Left Coventry at 0245 yesterday Morning going to Banbury, just got on the M40 and the snow started to fall like a nutter…
Gets into 3663 in Banbury at about 0340, tipped and out there by 0445, this is where the fun started…
Got back on the M40 North heading for Coventry, and the road was white, not a tyre track, nothing, i was the only vehicle on the road, for about 10 minutes…
Now, i was driving along doing about 25mph, my Temperature guage was saying -2 and all the time the back end of the unit was trying to kick round, and the ASR light was permanently, and to be quite honest it was pretty hairy, and by rights i should have pulled over, but thats another story…
Just past Gaydon, A Fowler Welch Motor and 4 irish Fridges(2 Scania’s, a Volvo and a MAN) came past me doing hell of lick, on the same sheet of ice i was driving on…
Now, this isnt a critisicm, and i am not looking to chatize anyone, but i am genuinely am interested if people think i was being too Cautious, or if the Fowler Welch & Irish Trucks showed complete disregard for the weather…
No problem with being cautious, a twitchy lorry is no fun at all. I doubt those other ‘cowboys’ tanking along the motorway would have received a bonus for smashing up their wagons, more likely just a P45 and their bus fare home.
Ragnarok:
No problem with being cautious, a twitchy lorry is no fun at all. I doubt those other ‘cowboys’ tanking along the motorway would have received a bonus for smashing up their wagons, more likely just a P45 and their bus fare home.
They wouldnt let the busses run here
so it would have been a walk lol
Every driver is obliged to adjust his/her speed to traffic, weather, road surface and vehicle condition, his/her driving skills and other circumstances that can be anticipated.
If you did just that, you were perfectly right and don’t need to think about the others too much.
Many people are over-confident about the fifth thing, but… there’s little you can do about it
BuzzardBoy:
Just past Gaydon, A Fowler Welch Motor and 4 irish Fridges(2 Scania’s, a Volvo and a MAN) came past me doing hell of lick, on the same sheet of ice i was driving on…
Perhaps they were foreigners who would be used to heavy snow and not understand what all the fuss is about.
BuzzardBoy:
Now, i was driving along doing about 25mph, my Temperature guage was saying -2 and all the time the back end of the unit was trying to kick round, and the ASR light was permanently, and to be quite honest it was pretty hairy, and by rights i should have pulled over, but thats another story…
Like has been said, drive at the speed you feel you’re safe, but I’m (again) commenting the winter driving from my point of view.
If road was, like you said, dry before it started snowing, road is not likely instantly turn into a sheet of ice (that usually requires some driving over the snow). But I’m not commenting that, as ground is likely not frozen over there (ground temperature above zero despite air temperature), it may pretty easily turn into a ice sheet. What I want to say, is that your drive tyres were about to spin because you were driving too slow for the grip available. Think about sports car which can burn tyre at slow speeds but not when going fast. Now apply this to the lorry and you notice the same phenomenon. You had too much power available and you couldn’t transfer it to the road. If you had accelerated further, your ability to accelerate would have decreased and at some point you wouldn’t had wheel spin (ASR light) any more. Note: Your ability to slow down is not decreased at the same rate as your ability to accelerate decreases. Reason for this is that you have only one axle by which you accelerate but four or five more with which you can slow down.
As a example of my personal experiences is one snow storm after which roads were covered by ice sheet (no salt because temperature was too slow). At that case I had wheel spin up to the 70 km/h and from there to 80-85 km/h I didn’t have wheel spin. When I had to stop some kilometres later I started braking about twice as early as on dry road and I did stop without ABS jumping in. When accelerating I again had the same grip problem. (edit: I posted a diary about this couple months ago)
only problem with what your saying, is as britain doesnt usually have the same amount of snow as finland the tyres used would be more all weather type and not designed with heavy snow in mind.
DABenji:
only problem with what your saying, is as britain doesnt usually have the same amount of snow as finland the tyres used would be more all weather type and not designed with heavy snow in mind.
Yes, I’ve understood that very well and I understand how that affects to the grip. Finnish lorries, with some exceptions, use winter tyres at winter on drive and front axle, but Russian lorries do generally use summer tyres year around (like this with very little or usually no cutting on the surface). I’d think this is quite the same as is the case with most of the UK lorries? Although Russians do not generally use winter tyres they do drive at approximately same speeds as Finnish lorries so you can’t put all the blame to the tyres. There still is difference between summer and winter lorry tyres which I can and wont deny, but what I described earlier holds still even with summer tyres on winter (you can spin tyres on wet asphalt at slow speed but on at any higher speeds).
BuzzardBoy:
Left Coventry at 0245 yesterday Morning going to Banbury, just got on the M40 and the snow started to fall like a nutter…
Gets into 3663 in Banbury at about 0340, tipped and out there by 0445, this is where the fun started…
Got back on the M40 North heading for Coventry, and the road was white, not a tyre track, nothing, i was the only vehicle on the road, for about 10 minutes…
Now, i was driving along doing about 25mph, my Temperature guage was saying -2 and all the time the back end of the unit was trying to kick round, and the ASR light was permanently, and to be quite honest it was pretty hairy, and by rights i should have pulled over, but thats another story…
Just past Gaydon, A Fowler Welch Motor and 4 irish Fridges(2 Scania’s, a Volvo and a MAN) came past me doing hell of lick, on the same sheet of ice i was driving on…
Now, this isnt a critisicm, and i am not looking to chatize anyone, but i am genuinely am interested if people think i was being too Cautious, or if the Fowler Welch & Irish Trucks showed complete disregard for the weather…
Just out of interest, what gear were you driving in at 25mph ?
DABenji:
ah fair enough but to add to that most british drivers as has been said in numerous threads are not used to driving in heavy snow.
That’s why I’m posting these here Even here these things aren’t taught although some of you might think so. I’ve had to realize myself the why behind the winter driving tips and vehicle behaviour and I’m trying to share what I’ve learned so that someone over there might also get that Ah-Hah moment helping him/her later somewhere on driving on snow.
DABenji:
only problem with what your saying, is as britain doesnt usually have the same amount of snow as finland the tyres used would be more all weather type and not designed with heavy snow in mind.
I have been driving in Norway for a time, yes we have and run with winter tyres. They are a softer compound with extra cuts for grip.
But the olny thing that lets you go faster is the temperature. The colder it gets the better it gets.
The most dangerous time in winter is between +5 & -5.
So here in the UK is the BAD / Dangerous part of winter as it doesnt usually get much below -5
When it goes below -5 there is a fine layer of water that lies on the top of the ice (So I have been told by the Norwegian & Swedish drivers I work beside) this gives you the grip you need.
rest assured it’s not very nice at times, driving many hours on snow and ice is extremely stressful (to me anyway) 100% concentration is needed, at times you couldn’t even take your hand of the wheel to light a ■■■.
Even here these things aren’t taught although some of you might think so. I’ve had to realize myself the why behind the winter driving tips and vehicle behaviour and I’m trying to share what I’ve learned so that someone over there might also get that Ah-Hah moment helping him/her later somewhere on driving on snow.