So the Mrs Sinstra stuck her car in a bush on the way to work this morning, she spun on ice. She was very, very lucky. On one side of the bush was a telegraph pole, on the other side a ditch. She said it was like wacky races with three other cars off the road.

The road is a B road that she drives every day. Her car is a Peugeot 107 with winter tyres but only on the front.

• Would full winters have helped or does it make no difference on ice
• She described that back end as whipping out. The back of her car has no weight to it at all. Would a couple of sacks of sand in the boot help?

Is there anything I can do or is it just one of those things?
Yes she was probably going too fast and yes, she could have driven a more reliably gritted route.

(For Borders folks she was on the Smailholm road just past the bends)

4 winters and drive according to the conditions. But mostly the latter 🙂

a B road that she drives every day

familiar roads tend to be driven at familiar speeds rather than to the prevailing conditions

so this;

she could have driven a more reliably gritted route.

Def 4 winters. The winter tyres are not just for acceleration/deceleration traction, but also for stopping the boot overtaking the bonnet….

well a lack of back end grip would have contributed to the back end whipping out. bags of sand aint gonna help

but mostly slowing down would have the greatest help.

franksinatra – Member

….Her car is a Peugeot 107 with winter tyres but only on the front…..

…..She described that back end as whipping out. The back of her car has no weight to it at all. Would a couple of sacks of sand in the boot help?….

I suspect these two statements are closely linked and have never understood this idea of only fitting winters to the driven tyres.
You give the front end much more potential grip in sketchy conditions than the rear end, in a car that is inherently designed towards understeer.

I’m not saying it would have prevented the slide/crash but perhaps would give the driver a fighting chance of regaining control if all four tyres had similar grip levels…

I wouldn’t bother with the weight in the boot idea, but all round winters would probably be the best thing to go for….

One rule of thumb for safety in front wheel drive cars is more grip at the back. Then its harder to get into trouble in the first place, and understeer is generally easier to predict and deal with, and it tends to end in less fatalities.

So i have no idea why people fit half a set of winters and carry on as normal. It’s illegal here. Full winters or you can’t even put the car on the public highway.

Get some rears, and a couple of paving slabs won’t hurt. Some neighbours do this, especially in older RWD cars, Volvo 940/60, as they have (relatively) little weight over the rear axle and it can be a bugger to get moving (even with studs). It’ll make less odds in a 107.

As already said, giving the front more grip than the rear was possibly not the best idea as it would theoretically make the grip unbalanced.
Winter tyres are not infallible and it could be argued that they give a false sense of security leading to the driver going too fast for the condtions.

TBH she must have know it was icy when she scraped the windows this morning and maybe she should have been more cautious.

familiar roads tend to be driven at familiar speeds rather than to the prevailing conditions

This is very true and applies to all of us.

To echo what’s already been said – Garages will (should) put the better tyres on the rear. E.g., I took mine in in November to have its winter tyres put on, the two back ones from last year (about 5-6mm left on), plus two brand new ones (last years fronts were too worn to use again) – the new ones went on the back.

edit: too slow 🙂

On the farm we would always stick several bags of animal feed in the back of the RWD car if conditions were a bit tricky. Winter tyres weren’t really a thing back then.

Apart from that: give yourself time and give yourself space. In clean dry conditions you should leave a two second gap between you and the vehicle in front, if it’s wet then double that, if it’s icy then double again. What this tends to do is ensure you drive more smoothly, sudden changes in direction and speed are inadvisable when it’s snowy or icy.

Frost and therefore ice tends to occur in the same places: frost hollows (duh!) and bridges (the cold can attack from above and below) as well as water draining off fields and the like. If it’s a regular route I’d expect any driver to remember these.

Driving lessons.

My Mrs crashed our car at the end of the road a couple of years ago on compacted snow. Winter tyres would have helped – we have them on the other car – but she took the corner too fast for the conditions.

Something I have been bottling up for 2 years now …… 👿

How to Stop Mrs from crashing her car?

Tell her to take yours?

There’s a lot of benefit to putting weight in the boot with a RWD car, where you’re often trying to get straight line traction. Rather less so with a FWD car, where the increase in grip is offset by the increased loading when cornering – arguably it could make things worse.

If you are driving like Juha, probably.

Would full winters have helped or does it make no difference on ice

She span, that means the back didn’t have enough grip but the front had more. Then think about which end the winters were on. That’ll be your answer.

Before I say this, this is not aimed at just the OP’s wife.
I cannot understand why people find it so hard to modify their driving behaviour depending on the prevailing conditions.
If its wet, slow down, keep your distance.
If its frosty, slow down, drive gently and leave more room than you’d normally.
The number of times you get tailgated in pissing rain or fog defies belief.
Are the average road users just turning into sheep crossed with lemmings?

Dare I ask who decided to fit Winter tyres to the front only?

There’s a big difference between winter and Summer tyres on ice, as a rule of thumb I’d say half the grip on summer tyres. That gives any car with Winters front only the rotational dynamics of a spinning top.

Edit: in your wife’s defence you get a feel for how a car is behaving and adapt your driving to suit. If it spins wheels or you feel the ABS under braking you slow down because there’s obviously less grip. Your wife didn’t have those warning signs because the car would have driven and braked fine in a straight line. The blame lies with whoever booby trapped the car.

ice tends to occur in the same places: frost hollows (duh!) and bridges (the cold can attack from above and below) as well as water draining off fields

I’ve been caught out by that last one before. Gently pootling along with a light dusting of snow falling onto a dry road. Unfortunately said dusting was enough to hide the sheet of slick ice formed from the run-off at the entrance to a field, right at a bend 😐 Cue the slowest crash in history as I majestically slid along the ice unable to do anything to prevent me eventually reaching the ditch 😆

Car after me did slightly better and ended up in the field instead. Even the recovery truck was struggling to get a grip despite having the metal feet down.

