TTAC Commentator Craigotron writes:
I recently moved from Wyoming to Washington D.C. (and I grew up in northern Michigan) and have been tasked with preparing a brief five point “Winter Driving Tips” article for a local news outlet feature. I was asked since I’m the resident automotive enthusiast and my winter driving credentials (I don’t think I’ve ever owned anything that hasn’t been RWD…) here are pretty good; this is the first warm place I’ve lived in… well… ever. They thought I’d be a good person to help prepare the neighborhood for the next Snowpocalypse.
I’d love to ask the best and brightest for some input. I’m making sure all the obvious stuff is there: keep up on maintenance, understand how your car works, jumper cables, keep your tank full, kitty litter. What would you add to the mix?
Sajeev answers:
Dude, stop trying to change the subject: did you get headers for your Lexus LS400 yet? Winter driving is irrelevant if you choke a Lexus down with stock manifolds. Consider the wicked sound of a 4-cam V8 a force field that no snow can penetrate.
Forgive my indifferent demeanor, for I am a native Houstonian. A Southern Boy that lived for one year north of the Red River (Detroit, which may not count), and didn’t own a vehicle at that time, really shouldn’t comment. But logic dictates that I structure the Best and Brightest’s conversation to those aforementioned Five Points.
1. Maintenance: service your fluid (coolant) according to the owner’s manual, at the bare minimum. Have a plug-in voltmeter for the cigarette lighter, to measure the strength of the battery and replace if anything looks out of the ordinary. Brakes should be up to snuff, especially on older cars with rear drums that could be doing almost nothing due to neglect/lack of adjustment.
2. Tires: if you have room for a spare set of wheels, get a separate set of snow tires and change them before wintertime. Don’t spend too much money, there are decent wheels at the junkyard for damn near any vehicle: like Ford Taurus hoops for your Ferrari Testarossa. (same bolt pattern, or so I’ve heard.)
3. Necessary supplies: Jumper cables, a cheapie set of Chinese sockets, hand-crank flashlight, blankets, mittens, multi-function pocket knife, chains, sand/kitty litter, lock de-icer, spare fuses, ice scraper, compressed air pump, spare belts, enough food and water for a couple days stranded on a blizzard-ravaged highway…Best and Brightest, a little help?
4. Stuff you overlook: Polish or replace a cloudy headlight, knock-off replacements are cheap and easy enough to install. While bulbs do not completely die, after 2-5 years of use, they might need replacement. On non-HID cars, remove the bulb, examine its filament and look for imperfections on the chrome, even the slightest change can knock out your light output. With HIDs, you can usually tell weakness when comparing them to a new car with HIDs: if they look dim, replace them proactively.
5. Long Term Upkeep: what do you do to keep the cold weather from destroying your ride? Waxing the paint is obvious. Window tint and a windshield sun visor are not. How about oil on the undercarriage? Pouring water in drip rails, drains, etc to freeze them solid and keep road salt out?
Send your queries to mehta@ttac.com. Spare no details and ask for a speedy resolution if you’re in a hurry.
Four real winter snow tires on rims is the most important. I’ve been running the Hankook iPike (same tire as the General Altimax) tires on my BMW 328i for six years now. Never got stuck in any of the Denver snow storms. I’ll take RWD with real winter tires over AWD/4WD with all (read three) season tires any day.
The biggest problem with winter driving in DC is not the snow, but the other drivers who don’t have proper winter tires or don’t know how to drive.
+1 What he said ! Just remember to turn OFF traction control in fresh snow conditions. My biggest problem in snow is other drivers who lose their minds. I have summer only tires as well and having a set for each season instead of a compromise in all seasons is better. It’s not about going fast or playing racer….it’s about having all the possible traction when someone else pulls a bonehead move and you have to compensate.
I’ve been on a snowy interstate without washer fluid. All of the truck stops were sold out. I finally found some and paid about $8 for it. Highway robbery. It doesn’t hurt to carry an extra bottle with you. Go for the purple or orange -30 stuff. The -20 blue liquid will become slushy at around zero and will freeze on the windshield.
I will take your post as an opening for a major pet peeve of mine since you’re talking visibility. This may seem obvious to anyone with more than 2 braincells to rub together, but make sure to clear all of your windows of snow, and if necessary your hood, roof and trunk. I can’t tell you the number of times I see people tooling around with only the windshield clear and all of the side windows and rear window covered in snow. I try to get in front of these people so they can see me when they’re executing they’re various driving manuevers, changing lanes, turning, even braking.
I’m not too crazy about jumper cables. They sell self-contained battery jumpers at almost any auto store. I got mine from Wal-Mart. It has a battery pack that is connected to jumper cables so that you don’t need another car. much better than waiting for someone else to come along.
+1.
I got mine from Wal-Mart.
See, you didn’t have to admit that. I got mine from Nieman-Marcus – the Swarovski Crystals really help with the grip on those sleety winter days.
Nothing can replace the satisfaction of knowing that you can afford to pay much, much more solely to have the satisfaction of other people knowing that’s why you paid much much more. If it isn’t encrusted with something, I’m not interested.
I’m eating an emerald-encrusted ham sandwich at this very minute.
@Perisoft
But I had to say that. Gotta keep up appearances, you know. Nothing says “top of the food chain” like Wal-Mart. Now people know that as a true elite, I only ride in style. I feel sorry for you lesser people. You should check out www.peopleofwalmart.com to see how me and the “more fortunate” of society live.
Ha Ha Ha, Peri! Jay Leno’s crew can’t come up with stuff like this group’s fellows can!
Sajeev: for a southern boy you’ve got a good list.
+1 on the good wiper fluid. Heck, good wiper blades, kept clean and flexible, would be another.
Others I can think of:
* Scrape the snow and ice off your roof. Nothing is so awesome as causing a car accident via chunks of ice flying off your car and into the windshield of those behind you.
