DAFMAD:
Maybe they have stomped on the brake pedal thinking the ABS will save them and don’t realise that ABS can still lock up or hardly bite at all where its trying not to lock up. Not having enough increased distance doesn’t help.
Yeah, maybe that, maybe other thing. But anyway the problem is, that people thinks that if they five-star safe car with winter tyres, ESP, ASR, ABS, KGB and WC they are resistant to physics as the car with all that stuff will drive for them 
bobthedog:
The truth with the UK and snow is that people are conditioned to believe that it is more difficult or more dangerous to drive in it. It really isn’t. Once you are proficient in driving then you will do just fine in snow. You just can’t afford to do anything radical. If you drive smoothly then you will be fine.
…and if you keep your distance bigger than usual!
DAFMAD:
And my poor old polish fiat was biten in the back bumper 2-3 times every winter, mostly when I was stopping on the red light and guys behind me wasn’t able to stop on time. And that usually were much better cars than mine, with ABS and winter tyres…
Maybe they have stomped on the brake pedal thinking the ABS will save them and don’t realise that ABS can still lock up or hardly bite at all where its trying not to lock up. Not having enough increased distance doesn’t help.
ABS brakes can actually make stopping distance longer at some conditions. In theory, after wheel is locked, it is released immediately and then brake pressure is applied again. If too much brake pressure is released, or brakes are released for a too long time which makes braking power far from optimal. Even so far from optimal, that you stop quicker with a locked up wheels (just releasing the brake pedal occasionally to prevent spinning). This behavior happens especially when it’s slippery or ground is soft like deep snow or gravel. This is something peoples usually don’t know, and they just think that with ABS brakes they stop fast in every condition and then they are surprised when car doesn’t stop but just keeps going.
i remember an advert from Audi about switchable ABS, saying something about the build up of snow in front of a locked tyre reducing stopping distance better than ABS, Audi doesn’t offer it anymore, if it ever did, so it may have been a gimmick to make ABS more appealing to the technophobic, it may just be a figment of my imagination.
Snow itself gives quite a decent amount of grip, it’s when it gets smoothed off & packed down that it gets slippery, or after the heat of the tyres passing over it melt the surface which then freezes into ice when it cools again.
The biggest problem with driving in snow in Britain though isn’t the reduction in grip, it’s the reduction in common sense of the people using the roads, some lorry drivers included, not any of you lot though of course 
Be safe out there boys & girls.
orys:
The_Catman:
Mr B:
driving in the snow is easy if you’ve got the right tires but in this country we might only have 1 day of proper snow every year so we make do with standard tires and struggle.Absolutely!
Not just the tread, winter tyres have a completely different compound, normal tyres act like wood when the temperature gets near to zero.
Just need to put my winter wheels/tyres onto the car now…
TC
It’s a myth!
Summer tyres aren’t any worse at low temperatures!!! The winter tyres can be even worse!!! As soon as summer tyres will get warm they will have much better results:
http://img2.stern.de/_content/55/06/550649/wireifen_grafik_500.gif
Winter tyres are better only on deep snow or on ice.
From the braking distances on you picture, I’d say test is done on dry asphalt, and it really doesn’t need even a testing to realize winter tyres probably don’t excel on summer tyres home field. What The Catman said about winter tyres having different compound than summer tyres is true. The friction tyres used here in Finland are so soft that if you use those at warm temperatures, like above +15C they start wear very rapidly and it’s not practical to use them all year around. They are soft so that adequate friction on ice can be achieved at low temperatures. Studded tyres on the other hand aren’t that soft as they can rely on studs to get traction traction on ice. On snow friction tyres don’t fall behind studded ones and they both perform equally.
What you said winter tyres being better than summer tyres only at snow and on ice is true, but I’d like to point out that snow doesn’t have to be deep for the winter tyre to beat summer tyre. Of course conditions do matter, and the difference between them at temperatures like -20C most likely isn’t as great as it is on temperatures around 0 to -5C. Of course you can drive with summer tyres on slippery conditions and even succeed quite well as long as you keep your wits with you.
Two words “cadence braking” ■■■■ that’s four! oh now its’seven!
Kyrbo:
From the braking distances on you picture, I’d say test is done on dry asphalt, and it really doesn’t need even a testing to realize winter tyres probably don’t excel on summer tyres home field.
It’s made on dry and wet asphalt in low temperature. It’s to prove, that “winter tyres are better in lower temperatures even if there is no snow or ice” is a myth.
Other things I agree with you.
It still comes down to how you drive. On the winter roads we use momentum to get us out of trouble. 3’ snowdrifts are defeated simply by hitting them hard enough, even on the lakes.
Snowpack is no problem as long as you drive like you had a cup of coffee on the dashboard. No amount of safety features on a vehicle are ever going to be enough if the primary safety feature, the driver, is not set up for winter driving. A funny thing, every driving school and many drivers will tell you not to use engine brakes in snow and on ice, but we don’t use footbrakes on the WRs, only the jake. We hardly use handbrakes, come to that.
If I can learn how to drive in extreme conditions then there is no reason why anyone can’t. And the extremes here would put the uk into a serious spin if they were to get them simply because people would be afraid of it.
newmercman:
i remember an advert from Audi about switchable ABS, saying something about the build up of snow in front of a locked tyre reducing stopping distance better than ABS, Audi doesn’t offer it anymore, if it ever did, so it may have been a gimmick to make ABS more appealing to the technophobic, it may just be a figment of my imagination.I had a Audi 80 with this feature, I think they stopped doing it to prevent claims from “numpties” who switched it off and then crashed the car blaming the ABS!
I like the cup of coffee on the dash thing Rob, a very good way to put it.
You’re right about people being scared of it, but the Brits don’t have the monopoly on that, I came up through Chicago into Wisconsin on the way back last trip, it was -2 & snowing quite hard, I saw 6 cars in the median between Madison & Black River Falls & there were lorries doing 45mph with their hazard lights on, the cb was full of them saying ‘take it easy, the roads are really slick’ a bunch of ■■■■■■■ the lot of em. It wasn’t cold enough for the roads to be icy & yet they were all driving like sunday school teachers, that’s the cause of most of the accidents, people panicking.
i drove from retford up to edinburgh today on the a1, there wasnt muchs now but the cars were dondling along as if there was a blizzard on.
i also got my truck stuck int he truckstop near barton (forgot the name of it) and being an an automatic 7.5 tonner (automatic 7.5 tonner wtf!!!) we struggled to get it out but then again soo did everyone else there.
uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20081204/tuk … a1618.html
I thought the Army wuz already overstretched without using like this
