turbojimmy
Supporting Member
- Joined
- May 26, 2001
- Messages
- 5,560
I use the word 'driving' loosely. My car had basically become a sled. But here’s the deal: driving to work this morning in my usual morning daze, I took my normal route. This route takes me down the steepest, most winding path down the mountain that I live on. It was raining, but it had been snowing and sleeting all night and the mountain road was totally covered in ice with water running over top of it. The sides of the road were plowed snow.
It wasn’t until I reached the descent that I snapped out of my fog and realized that I had made a poor decision in taking this route, and at that point there was no turning back. There was no way to turn the car around and even if there were there’s no way I could make it back up. The problem was that there was a pickup truck w/ a plow spun out across the road on the first, steep and blind corner. I saw the Jimmy in front of me get all bent out of shape as soon as his brake lights came on. Seeing this, I lightly hit my brakes but I immediately got the ABS working. The Jimmy came to a clumsy stop in the snowy shoulder (the only way to get traction) and I did the same. I knew there would be trouble because there were at least 2 cars coming down the hill behind me and they weren’t going to see me until it was too late.
Sure enough, a RAV 4 came up behind me and immediately went into a spin once he saw I was stopped. He was coming at me fast, and sideways, so I rolled (slid) up as far as I could to give him room. Once he hit the snowy shoulder he stopped.
So there we were. Jimmy, my Caddy, the RAV 4 and who knows how many other cars behind us peering down this steep road watching the guy in the 4WD pickup literally spin his way, albeit slowly, down the hill.
Once the pickup cleared out of the way, the Jimmy ventured down but chickened out at turn #2 and pulled up into someone’s driveway (actually he just sort of slid into someone’s driveway and parked it).
Seeing this, I waved the RAV 4 around me to plot my strategy. He put his window down, as did I, and we wished each other the best of luck. He went down quite a bit faster than I would have but in a somewhat controlled manner. He put his right wheels into the plowed snow, which I would find out later was littered with boulders since at that point you’ve really left the roadway. This strategy worked well for the RAV 4 until turn #3. At turn #3 it gets even steeper but it does straighten out a bit. It’s banked all wrong though and he took the turn sideways and nearly hit the guardrail.
With traffic piling up behind me I had little choice but to try the same thing the RAV 4 did. I put the right front tires into the snow for traction and slowly ventured down the hill. Putting the tires in the snow helped a little but at the exit of turn #2 I hit a boulder that was submerged in the snow. Luckily, I think, the car rode up on it starting behind the right front tire. I heard it rake along the floorboard until my right rear tire jumped up over it. This shot the car out of the snowy shoulder and onto the skating rink.
At this point my foot is in the brake and all 4 tires are locked up and I’m sliding down the hill. There’s no stopping me now – I was totally out of control. I wanted to see what would happen if I let off the brake but it was so steep I was afraid that it would get going too fast and make matters worse. All I could do was let gravity take its course. I slid through the remainder of turn #2 sideways across the road (thankfully no one was dumb enough to try to come UP the hill). I had the wheels cut all the way to the left trying to counter steer but it was no use. All 4 tires still locked up, the weight of the engine pulled the car back around the other way like a pendulum. Now I’m sliding sideways facing the other way. Until now this has pretty much been in slow motion, however it was at this point that the car started to pick up an uncomfortable rate of speed – again with all 4 tires locked up. I don’t know if it would have been better to let off the brake at this point to see if I could steer it at all, but I didn’t. As the guardrail approached the tires started to make a grinding noise against the pavement which meant that they were finding traction. The car began to straighten out. I let off the brakes and the stability control realized what was happening and intervened. It helped a little and I was out of danger and down to a less steep, straight part of the hill.
I couldn’t help but notice that the Neon behind me fared much better. Though he clearly wasn’t in control, he wasn’t in a 4-wheel lockup like I was. I could tell he had winter tires on the car, though. I'm on Pirelli P-Zero Neros which are semi-high performance tires but still technically 'all season'.
I checked the car out once I got to the garage at work and there’s no cosmetic damage – wheels look good, rocker molding is good. I need to take a look underneath when I get home tonight.