* Kitty litter is nice, but your own floor mats jammed under your tires work just as well, if not better, for getting your going.
* Cellphones are helpful. Cellphones that can tell you where you are, doubly so.
* Blankets. Good ones. Especially if you have kids.
* If you’re somewhere really cold and really remote, a portable toilet to pee into without getting out of your car is really helpful. By this, I mean -40C or less, plus wind chill, when exposed skin freezes in seconds. Probably not something you’ll encounter.=, but something I did.
* Rustproofing would have been a good idea…in November. By now your best best is to not park indoors, wash the car when the temps go above zero and fix any body damage you take.
* Keep your battery in good shape. You’ve got much, much less cranking power in winter, and a battery that works fine in warm weather might suddenly not.
* Run your HVAC in defrost to keep water out of the cabin. This cuts down on interior window frost.
A good tip for inexperienced snow drivers is to do everything slowly, and one at a time. Steer slowly, then accelerate gently; don’t do both at the same time. You have much less traction than you think, and you could have no traction very easily. Don’t do anything to bring on the “no traction” state unless you have no other choice. Plan your stops, turns, etc out well in advance.
@psar: +1. Excellent post. But being a Canadian, I know you’re used to winter being 9 months of the year, just like it is here in Michigan… ;)
My “no traction” light comes on if I so much as look at gravel or ice so that might not necessarily help.
Actually, I grew up on the north side of Niagara peninsula, so I got much less snow than many American states, and I lived the life of an urban dilletante in Toronto and Montreal during school. Only the sojourns to the south side of the peninsula, and thusly Buffalo, gave me experience otherwise.
I got a real eye-opener when I did contract work for the MNR in the northern Ontario. That’s where the “freezing extremities” issue came to the forefront. A lot of people say wind chill isn’t real. A lot of people also haven’t been out at night in Moosonee in January.
Keep a couple of old pieces of carpet in the trunk so you don’t have to sacrifice your mats for traction aids.
Twotone’s certainly right about DC drivers in a snowstorm. I went to college there, lived through a couple significant storms. Some years there wasn’t more than a trace accumulation. Due to infrequent snowfall, local drivers just don’t gain enough experience driving in snow. I was able to get around during the storms owing to my Nova’s knobby snow tires and positraction and my experience driving in upstate NY. Fortunately, most of the DC natives couldn’t even get out of their parking spaces. Those few that did would have been better off walking…and quite a few ended up stranded. The manager of the store where I worked said, in all seriousness, that he drove as fast as he could when it snowed so he could get home quickly and off the dangerous roads.
For the typical DC area motorist, dedicated snow tires probably don’t make sense. I would advise them to run on all seasons with new or nearly new tread. They also need to check their tires inflation, which drops quite a bit during the abnormally cold temperatures that accompany a snow storm. The best suggestion is to leave the car at home and take the Metro.
Oh, DC motorists in snow are something to behold. Boy, when there’s a forecast for snow, lots of folks panic and make a run on the supermarkets for extra water, canned food, candles, flashlights, and other emergency supplies.
By Snowbelt standards, snowstorms in the DC metro area aren’t all that much. But you should see how folks (and institutions) panic. There are lots of accidents on the highways. Motorists abandon their vehicles at the side of the highway. Schools, many goverment, and corporate offices close for the day. Motor vehicle dealers get a spike in SUV or 4WD vehicle sales. I went to grad school in DC and lost 3 days of class in 2 years. When I went to school in NYC I lost NO days of class in the same time period.
Heck, if any hostile power wants to cause trouble, they just have to drop some artificial snow on DC to constrain the Feds’ operations (tongue in cheek).
A good long-handled snow brush/ice scraper is essential; one with a telescopic handle is even better. If you don’t have a garage and you think it’s going to snow overnight, bring in the snow brush for the evening and pull the windshield wipers up so they won’t be ice-covered and in the way next morning when you clean off the car.
My ritual is to clean off the door first, get in and start the car, and let it warm up so the defroster is at operating temperature by the time I leave. Then remove ALL the snow with the snow brush. Make a thorough job of it; good visibility is crucial. Mirrors and headlamps too.
Keeping the headlamps clean is important too as salt spray dramatically cuts down the lumens that reach the road, much less the lumens that eventually reflect back.
A set of winter catch-all mats go a long way to preserving the carpets.
Finally, allow LOTS of extra space between you and other vehicles. DC has horrible drivers in the best of conditions.
As a displaced Texan living in DC, and having survived Snowmageddon last year (with 4 days of no power, no plows, a 1 year old and a pregnant wife) I can tell you that the advice should be:
Stay home. Don’t do your costco trip for toilet paper the day before the weather report says snow is coming. Get firewood. Prepare for a camping adventure.
Sajeev has most of it right – all the things that you should be maintaining properly anyways – coolant, oil level, battery charge, brakes, tires. The 3M headlight polishing kit is great. Wax before temp gets below 50 to protect paint. I don’t know anyone who rustproofs the underside of a modern car, but the salt they use ate up my winter alloy wheels (which were cheapies anyway).
Winter tires are overkill in DC (unless you are stubborn like me and have max performance summer tires). If the roads aren’t properly treated or cleared, the 90% of morons on the road should keep you off of them – including the plow drivers – no matter how good your car is prepared and you are at handling the car. That being said, I’ve run circles around every SUV / 4WD / AWD in the snow with my Michelin Arctic Alpins (including helping to get a Fox 5 newsvan out of an unplowed upper NW DC residential street last year at the tail end of Snowpocalypse).
Maybe everybody knows this by now, but when cars with ABS start to skid on braking, you just hold the damn pedal down, even when it kicks back at you. It goes against your instinct but works. If you don’t have ABS, pound on that pedal like a Flamenco dancer, as hard and fast as you can. This also works, but not as well as ABS.