Then the postie came along in his van, drifted it round like a pro and carried on his way. 😳

Yes, firmer grip on the back end will stop the sliding out and ramming it into the bush.

Winter tyres on both ends is the best option. But I’ve done front end only in the past with all seasons on the back and it’s very effective, as long as you drive appropriately. Which is not necessarily going to happen and if you don’t, you’re going to go through a wall backwards. So it’s something that can work but it puts a bit of extra burden on the software… Essentially I used it to make the front wheels work better, rather than to go faster.

Which is a longwinded way of saying, put another set on the back. Or at least something that’s good in winter, if not necessarily a “winter tyre”.

Yes, firmer grip on the back end will stop the sliding out and ramming it into the bush.

Ooooh ! Matron!

buy her a 2.8i Capri

Fitting winters to the rear isn’t going to prevent a car from sliding on ice, winters do NOT stick to the road no matter what…

However, they will help as will slowing down on potentially icy roads. As they will help, why not – I bet 107 tyres aren’t the most expensive ones going!

I think the weight in the back is a non starter – I don’t think it’ll make the slightest bit of difference.

Gently pootling along with a light dusting of snow falling onto a dry road. Unfortunately said dusting was enough to hide the sheet of slick ice formed from the run-off at the entrance to a field, right at a bend Cue the slowest crash in history as I majestically slid along the ice unable to do anything to prevent me eventually reaching the ditch

I’ve done exactly that too, many years ago. I was probably only going at walking pace. Just managed to get sufficient traction on the grass to thread the car neatly between two road signs, then had to climb into the back to get out as both front doors were wedged shut!

The number of times you get tailgated in pissing rain or fog defies belief.

One of my sisters drives to work along the A24 in Sussex. Officially the most dangerous stretch of road in the UK.

She frequently gets tailgated, people attempting overtakes on corners and having to swerve back in s they’ve not got enough room etc.

She drives one of the faster versions of a Mondeo estate but it’s a complete bland mobile.

Crucially, she’s also a Detective Chief Superintendent so the car’s a fully stealthed up police car with hidden lights and sirens.

She finds people tailgating her are far more likely to drive at appropriate speeds for the road and conditions after a brief face full of blue lights.

That blue light thing is the super power I wish my car had.

Fitting winters to the rear isn’t going to prevent a car from sliding on ice, winters do NOT stick to the road no matter what…

they are surprisingly better….and given that for the rear to over take the front – the front had some grip. theres a fair good chance she would have made it .

How ever on the whole i agree with your point – the amount of folk round my way that crash because they were goign too fast then exclaim”i dont under stand i had winter tires on”

You still gotta drive to conditions but give your self the best shot.

Winter’s on the front only is asking for trouble, I know because i’ve done it and 360’d down the road as a result.

Some garages won’t put two on only and I don’t blame them.

4 winter tyres wouldn’t be unreasonable.

Most drivers when faced with a car sliding on ice is to panic, which in turn leads to a foot full of brake pedal, closely followed by sliding backwards into a ditch.

Most of us don’t drive in hazardous conditions regularly enough. So when the snow falls or there’s ice on the road, gutter to gutter, we’re out of practice so misjudgments happen. I would say accidents, but nearly all are avoidable if we just slowed down and adjusted our driving to the conditions.

buy her a 2.8i Capri ditchfinder – there I fixed it for you.

But in all honesty there is a reason 99% of cars (if not 100%) are designed to understeer, it is intuitive for a lot of people to brake when feeling out of control which it the worst thing you can do with oversteer (or less grip on the rear) as this will just pitch you into a spin!

She said it was like wacky races with three other cars off the road.

Sounds like a few people were caught out. What’s the betting they were all called ‘The Mrs’. Wahey! Eh? Eh?

Top Gear japes aside, glad no-one was hurt!

Thanks for all of the feedback, All of it useful.

She acknowledges that speed was a factor, I think this is very true..

familiar roads tend to be driven at familiar speeds rather than to the prevailing conditions

Same journey, same time, everyday, a degree of autopilot kicks in. I think we can all associate with this most of the time.

TBH she must have know it was icy when she scraped the windows this morning and maybe she should have been more cautious.

I defrosted the care for her before she left.

I’ve always put a full set of winters on her car, the last time it went in the garage to put the winters back on the garage refused to fit two of them saying they were the wrong size. An odd call as they fitted those tyres in the first place! Not an excuse, I should have just sorted it there and then. Anyways, new winters for the rear now on order through Black Circles and being fitted on Wednesday. Only £90. Its a shame it has taken this though to get me to sort it out.

Just in time for spring. (-:

Old boy made me try driving to work without touching the brakes once.

This skill made my driving much smoother and came in invaluable every time it snowed

Cars in ditches in the Borders. Takes me back to my youth 😀

+1 to what bigblackshed says: most drivers in the UK probably get one or two morning drives on snow per year, those in Scotland and upland areas of England and Wales will get a few more. Nowhere near enough to get any sort of competence in such conditions.

Thirty five years ago I did manage to write off my first car on snow – I was doing less than 20mph when it happened: off camber bend and a vehicle/wall interface.

Just in time for spring. (-:

Fleet manager here at work looked at this in detail and now leaves winters on the fleet all year round. There is only a tiny difference in running costs, wear and driving feel, but a significant expense in swapping over. I’m now following suit and leaving on all year.

Winter tyres ONLY ON THE FRONT? And you’re wondering why she crashed?

*shakes head in amazement*

Data says in Scotland and at peak driving times – winters all year is the better option.