• For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.

Dad’s Top Ten Winter Driving Tips

James

Out There
Instructor
Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Posts
24,434
DO NOT focus on that thing you don't want to hit because if you do you'll hit it every time.
Target fixation. I didn’t know the name comes from WW2 when pilots hit targets on practice runs.

 

Bolder

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Dec 1, 2017
Posts
486
So much good advice here. Too bad those who need it won't see it...

anyway, I'm a damn good winter driver, if I do say so myself. I grew up in rural Pa down a half-mile dirt road, was already plowing it with a Cub Cadet at age 10, so knew all about traction/chains/power. My first car was a Saab 99 with illegal rally lights and OG 75-series Hakkapellitta snow tires direct from Finland. So basically nothing outside of black ice fazes me. My finest hour as a driver was going over the Col d'Aravis in a blizzard in full Sebastien Loeb mode drifting every corner with my wife covering her eyes and our two kids fast asleep in the back. Now we have a second home atop the Col de Romme so I get to go full on WRC all year long.

Anyway, all this boasting and bragging is to say the absolute best advice to winter driving is...nothing is so important, not even a powder day, that you shouldn't just turn around and go home, or stop for the day/night, if conditions are sketchy and you're not 100 percent confident you can safely turn AND stop. Especially with others in the car.
 

Henry

Out on the slopes
Skier
Joined
Sep 7, 2019
Posts
1,229
Location
Traveling in the great Northwest
Great list but have to add one adage that every race driver knows: When thinks go wonky, always look where you want the car to go. DO NOT focus on that thing you don't want to hit because if you do you'll hit it every time.
Totally true. As said above, when tree skiing don't look at the trees. Look at the gaps. You'll go where you are looking. Motorcycle riders learn to not look at potholes. Look at the pavement between potholes. You'll go where you're looking. A friend was in very dense falling snow following a bus. She didn't learn the lesson (until too late) that if the tail lights seem to be getting farther apart, you're getting closer. Crunch! She hit what she was looking at while failing to look at the road and a safe route either behind or around that bus. She went where she was looking.
 

James

Out There
Instructor
Joined
Dec 2, 2015
Posts
24,434
As said above, when tree skiing don't look at the trees. Look at the gaps. You'll go where you are looking. Motorcycle riders learn to not look at potholes. Look at the pavement between potholes.
The target fixation phenomenon I guess was named in WW2. Looking around, I came across this flight instructor’s reminiscence from WW2. At least three target fixation crashes in here.

-There’s one tall oak tree in the middle of cotton fields near the base. Not another tree for a mile! They use it to mark the turn towards landing approach. ilot runs right into the top of it!mazingly, he survives.

-Fighter pilots practicing straight down runs on bombers. One hits a B-17, chopping the front off.

-Fighter pilots flying circles shooting at a target. One is so focused on the target that he hits another plane in the exercise. I guess that’s the definition right there.

Some 15,000 airmen were killed in the US in training during WW2.

This is long, but interesting. @geepers , or others who fly would be interested.

 

scott43

So much better than a pro
Skier
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Posts
13,549
Location
Great White North
Seen a guy hit a telephone pole dead centre on a ZX7R Ninja. Panicked, braked hard and nailed it. Same story for many sports, look where you want to go..
 

Sponsor

Staff online

Top