Steering into skids is also a bit counter-intuitive, but works.
If you’re on the highway and have to cross a patch of ice on the straightaway, just carry on–don’t accelerate, brake or steer until you get through it.
“Maybe everybody knows this by now, but when cars with ABS start to skid on braking, you just hold the damn pedal down, even when it kicks back at you.”
Yes and no — check out the white BMW in the video below. ABS works great if at least one wheel is turning. If all four wheels are stopped and the car is sliding, ABS thinks the car is not moving and will not modulate the brakes. In that case — PUMP THE DAMN BRAKES!
Wonder how long before automakers link ABS to the GPS to detect the “four wheel locked and sliding” condition.
Even the front/rear parking radars could give the ABS computer a hint …
twotone, you mean the white Honda Accord?
Even the front/rear parking radars could give the ABS computer a hint …
The you tube video posted on TTAC during Thanksgiving showing stranded motorists on a steep icy hill in Seattle demonstrated that. ABS only works when one wheel is moving, otherwise all 4 wheels are locked (the car thinks it’s stopped) as the car continues to slide. And as we saw, AWD is no help with virtually no traction. Traction Control? Depends on the system and tires.
“Maybe everybody knows this by now, but when cars with ABS start to skid on braking, you just hold the damn pedal down, even when it kicks back at you. It goes against your instinct but works. If you don’t have ABS, pound on that pedal like a Flamenco dancer, as hard and fast as you can. This also works, but not as well as ABS.
Steering into skids is also a bit counter-intuitive, but works.”
I donno how much I agree with some of this. ABS can dramatically increase stopping distances on glare ice (or even snow); some Audis even used to have an “ABS off” switch on the dashboard because of this. (I’ve also heard of drivers in icy locales pulling the ABS fuse in winter months.) Even with snow tires, I often find myself gradually squeezing the brakes to bring the car right up to the ABS activation threshold and then backing off if the ABS goes off.
As for skids…the most important thing is to get the hell off the gas, leave the brakes alone, and steer in the direction you want to go. However, you shouldn’t experience many of these unless you’re doing something relatively foolish to begin with. The key to avoiding skids is keeping your speed down (35-40 mph tops, less if visibility is awful, you’re not using snow tires, or you notice ice, deep snow, etc), and applying gentle control inputs. If you’re changing lanes on the highway, turn the wheel an inch and ease yourself over very gradually. If you’re accelerating, take it easy. Try to anticipate when you’re going to have to stop in advance and let the car coast down as much as possible before getting on the brakes. On a highway with more than 2 lanes, try to drive in one of the middle lanes so you don’t immediately hit a guardrail/divider if you should happen to slide a bit.
AWD is great if you have snow tires. If not, I honestly think it is a bit of a safety hazard because it makes it far too easy to outdrive the capabilities of your tires. A 2WD car w/o snow tires (or even with, depending) often will have a hard time accelerating to posted speeds on really slick surfaces, and this should be a warning to the driver to back it off and keep the speed down. AWD cars will often get up to speed with relatively little hesitation, giving the snow-inexperienced driver a false impression of how slick the road actually is. When it comes time to stop and/or turn, *crash*!
Anti-lock brakes work by detecting a lack of wheel spin on one, two, or three wheels while another wheel is still spinning and rapidly adjusts the brake fluid pressure to the non-spinning wheels to “pump” the brakes, preventing lock up, and allowing the driver to concentrate on applying maximum braking power.
However when all four wheels are locked and the car is traveling at a very low speed, or starts to slide forward/backward from a dead stop, the anti-lock brake system assumes wrongly that you are not in a skid, all four wheels are not spinning, they are at a stand still, ahhh, all is well, nothing to pump. Worse, as you skid and you have your brake to the floor you can’t steer with the four wheels locked. This is a common occurence on snow and ice, you can watch it first hand here:
Right at the start of the video, a modern, ABS equipped Toyota Corolla, with all four wheels locked, hopeless skids down Capitol Hill in Seattle, the ABS has failed them completely. Watch as each car slides down the hill. The black pickup after the Corolla ALMOST successful navigates the challenge but watch the brake lights – yes, they are pumping the brakes – as a matter of fact they don’t run into trouble until the four wheels lock and they mash the pedal to the floor. This is pretty darn powerful evidence that brake and hold does not work on ice and snow.
This video is even more damning of how both ABS and 4WD simply doesn’t help you once all traction is lost. Go to 5:58.
Watch the Ford 4WD truck almost make it to the top of the shallow hill but even with 4WD, traction is lost. First rule broken; if other people are having a problem getting up a hill, you probably will too. Second rule broken; don’t stop, a loss of momentum is the kiss of death. Third rule broken; 4WD only gets you going from a stop, it does nothing to aid in braking or steering. So what does this Ford truck driver do? Well of course gives it just enough gas to break its hold on the hill and starts to slide backwards. Note the wheels; locked. They have the brake to the floor. They can’t stop, they can’t steer, they can’t fight gravity. The results of twisting sheet metal start around 6:20.
If you’re in a four wheel lock skid on snow and/or ice and the brakes aren’t doing anything to slow you down, you need to release the brake pedal in order to steer; think old school, before ABS, you will have to pump the brakes.
In dad’s 94 Dakota with rear wheel ABS. I’d pull the fuse in November and reinstall it in March. If you invoked ABS on it, approaching a stop, ABS would keep pushing you though the intersection.
Even my 4 wheel ABS Explorer, I’ll pull the ABS fuse as I can stop it better WITHOUT antilock, on the few times we have ice, than it will with anti-lock pulsing the brakes, because if you lock it completely up, by standing on the brakes it turns into a conventional brake car and skids.
I tend to drive by putting it into low gear, leaving it there, and not getting over 20mph if I can avoid it. By the time I need the brakes, compression braking has slowed me down to 5-10 mph.
