounce in the boot to further help getting up a hill,something I once successfully got my wife to do. In the very bad winter (65?) my father used a Land Rover to take us to school.

Nowadays as others have suggested I use my experience and judgement to decide what to attempt and what equipment to use. Hence, on the day previously mentioned when I could not drive the daughter's Fiesta up an extremely shallow gradient we had sensibly parked it before the forecast snow away from the house, just off a road which I knew would remain passable.

I do not believe that for all his skill Silk could have driven the Fiesta out on that day.

[Silk]

I've always used "normal" tyres and I've never had any problems getting around.

That may be because, by your own admission, you're prepared to stay at home when you don't like the conditions. Some of us choose to spend a little more on tyres which give us the ability to keep moving. I'm not thinking of winter tyres, but all-season ones, which removes the necessity of having to decide when to change.

I only said a good driver would consider staying at home. I didn't think it was bad enough to stay at home during the recent cold snap. Either I'm a poor driver who should have stayed at home or the conditions simply weren't that bad.

I realise I probably live in an area that's not so affected by the cold weather, but I did travel to other areas that were.

I'm a high mileage business driver, so it's not as if I just drive 10 miles each day to the office and down to Cornwall once a year.

If you live out in the sticks where you need to get out and the difference between getting out or not is down to a set of winter tyres, then they're a good idea. For average motorists who live in towns and do most of their driving on treated roads, they're a waste of time. IMO, of course.

[TripleS]

Post deleted.

[fungus]

In the very bad winter (65?) my father used a Land Rover to take us to school.

That would be 1963. I remember not going to school for three or four weeks, maybe more, as the roads around us, I lived in a lane off the B 3078 Wimborne to Cranborne road, were completely snowed up, the snow covering the hedges.
My father, who worked shifts, would leave the house at 4am to walk the 2.5 miles for the start of his shift at 6am at the Witchampton Board Mills. IIRC, the only vehicles on the roads were tractors and Land Rovers.

[jcochrane]

In the very bad winter (65?) my father used a Land Rover to take us to school.

That would be 1963. I remember not going to school for three or four weeks, maybe more, as the roads around us, I lived in a lane off the B 3078 Wimborne to Cranborne road, were completely snowed up, the snow covering the hedges.
My father, who worked shifts, would leave the house at 4am to walk the 2.5 miles for the start of his shift at 6am at the Witchampton Board Mills. IIRC, the only vehicles on the roads were tractors and Land Rovers.

I was working in the City of London at the time and there must have been a rail strike on, or threatened, as the bank I worked for had arranged for coaches to get us into work.
The snow was falling as I walked to the pickup point which was also where the coach was starting from. I think we left at around 07:00 but by then the snow was already a foot deep. By lunch time we'd got as far as West Wickham, a distance of 2 to 3 miles. Traffic was at a complete standstill and no chance of getting to work. So we all jumped off and walked home through the snow which by then was several feet deep. In places drifting raised the level to chest height. Didn't get home until mid/late afternoon.

[waremark]

In the very bad winter (65?) my father used a Land Rover to take us to school.

That would be 1963. I remember not going to school for three or four weeks, maybe more, as the roads around us, I lived in a lane off the B 3078 Wimborne to Cranborne road, were completely snowed up, the snow covering the hedges.
My father, who worked shifts, would leave the house at 4am to walk the 2.5 miles for the start of his shift at 6am at the Witchampton Board Mills. IIRC, the only vehicles on the roads were tractors and Land Rovers.

Yes, I am sure it was 63. There were deep drifts on our lane, and my father found a route which the Land Rover could cope with over the fields. I don't remember whether I felt upset not to miss school!