So when you find yourself with literally zero traction, on a steep hill, on a corner, what’s the best thing to do? Stay on the brakes and hope it gets stopped so you can sort it out or let off the brakes and hope that once the wheels are turning that you can find some traction?
Jim
It wasn’t until I reached the descent that I snapped out of my fog and realized that I had made a poor decision in taking this route, and at that point there was no turning back. There was no way to turn the car around and even if there were there’s no way I could make it back up. The problem was that there was a pickup truck w/ a plow spun out across the road on the first, steep and blind corner. I saw the Jimmy in front of me get all bent out of shape as soon as his brake lights came on. Seeing this, I lightly hit my brakes but I immediately got the ABS working. The Jimmy came to a clumsy stop in the snowy shoulder (the only way to get traction) and I did the same. I knew there would be trouble because there were at least 2 cars coming down the hill behind me and they weren’t going to see me until it was too late.
Sure enough, a RAV 4 came up behind me and immediately went into a spin once he saw I was stopped. He was coming at me fast, and sideways, so I rolled (slid) up as far as I could to give him room. Once he hit the snowy shoulder he stopped.
So there we were. Jimmy, my Caddy, the RAV 4 and who knows how many other cars behind us peering down this steep road watching the guy in the 4WD pickup literally spin his way, albeit slowly, down the hill.
Once the pickup cleared out of the way, the Jimmy ventured down but chickened out at turn #2 and pulled up into someone’s driveway (actually he just sort of slid into someone’s driveway and parked it).
Seeing this, I waved the RAV 4 around me to plot my strategy. He put his window down, as did I, and we wished each other the best of luck. He went down quite a bit faster than I would have but in a somewhat controlled manner. He put his right wheels into the plowed snow, which I would find out later was littered with boulders since at that point you’ve really left the roadway. This strategy worked well for the RAV 4 until turn #3. At turn #3 it gets even steeper but it does straighten out a bit. It’s banked all wrong though and he took the turn sideways and nearly hit the guardrail.
With traffic piling up behind me I had little choice but to try the same thing the RAV 4 did. I put the right front tires into the snow for traction and slowly ventured down the hill. Putting the tires in the snow helped a little but at the exit of turn #2 I hit a boulder that was submerged in the snow. Luckily, I think, the car rode up on it starting behind the right front tire. I heard it rake along the floorboard until my right rear tire jumped up over it. This shot the car out of the snowy shoulder and onto the skating rink.
At this point my foot is in the brake and all 4 tires are locked up and I’m sliding down the hill. There’s no stopping me now – I was totally out of control. I wanted to see what would happen if I let off the brake but it was so steep I was afraid that it would get going too fast and make matters worse. All I could do was let gravity take its course. I slid through the remainder of turn #2 sideways across the road (thankfully no one was dumb enough to try to come UP the hill). I had the wheels cut all the way to the left trying to counter steer but it was no use. All 4 tires still locked up, the weight of the engine pulled the car back around the other way like a pendulum. Now I’m sliding sideways facing the other way. Until now this has pretty much been in slow motion, however it was at this point that the car started to pick up an uncomfortable rate of speed – again with all 4 tires locked up. I don’t know if it would have been better to let off the brake at this point to see if I could steer it at all, but I didn’t. As the guardrail approached the tires started to make a grinding noise against the pavement which meant that they were finding traction. The car began to straighten out. I let off the brakes and the stability control realized what was happening and intervened. It helped a little and I was out of danger and down to a less steep, straight part of the hill.
I couldn’t help but notice that the Neon behind me fared much better. Though he clearly wasn’t in control, he wasn’t in a 4-wheel lockup like I was. I could tell he had winter tires on the car, though. I'm on Pirelli P-Zero Neros which are semi-high performance tires but still technically 'all season'.
I checked the car out once I got to the garage at work and there’s no cosmetic damage – wheels look good, rocker molding is good. I need to take a look underneath when I get home tonight.
So when you find yourself with literally zero traction, on a steep hill, on a corner, what’s the best thing to do? Stay on the brakes and hope it gets stopped so you can sort it out or let off the brakes and hope that once the wheels are turning that you can find some traction?
Jim
That road sucks when it's dry and sunny.