@texan01: The rear-wheel ABS on my 94 Cummins does the same thing as your dad’s Dakota! It used to be much worse, but I eventually got around to adjusting the idle from the factory setting of 800 RPM down to about 650 RPM and it’s been much better since. I still sometimes need to shift into neutral when approaching a stoplight at the bottom of a hill on my way to work when it’s snowing because of this problem.
For driving advice, what Psar said in his last paragraph. I would emphasize the part about gently. If you have a stick, and you’re stuck, try letting the clutch out very slowly, while keeping your foot off of the gas. And if you need to get up a hill, get up to speed on the flats before you start climbing the hill. Don’t try to accelerate on the hill. (I lived in DC for >2 decades, and am a native Bostonian.)
The people on Sodom-on-th’-Potomac tend to think they don’t need snow tires, because they have comparatively little snow, if you ignore last winter. But they need them more than we Bostonians do, because — at least in DC itself — snow removal is r e a l l y s l o w. In the Blizzard of ’96, it was 5 days before my street was plowed. (Craigotron, feel free to quote me.) That kind of response is still typical in my experience from last winter (I spent most of February at my sister’s in northern VA).
Ha! I was there for the Blizzard of ’96, and yeah, it was days before we were plowed out.
I did one hell of a lot of shoveling during that time, just to get out of the house and get a little exercise.
With my ’89 Corolla w/ 5 speed stick, I often started off in 2nd by riding the clutch for a few seconds to prevent stalling the engine and spinning the drive wheels when in the Shenendoah Mtns in VA in winter weather. Starting out in first will often times break traction, especially on ice. I survived the blizzard of ’93 in Harrisonburg, VA in that ’89 Corolla.
You’re right about the poor snow removal: last year it took a week before my street was plowed (22 inches — Vienna/Oatkon area). I know someone in Falls Church (just inside the Beltway) who’s street wasn’t plowed for 10 days. It wasn’t just snowmageddon — it seems to happen every time we have snow. And you’re right: the main streets might be fine and dandy (50, 123, 28), but the neighborhoods are impassible.
And it’s not like the DC region doesn’t get heavy snow — they probably average at least one heavy snowfall a year. It’s just that we might go a year or two without much snow, and then we have another year in which we get walloped over-and-over. The dimwits in office (VA, MD, or DC, R or D) think that just because we have one warm winter where the equipment isn’t used that investing in snow removal isn’t worthwhile.
K. Listen up. Here’s what you do: Go out and get yourself a 96 Pathfinder on your last day in CA (the first day you find out it has a salvage title) and drive it to Vermont. Put it in the ditch on it’s side the first winter. The second winter, have someone make a left hand turn in front of you. And the third, have the wife drive it one day and have her get rear-ended. The car. All the while have someone changing out the snows to the summers and back that never saw a 4WD vehicle that didn’t have leaf springs and have them lift it every time by the rear lower control arms so that the bushings get squeezed and the arm kinked. Get the rear end a rockin’! Ignore the semi-frozen front caliper (it still stops!). And lastely, make sure it has flopping idler bearing in the five speed so that the only gear you will drive in is fourth.
Oh, yeah. Make sure you got studded snows.
All the recommendations are good the only thing I would add is purchasing a good “folding camp shovel” and keeping it in the trunk during winter months. I’ve got a Coleman model that folds down to about 12in x 6in and can help dig your tires out if you need it (say sliding off the road and the thing keeping you stuck is the snow in front of your intended driving path) and if the Zombie Apocalypse happens you could sharpen the blade and use it to decapitate.
I hit the automatic “brush-less” car washes whenever the temp gets above freezing long enough to clear the roads. You know, when it’s been 36 degrees at noon for a few days in a row, run through there on your lunch break, car will drip dry before you go home at night and the temp has dipped again. I love to do that cause I always put a thick layer of “Nu-Finish” on my vehicles before winter hits. Salt and crap comes right off.
Finally, someone mentioned a shovel. It’s almost mandatory.
Ah, of course! An E-tool (entrenching tool). Are those still used in the Army and USMC? I got out in ’93.
After my wife and daughter got back from ABQ Sunday afternoon, I drove her very dirty Tucson to the car wash. The automatic one was closed so rather than drive through F-town looking for another one, I used the do it yourself portion and froze my hiney off in the barely above freezing water mist. But I got the large buildup of black road salt, sand, and gunk off the vehicle.
You have a pretty good list there dude. Iwould add a couple of real good blankets, just for back up.
@N Number…You cannot carry too much washer fluid. As mentioned, maitenance can’t be over stressed.
As far as driving goes ,you have to turn your senses up a notch. Look at the pavement, little crystals are bad news. You need your hands, your feet, and your a$$, yes! your a$$. If you are experiencing traction loss, front, or rear wheels, your a$$ wil tell your brain real fast.
A good winter driver needs to become part of the vehicle. I don’t care if its a FWD,RWD or all wheel drive, the rules of physics never change. The only part of the vehicle that can make decisions is the driver.
I wish everyone would practice this rule. If your over your head and your scared $hitless. PARK IT. Take the bus, or a cab, or just stay where you are untill the roads are cleared. I’ve lived in Canada my whole life, and driven through everything. I once wrapped a 75 Pairisienne around a hydro pole in an ice storm. That was 30 years ago,and to this day, I will not drive in frozen rain.
I’ve never seen winter driving as scary as one time on I-5 in the Willamette Valley in Oregon with freezing rain. On a straight, level freeway, you could drive at a constant slow speed and the car would start to slide one way or the other at random.
In our part of western WA we almost never get that, thankfully. The Portland and northern Willamette Valley area does, way too often for the likes of me.
Your last paragraph is golden, especially about ice.
Snow is bad, but as long as you’re careful you can cope. Blowing snow is really bad because you get some wonderfully polished spots of road and no visibility, but even then you can generally proceed slowly assuming it doesn’t accumulate. Ice is the worst: even if you can get going, you have no assurance that you, nor anyone around you, can stop or turn.
