I have practiced pretty much all of these in Michigan and can personally vouche for their effectiveness.
I own a RWD (big mistakes, never again! it was something I never even thought about asking). It is a large Mercury Grand Marquis. When I stop at a traffic light, virtually ANY pressing of the gas makes the wheels spin. People always tailgate me off the start line because they think I'm accelerating too slow for their tastes. it can't be helped, its just my car. Pack your patience in the snow. If someone if speeding up or just traveling too slow for your tastes, too bad. No one is obligated to put their lives and the integrity of their vehicle at risk for your impatience. Pass if you must at your own risk, but tailgating is just BEGGING for an accident.
The thing I would add is to make sure you maintain your momentum, and try to keep in flow with the rest of traffic. You don't want to gas or break unless you absolutely have to as changing speeds in the snow if very difficult. If you need to slow down, do so way ahead of time.
The place to really watch your momentum is on a hill. I almost lost control one time because the person in front of me was driving so slow and afraid to try and speed up at all on the hill. I was watching my speed tick down... 25... 20... 15... I think it was about 10 by the time the hill crested and I barely had enough speed to get over the top. any slower and I would have gotten stuck because there was no way to get enough traction to speed up from a stop. If the person in front of me had simply eased the gas enough to maintain 25 their momentum would have carried them right over the top of the hill, without risking needing the deeply press the gas to built lost speed. if the hill was a little longer, we both would have gotten stuck.
Same thing applies for going down a hill. ride your break as needed to maintain a safe speed. don't let your foot on and off the break and ping pong back and forth between speeds.
= new reply since forum marked as read
