Ice

[Stotch]

Ice scares me, whether walking on it or worse black ice which is invisible until you drive over it. How do others deal with this annoying problem especially as the UK seems so pathetically prepared every year.

Am asking in respect to driving on black ice (I can't go 20mph everywhere). Am also going to buy them shoe grips which are suppose to help increase traction when walking on icy pavements.

[Aelwyn]

I know what you mean - I had an accident some years ago on black ice, it was only about 100 yards from my house. I drove down a road which was shaded by a high wall so the ice hadn't melted there - and ended up spinning 90 degrees and hitting another car coming in the other direction. (Luckily no-one was hurt).

I just had a look online and found a few tips for dealing with black ice, such as:

If it***8217;s below freezing outside it's likely there will be ice on the road, so, firstly, drive carefully as a precaution.
If the car in front of you drives through what looks like a puddle but there's no splash or ripple, it is probably black ice, so slow down gently to pass over it safely.
Even if the temperature gauge in your car says it***8217;s above freezing outside, there might still be some areas of the road which could be below freezing.
Be careful when driving over bridges and flyovers, through tunnels and on shady areas of the road. Air temperature is generally lower in these places and they may still be icy when the rest of the road is not.

[Coffee]

With icy road conditions, all you can do is drive slowly, massively increase your stopping distances, look way further ahead down the road than normal so you can start identifying hazards like shady spots sooner, break and steer more smoothly and slowly than normal, and drive in a high gear. All of which are designed to maximise grip.

If you live in an area where ice is common, don't buy a rear wheel drive car it's a nightmare. In my experience I've had a couple of slides, one I didn't control and had a fortunately very minor accident, the other I corrected without even quite knowing how, I just started reacting with the steering and came off and on the breaks and managed to somehow correct the slide.

There are advanced techniques to do with accelerating and steering in certain directions that I had read about but that all went out of my head when both incidents happened as panic and reaction set it. The best way to really feel like you could correct it with some hope of consistency would be lessons on a skid pan, of which there are many in the UK.

[Armadillo]

You can do advanced driving lessons to learn how to drive in extreme conditions, would that be something you could do? It used to be you also got cheaper insurance as a result too

It can help to let your tyres down slightly (only slightly mind) to give more traction. Also use gears to slow down as much as possible other than braking, brake soft and slow and stay in highest gear possible for as long as possible to also keep traction up.