If you can avoid driving, do so. The best accident is the one you never have.
Snow tires are great, but if that’s too much to ask, then at least replace the wide tires with a set of narrow ones. Wide tires ride on top of the snow, while narrow tires have an easier time getting through to the pavement (which is where you want to be).
If you’re worried about getting stranded on a highway, then blankets and a few candles are a must, as is good drinking water.
Keep a shovel in the car and if you do get caught in deep snow for an extended period of time be sure to clean the snow from around the exhaust periodically (to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning).
Shovel is great, especially in places like DC where you have to park on the street.
Rubber floor mats will do wonders.
Washing your car in the winter.
Reminds me I need to get washer fluid and another snow broom….
But really, in DC, it is better not to drive. No matter how good you are, the other drivers are terrible.
However, once you get a few inches down, the streets clear out and with snows you can have fun. I fondly remember doing about 50 on Ohio Drive with 2-3 inches of snow, very empty, great easy control.
A lot of focus here on how to prepare the car but not on the “driving” part.
1) 4WD and AWD does not mean four wheel stop too. Recent videos from Colorado Springs and Seattle demonstrate with crunching sheet metal sound effects how 4WD is powerless to aid you once you start to skid on even gently sloping hills.
2) Leave lots of room, and leave room 360 degrees. Be aware of what is behind you and what is beside you. If at all possible don’t drive side-by-side to the cars next to you if you’re traveling at speed, if the person behind you is tail gating you then let them pass; better than they come through your rear bumper.
3) Anti-lock brakes work by detecting a lack of wheel spin on one, two, or three wheels while another wheel is still spinning and rapidly adjust the brake fluid pressure to “pump” the brakes faster than a human can. However when all four wheels are locked and the car is traveling at a very low speed, or starts to slide forward/backward from a dead stop, the anti-lock brake system assumes wrongly that you are not in a skid. Worse, as you skid and you have your brake to the floor you can’t steer. If you’re in a four wheel lock skid and the brakes aren’t working you need to release the brake pedal in order to steer; think old school, before ABS, pump the brakes.
4) Avoid hills in the first place, even if you have 4WD, AWD, and/or good snow tires, and even gentle hills can be a challenge. I learned this lesson the hard way with a snowtire equipped 4WD Chevy Avalanche in 4-lo; thankfully no one was going through the four way stop sign at the bottom when I rocketed through; creaming a car with three tons of Mexican built sheet metal would have been a disaster. However, if you insist on going up a hill and you are forced for what ever reason to stop, and that stop becomes a skid backwards, steer to the curb. Remember you’re going backward so turning the wheel to the right will bring the rear of your vehicle toward the right curb; steer to the left will bring you vehicle to the left curb. Ideally you want to hit the curb at low speed and not at a sharp angle, if you hit the curb say at a 45 or more degree angle Isaac Newton is going to kick in, you’ll likely bounce off and start sliding down the hill sideways with almost no way to recover, and turning your vehicle in a huge please broadside me target. If you see other vehicles struggling to get up a hill, it is very likely you will struggle also.
5) Allow extra time. You’re going to have to drive slower, other drivers are driving even slower – if you’re running late than call ahead of just forget the trip.
6) On the subject of forget the trip, the most important piece of advice hasn’t been listed here yet, “is this trip really necessary.” If you can stay home or at your office; then stay where you are and wait for things to improve. You’re not going to die of starvation if that milk container goes empty tomorrow morning.
7) If you become hopelessly stuck, you run out of gas, or just plain give up; DON’T ABANDON YOUR CAR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. This is the most bizzare recent phenomenon I’ve seen across the country. Yes, it is possible to get stuck in gridlock and have no choice but if you can recruit a few people to push you to the side, so that traffic can keep flowing, do it. Leaving your car in the middle of the road when you get stuck, locking it, and walking away blocks traffic flow, makes it impossible to plow where you’re stuck, and can hamper emergency vehicles. The intersection you block could have a major impact in ways you can’t understand.
8) Don’t break momentum. One of the most important things when you’re driving in the snow is keep moving. The best thing about AWD and 4WD is they help you get moving by distributing the force over four wheels, and applying force to the wheel(s) with the least slippage. If you’re in an old school RWD vehicle without posi-traction or a locking differential, then power will go to just one wheel; harder to get moving. Coming to a dead stop is your enemy. Try and pick routes that allow you to keep a slow steady pace.
9) Traction control when engaged can be noisy and obtrusive; fear not. Most drivers will own their car for years and never hear or feel traction/stability control engage. Some cars, especially inexpensive ones can have obtrusive and noisy traction control systems. That sound is not your car dying, it is computer systems saving your bacon – let them do their job. But this leads to ten…
10) If you’re stuck and you have to “rock” the car, turn traction control off. Some new model cars don’t allow you to completely turn off traction control. Learn how to rock your car, that is go foward/back, forward/back, forward/back to get a rocking momentum and become unstuck. It is the last line of defense you have if you’re stuck.
11) If you have a vehicle with a part-time AWD or 4WD system. Use two-wheel drive to get around, 4WD or AWD when things start to slip (running 4WD on just wet pavement can damage part-time systems) and use 4-Lo only to get out of trouble. If you’re using 4-Lo to keep moving in the first place, you’re asking to get REALLY stuck.
Excellent points! Well said.
Excellent advice. Especially the part about taking it slow, no sudden moves, and leave lots of room.
We should note that there is a big difference between snow and ice. In snow, it is slick, but there is still some traction. Deep snow causes more trouble starting than stopping. Stay in others’ tracks in deep snow, don’t try to plow your own route if you can help it. Also, try to avoid full stops where possible. For example, approaching a 4 way stop where there is no cross traffic, slow way down, but keep moving. If you have traction trouble, stopping can mean getting stuck.
