Driveing up an icy hill

Small hill outside front door,massive queues of cars all slipping and slideing,women in Peugots and BMWS, slideing everywhhere as where mercedes and ford vans,ldv vans and Vauxhalls seemed to get up ok.

Why!

The double decker bus coming down at 45 degree angle with his wheels locked was interesting

cos bmw's and mercs are shite in the snow and women drivers dont help 😉

In a word Momentum. The vans took a run up.

its all the fault of the school teachers.

Walking home from work this morning,steep hill that hadn't been gritted,bloke in a newish Range Rover Sport came to a wheelspinning halt 1/2 way up.Thought that those things could go up anything?

A minute later a very old SWB LandRover just cruised up,no messing,gently pulling out & sailing past £40k worth of RR Sport.

The look of envy definitely belonged to £40k man!

better drivers thinner tyres it's that simple

Why? Because it's more about the driver than the car.

Mostly because people cant cope with the slightest slippery conditions.

During the pre-xmas 'snow attack' I parked the car up and took to the bike, passing van that was sat just before apex of small hill madly spinning its smoking front wheels and not moving. There were a sucession of vehicles all waiting to do the same thing. I returned to collect car later that night after the mayhem had ended and could still smell the acrid stench of burned rubber in the air.

Just walked up a steep little hill here that most cant get up and noticed a perfect run of tyre marks to the top – I was astonished. Then I saw the tyre chain markings in the tread print. Cheat! 😉

a newish Range Rover Sport came to a wheelspinning halt 1/2 way up

Probably because it didn't have a button labelled "steep snowy hill"

My shonky old Landrover 90 came into it's own last night towing people up and down a steep hill next to my house, including 2 BMW '4×4's and a Freelander 2. I felt most smug whilst towing the first BMW thing, uphill in thick standing icy show. Landy didn't even notice it, the luckless fool in the Bimmer was a quivering wreck! She wanted to know how I was coping when her 'jeep' was so much newer than mine, I told her it was because mine was a proper car, not just a toy!

One lady in a Saab drove into the back of me, I got out and found her in tears, as it was the 4th 'crash' she'd had in an hour. I calmed her downand then told her if she could find the dent shee'd caused in amongst the rest, I'd let her feel guilty. Mind you, she had just popped out for shopping, in the middle of a snowstorm, then thought a steep narrow B road would be a better route than a dual carriageway!

My little 4×4 Fiat Panda causes many stares as it takes snowy roads in it's stride. Swiss police use them!

rode past a 4WD L200 yesterday up a proper hill in shuff. got off to push for a bit and realised it was too steep to walk so had to get back on. nobby nics forever!

Isn't a large part of it due to BMWs and Mercs being rear wheel drive? Pair of Prada shoes in the boot doesn't give much weight for traction you know! 😀

I got out and found her in tears, as it was the 4th 'crash' she'd had in an hour.

FFS! Think I might have given up after the second or third!

That'll be an interesting insurance claim if she puts it in: "Ermm.. hello.. yeah, I need a bigger form.."

my little corsavan seems to be coping very nicely seen at least 5 cars slip sliding around our road today and it fairly flat lol.

curious i just commented the same to a mate – combo wagons were coping with snow admirably on my commute today. the same couldnt be said for the connect sport – yes the driver plays a big part but if your floating on big wide cool looking alloys well…

Love the Nobby Nics comment – I'd better get out there on mine! 😀

Maybe it depends on the quality of the vehicle. I was much more care free about sliding into things in my 12 year old clio than I am in now in my GF new Golf.

Also with vans it depends what they were carrying. An empty rear wheel drive van isn't going to get much traction.

A lot of it's down to the tyres, any 4×4 with road tyres on isn't going to be much cop in the snow.

Interestingly, here in North Yorkshire the working 4x4s are doing fine in the snow but almost all of the toy ones are struggling. I've been down 1 road in my focus with hardly a slip that I was told was completely impassable by a clown in a x5

Yeah my BMW with RWD and 255 width tyres is shite in snow, almost got stuck on a pretty gentle gradient this morning.

Am I allowed to go out and shoot all smug 'Landy' owners?

Same problem a fuzzywuzzy here. Wide tyres might be nice in the dry (with the lease company paying for replacements) but I've been humbled by their sheer crapness in these conditions.

Hohum, just another 2 years left on the lease…

ex post combo van with snow chains is good up to a point but not in a foot of snow like today, cant get to work and cant ride my new bike, i HATE snow 🙁

Mercs & BMW's etc are rwd and without momentum you will get no where. Strangely enought they type of people who buys those cars have absolutely no driving talent so panic as soon as the back end goes.. which it will do with rwd.

Modern 4×4's are a compromise, and therefore tend to run fat tyres to give them some stability on the road, plus the fact they have big torquey engines = not as good as a proper (older) landy with skinny better off road tyres with a less powerful engine.

better drivers thinner tyres it's that simple

It's not that simple. I've driven two cars in the current conditions – one is all over the place (honda accord tourer 2.2 turbo diesel with 17 inch low profile tyres) and one is fine (Puegoet 2 litre petrol again with 17 inch low profile tyres). Obviously I drive the same way in both cars, the puegeot goes up the hill and into my drive fine, the honda slips and slides up the hill and the front slides all over when I turn into the driveway. If I'd drive on the a road I drove to work on this morning in the honda I would have been all over the road at every bend, the puegeot is much, much better.