With ice, you have virtually no traction. The car will want to keep doing what it is doing right now. Go slow, slow, slow, and keep a careful eye on all of the other drivers who think that their 4 wheel drives make the ice disappear. You will have a bit of traction, but the car will respond only to minimal inputs – light brake taps and gentle steering corrections. No sudden moves.
By the way, I love the mental picture of your Avalanche becoming an avalanche.
The isolated parking lot is a great place to practice. I have taken my teenaged drivers out in both rear drive and front drive cars to give them a feel for how the cars respond to low traction.
Don’t forget to go to a parking lot somewhere first time it snows, and learn what your car will do in several situations. Doing a few donuts is fun, too, for starters, just don’t beat your car up. Be realistic. All the safety stuff in the world won’t help you if you don’t get to know your car’s and tire’s limits! Oh, yeah, preferably a lot with few or no light poles! That’s what we did when we were kids and I instructed mine to do the same.
Stay away from kitty litter. Most are made out of clay which will turn into slick mud shortly after it gets wet. A jumper box needs to stay charged or else it isn’t good for much more than added weight for traction. Pay a little extra and get a jumper box with an air pump, very handy if you’re into any off road sports! Practice some emergency stops and power slides in a empty snow covered parking lot so you know how the vehicle will react in an emergency situation.
My advice is to read the owners manual of your vehicle. Many cars with an automatic (Fords in particular) have a detent to that allows the vehicle to start out in second gear.
Also, vehicle owners should wax the inside of of the door and door wells, wherever the door seal contacts metal. The door seal should be wiped with a silicone base lubricant. This will prevent the door from freezing shut.
When I lived in the snow belt:
1. A working battery & alternator. You’ll be running lights a lot, and cranking the starter in the cold. If your electricals aren’t up to snuff, you’re not going anywhere, or you’re pulling off completely dark.
2. Snow tires, or at least all-seasons year-round. Summer tires have zero traction on hard ice, so forget about them. If getting snows, go for a Minus Zero fittment – narrower tires than (typically overwidth) stock will “cut” through snow better.
3. Gear-wise, I carried a full trunk: blankets, socks & gloves, jumper cables, first aid kit, mechanics tools, cheater bar, shovel, brass scraper for glass, snacks, *water*, flares, & change of clothes. Most of the stuff I didn’t need, but was glad to have.
4. One good, cheap trick – a garbage bag over the windshield. Less snow actually on the glass is less snow to remove.
5. Whenever the weather cleared, I took the car in for a wash & wax. Underbody flush to get rid of the road salt to protect the drivetrain & chassis. Wax to protect the body, so snow came off faster.
DC doesn’t have enough winter to spit at and not worth preparing for. In a big snowfall, STAY HOME. That’s it: end of advice. Give the ill-equipped public works department time to clear the roads and don’t become part of their mess.
Lots of great advice on this one. The OP will need to condense all of this wisdom into one BIG list…
I’ve lived in the DC area since 2002 after previously living in the upper midwest. My tips for DC motorists, in rough order for DC-metro motorists is:
(1) Clean the snow and ice off your car. It’s not cool to drive a car or SUV with only gunslits carved in the snow to see out of. Seriously, you’re going to kill someone with the ice flying off of your car
(2) Keep a safe following distance, and then double it. My first year I was driving in to work on a bad snow day on RT 50 and there were only three cars on the road (including me). I had about a 500 ft following distance (maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but not much). One of the other cars was doing 40mph 10 feet off of the third car’s rear bumper (see point #8, below).
(3) Stock up on washer fluid. We live in an area with lots of freezing slush.
(4) Better than kitty litter is a bag of salt.
(5) At minimum have all seasons tires on your car. It’s not like you can really use a high performance car around here anyway, so summer tires are a waste (and are hard as a rock below 40 deg). I live in Oakton, which has some curvy mountain roads that are fun to attack, and I switched to Continental DWS (dry, wet, snow) all-season performance tires. If you must drive around with summer tires, buy a set of separate wheels with snow tires and slap them on over Thanksgiving and take them off at Easter.
(6) Momentum and smooth, gentle, driving is the way to go. Go to an empty parking lot (without parking berms) and learn to drive in the snow. For those of you with front wheel drive, learn to use your handbrake to turn. It may sound crazy, but in the past I used it to help turn the car in conditions in which my car would have plowed straight (we’re talking 10-20 mph drifting here, not rallycross).
(7) As someone mentioned before, if you have ABS or traction control, keep your foot mushed on the brake or accelerator. In some rare conditions ABS and TC are best left off, but those are rare, and you probably don’t have the skill level anyway.
(8) Stay off of the road. Most people around here are terrible drivers in the snow.
Using the handbrake to help turn a FWD car sounds insane, but it works. When you’re under-steering, the weight of your car is overwhelming the front wheels. When you break the rears free with the handbrake, the weight of the the back half of the car changes from pushing on the front wheels into swinging in the direction it really wanted to go anyway. The rear comes around in the direction you wanted it to turn, and the fronts magically have grip again. You just have to be good about keeping the fronts pointed where you want to go, and you may need a bit of oppo to achieve this. Definitely not for the faint of heart, and not any advice I’d give a stranger (especially one from the near south), but something I use all the time here in Minneapolis.
Just don’t try that handbrake turn in an old Saab 99 or 900. Handbrake works on the front wheels on those cars.
@jello
Handbrake turns won’t work as well with an e-brake which is foot modulated. I have a car that has an e-brake which requires you to engage the brake with your left foot and then disengage with the left foot as well. I don’t think it would be as easy to do this quickly enough to be performed safely in a snowy situation.
Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong.
@tankinbeans I think you’re absolutely right. I knew a couple of guys who ice raced Saab 96s and they would tape the handbrake release button down so the brake would not latch and could be quickly released/adjusted. Quick control would be impossible with the typical foot pedal arrangement. Probably why it’s called a HANDbrake turn…
TR4
I know that they’re called HANDbrake turns for a reason. My only point was that many people hopefully know that the hand lever and foot pedal (for e-brake) operate the e-brake in the same fashion (at least the mechanical connections are similar) and some might try to use the e-brake in a similar fashion and may have very nasty results. I may not be well-versed in handbrake turns or powerslides or whatever they’re called, but I know that it would create an issue if somebody tried to use the foot modulated e-brake to cause the back end to swing out to complete a turn.
The hoons of my youth drove cars with foot-operated parking brakes, and a pull-knob on the dash to release it. They would allegedly cut a length of steel brakeline tubing to match the distance the knob had to be pulled, and cut a slot down the length of it. Pull out the knob, drop the tubing on the shaft, and presto: a foot brake which operates only the rear brakes. Bonus: no brakes lights.
Also, don’t forget that the handbrake is ratcheted, so you need to keep your thumb on the button so that you can release the rear brakes when you try to lower the handle back down, otherwise you might inadvertently find them stuck in the “on” position.
Also, this is not something you want to try for the first time in an emergency. Try it in an empty parking lot at slow speed. You’d be amazed at how handy a technique it can be.
Having lived in the DC area for nearly 25 years (yikes!) and lived/driven in winters in Minnesota, Ohio, upstate NY and Boston before that, I will make a few observations about driving here, and not just pertaining to winter….
It isn’t necessarily an easy thing to avoid hills in this area. They are quite prevalent–not big ones like Pittsburgh, but lots of little inclines that can cause problems when going anywhere in snowy weather. And much of the time the winter weather issue here isn’t just snow, it’s ice. Perhaps the location (halfway between the Blue Ridge/Shenandoah and the ocean) leads to weather where the snow/ice line is just passing through the area. The uncertainty can be a problem.
People in this area tend to be quite highly educated, but not necessarily in things automotive and driving related. Add to that a very diverse and transient population–people come here from different (and often warmer) parts of the country and warmer climates from literally around the world (something like 1 in 5 people in the DC area were born in a different country) and my thought is we don’t have the same amount of shared winter road experiences that a city with a more static population might. Add to that a huge amount of inexperienced suburban teenaged drivers who are trying to get to their activities at school (assuming these aren’t closed) etc., driving cars that may not be optimally equipped or maintained for winter driving. Or numbers of immigrants driving cars similarly ill-equipped, but who must get to their jobs even in really bad weather. You get the picture–that diversity means that the roads can be gummed up in weather that most snowbirds from elsewhere would laugh at, and do.
David’s observation about post-blizzard road clearing in this area is true, especially when it pertains to neighborhood streets. By cleaning those areas last, it almost guarantees that many people will remain stuck if they have no mass transit or 4WD options. So I’ve learned to keep the stocks full at home and just sit it out when things get really bad. It beats trying to get around!
I learned snow driving in lake-effect country, and now I live in metro DC. Seriously folks, just stay home when it snows. Call in sick. Telecommute. Give the kids the day off. People here are clueless when it comes to snow and slick pavement. I know how to get around in snow and always run a set of snow tires on one car in the fleet just in case, but I stay home anyway. It doesn’t matter much how good you or your car are in the snow, you will eventually get hit, as I did, by someone who can’t do it.
I do not recommend jumper cables for modern vehicles. I change the battery in all my vehicles at 4 years old, whether I think they are still good or not. Jumper cables can cause a surge in the electronic systems of modern cars that can do thousands in damage. A jumpbox sounds like a good solution, until you factor in all of the maintenance involved. I currently use Walmart Everstart Maxx batteries that cost $77 each. A great deal. There are also many good points mentioned above.
That’s all well and good until you park and leave the lights on all day.
@Steve65
No car is idiotproof.
That’s kinda my point. And how much “maintenance” do you think is involved in keeping a jumper box? I plug mine in for a few hours every couple of months, to keep its battery charged.
Soft sling, 10 ft or so long (the longer the better) with some substantial rating. And learn _in advance_ where the attachment points are on your vehicle, especially in the front. Read the manual and practice.
If you straddle way out of town or away from major roads or into areas with poor cell phone coverage – always make sure you filled your gas tank. In cold weather – have in the car a small (2 gal or so) plastic gas container. Or a bigger one if you have a truck and space is no problem.
Perhaps I’m dense, but what is a soft sling? I’ve never heard of one and might want to research it for myself.
I believe he means something like this http://www.discountramps.com/cargoImages/recovery-tow-strap-1.jpg
Thank you Dan, That is exactly what I meant. Ones without hooks.
a softsling is a tow cable that stretches to lessen the shock of pulling a vehicle that is stuck. It is also called a snatch strap. If you use a chain, like in the old days, you can damage either vehicle. Ropes will break. The snatch strap is made out of a nylon that is very tough, and will take a long time to abrade. An excellent item to have aboard, and most offroaders in the know have them aboard as standard equipment.
I don’t know why I didn’t realize that’s what he was talking about. In my area they’re always just called tow straps. Probably just a regional thing. I know they can be had relatively cheap and I might have to pick up a set. Thank you for the ideas.
I once had to pull my car out of my driveway with a cinch strap (a ratchet strap without the ratchet) and I didn’t have a car for assistance. That took forever.
Attractive, naked, woman.
Well, you want to stay warm, don’t you?
Amazing, I was just going back through my winter driving checklist and… check!
Sure, but you can get unattractive naked women which are just as warm for way less.
I’m all for staying out of it entirely. For those unlucky times when I’m at work while it is coming down I keep a bottle of scotch in the car, just in case…
That way I can just curl up, take a nap in my cube, and wait the whole thing out. Or bribe someone to pull me out of the snowbank.