Big heavy car, torquetastic diesel and big low profile are no good in snow.

Strangely enought they type of people who buys those cars have absolutely no driving talent

What a load of nonsense.

My little 4×4 Fiat Panda causes many stares as it takes snowy roads in it's stride. Swiss police use them!

This just proves that you don't need a huge "cock mobile" to get around when conditions are bad.

Winter tyres on most cars would help enormously. Snow chains are £30 and I keep a set in my boot just in case. I still haven't used these ones yet.

25 years ago i went out in the snow my RS2000 to just see how it performed and to learn some snow driving skills. Being rearwheel drive with wide tyres that had little tread, it had me sliding around all over the place. I got very little traction on inclines and it took a fair bit of skill to control. Conversely, my sister had one of those early Peugeots, you know, the one's that had been severely beaten by the ugly stick. Well I drove that and it handled snowy conditions with ease. I put it down to the fact that it's spindly little tyres and weight over the driving wheels ensured a much more positive connection with the road surface.

As all these big 4WD's have fashionable wide road tyres, i can fully understand why they are rubbish in the snow, but the main issue is with the drivers. A large 4WD attracts the sort of person who is not at one with their machine. As is almost exclusively the case, the large 4WD owner makes a bold statement. It says "I'm a daft, incompetent, self-centred, egotistical cock"! 😆

I agree with Gary M to some extent. I have a Ford Mondeo which is a dream in snow, getting up hills many are stuggling with, I can even have fun purposely sliding, left foot braking, handbrake turns etc.

On the other hand my wifes newer VW Polo is awful and scary.

Strangely enought they type of people who buys those cars have absolutely no driving talent

What a load of nonsense.

Uhuh, the chap at the top of our road has been having a whale of a time drifting his beemer round the estate, he's actually pretty good.

Where abouts in the country are you folk practicing your 'snow driving skills' and 'purposely sliding, left foot braking, handbrake turns' its just that I'd prefer not to meet some **** doing a handbrake turn on the a road home tonight.

These snow driving threads always bring out the macho power sliding driving heroes. I prefer to just drive in a very safe manner.

These snow driving threads always bring out the macho power sliding driving heroes. I prefer to just drive in a very safe manner.

Wuss 😛

well my Hi ace is erm interesting.

Rwd, not much in the cack, but i havent got stuck yet. Some people are idiots though, like this morning at the bottom of a hill, the person in front of me braked, to almost a standstill before they went up, then got stuck. WHich meant i had no momentum, so had to reverse back a bit to get another runup…

It likes going sideways….

just had to push a work colleague up a tiny incline in his beamer. Yes he's a crap driver but the car was going no-where until we told him to turn off traction control.

Over-use of revs in snow whilst trying to find the bite point is not the only a female problem. I took three hours to get home yesterday and maybe lost traction for a few seconds a couple of times. Unlike the bloke in front of me who's also crawling along at 10 mile an hour, but with his back end constantly sliding all over the place. He must have gone completely parallel to the road twice. The white van in front of him wasn't much better. So don't be giving it the 'women drivers' thing cos that's just nonsense.

And why, oh why, do people feel the need to drive as close as possible to the car in front….30 meters in snow at least – not only because of the stopping distance issue, but also because of needing to see that far ahead to see if the traffic is stopping on a hill and you will need a run up to get enough momentum to clear the next bit!

Plus the car/lorry in front may well just roll back when they try and pull off. The idiots who got stuck behind the lorries yesterday deserved it – who the hell follows a lorry in the snow that close that you remove any option to go round once they come to a halt?

Angry female driver rant over.

Company car park is a great place to have fun hand-braking etc., especially if you're the first one in. Wouldn't dream of doing that on public roads though, I'm just happy if I get from A to B.

How about getting some bungy cords and tying them round driving wheels for traction… saw it done once.

Unlike the bloke in front of me who's also crawling along at 10 mile an hour, but with his back end constantly sliding all over the place. He must have gone completely parallel to the road twice.

Perhaps it was the first time they had driven in snow? I think in these conditions you need to be a bit more understanding that not everyone is a forum driving god.

However I find driving parallel to the road is the best way. How do you drive?

During the last blast I made a final run in the LT35 (monday before christmas) to collect my better half from the station, *just* made it back up the hill with a lot of spinning and sliding involved. Today I've not been out at all, will go on a bike to get some supplies in a bit later.

People don't have much experience of driving in snow in this country, it's hardly surprising there are problems. A significant impact is that no one has winter tyres. I'm thinking of getting some.

What you need is a Volvo XC90 like this one:

which was abandoned halfway up Britwell Hill (near Watlington) this morning

and they didn't even have the courtesy to push it to the side of the road so that at least someone might be able to get past?

I know what I'd be doing if i came across that in my way….