My only add would be to keep an old towel or two in your car. They are handy for cleanup in any weather, but in the winter, you can use them as a blanket if you are stuck. I use mine to clear off snow from the roof, hood and trunk — I find that the brushes attached to the other end of ice scrapers can scratch the paint.
There’s always somebody who suggests a hand-crank flashlight. I say that sh*t is for the birds — have you ever tried to use one?
Instead, pack a small LED handsfree headlight and keep spare batteries in packaging (not loose) in the glove box where they’ll be warm when you break down or go off the road. For ambient light in the cabin while you’re stuck, get a tea-candle lantern and a lighter.
Funny hearing DC described as “warm”. I lived there for 3 yrs, hated the cold miserable winters and finally gave up and moved back to FL!
The name says it all . . .
As an almost native who’s lived here most of my 62 years, let me second the following comments:
1. In a big snow (i.e. more than 6″) stay home. Are you really that important that your physical presence is required in an office? (As a corollarly, employers need to get much better about allowing their office workers to telecommute during big snows. Telecommuting webs of workers should be set up in advance. The federal government (still DC’s biggest employer) often announces a “liberal leave policy” during snows, which means that the person who stays home gets to lose a day of his annual vacation quota of leave . . . hardly an incentive to avoid jamming the roads. Smart-ass commentators kvetch about the “millions of dollars lost” when the government actually shuts down for a day or two (because everyone is paid and is not charged leave), but come on . . . other than lawyers, what professionals work by the hour? And the lawyers can telecommute. The basic problem that metro DC has with snow is that, on average, it’s not heavy enough to justify an investment in snow removal equipment and personnel to clear all the streets within 24 or 48 hours of an 18″ snowfall. Why should metro DC pay Buffalo-sized snow removal costs when it doesn’t get Buffalo-sized snowfalls? Many winters have no measurable snow fall; the “typical” winter will have three or four snowfalls in the range of 4 to 8 inches. Snowfalls of 12″ or more are extraordinary. You could go 10 years or more without seeing one.
2. Snow monsters may deride all-season tires; but compared to “summer tires” they’re a godsend. If you follow rule #1, true snow tires are an unnecessary expense. I owned two vehicles for which I bought a set of true snow tires . . . during the 10 years I owned a house in the highest part of West Virginia, where average annual snowfalls were in excess of 100 inches. Even though I no longer have the vacation home, I bought 4 true snows for our Honda Pilot because my wife said it was “scary” even in modest amounts of snow on all-seasons. To tell the truth, I find driving the car in slippery conditions scary even on true snows . . . it probably has to do with its weight. It’s not a matter of getting stuck, its a matter of how the vehicle behaves on slush and packed snow at even modest speeds. I’d take my Saab wagon or my AWD Previa any day over the Pilot.
3. The pre-winter check of your car should include all cooling system hoses (something about the shock of hot coolant hitting a very cold hose when the thermostat opens up that seems to cause them to fail, adequate levels of antifreeze, battery condition, non-freezing windshield washer fluid (I seem to have gotten a hold of some that freezes at 20 degrees).
4. A set of rubber floor mats for your car. A small garden spade, that has about a 10″ or less wide blade, a short handle and a grasping handle at the end (useful for shoveling direct and breaking up hard packed snow or ice) which will fit easily in the back of your car.
5. Nix the cat litter (vermiculite). When mixed with water, the stuff forms a thick, gooey paste that sticks to anything, including the bottom of your shoes. Try sand instead, or the finest gravel (pea size or smaller) you can find.
6. If you’re creeping along in traffic at night, be mindful of the fact that, at idle, most alternators will not generate enough amps to run the lights, the heater/defroster blower on max speed, the seat warmers and the rear window defroster. Although its much more difficult than it used to be, it is still possible to discharge a battery creeping along in traffic, especially if the battery is nearly worn out. Eliminate non-essential electricity use if you’re creeping in traffic for long periods.
+1 on clearing your roof, hood and all windows of snow before you start out.
Finally, if you feel like you are going a little too fast for the conditions, then you are probably going much too fast for the conditions. 4WD and AWD does nothing to improve your ability to stop or — TV commercials for Subarus to the contrary — turn.
Agree, skip the kitty litter. Another alternative to sand or gravel is birdseed – when we replaced our sidewalk and built a driveway last year, our concrete contractor said if we used salt at all he wouldn’t honor his warranty and suggested birdseed. I can tell you it really helps on the ice – and it’s cheap (True Value has a 20lb bag for $5.99 right now).
There’s a mountain of good advice above, far too much for your intended short list of five points. Keeping in mind that you’re writing (a) for urban drivers preparing for (b) a rare event, I’ll try to pick some basics:
(1) Buy an ice scraper, and put it in your trunk. Clean the snow and ice off all your windows. Keep your reservoir of washer fluid full.
(2) If you don’t have to go out, don’t. If you do, leave early – very early – and go slow. Have some winter footwear, a hat, a warm jacket or layers, and mitts in the car in case you have to walk. Remember, you might not be able to get a cab.
(3) If you put on snow tires (which you probably won’t), be sure to put on four tires, not two. On snow and ice, real snows are vastly superior to all-season radials. The next-best choice is to mount four Nokian WR tires, which are still (AFAIK) the only severe-duty-rated all-season radial.
(4) Realize that having four wheel drive doesn’t improve your stopping or cornering ability. Drive accordingly, and leave your ego at home… the highway patrol have a saying: the SUVs are always the first vehicles in the ditch.
(5) Carpool. Fewer vehicles on the road means less trouble for everyone, and if something goes wrong you won’t be by yourself – no small matter in DC. (If you get stranded, there might be someone who can come and get you all, in one of the vehicles you left behind.) If you’re inexperienced or nervous on snow, let someone else drive who isn’t.
Of course, that’s far from a complete list for all drivers in all situations. This Christmas I drove through the Rockies twice, in avalanche country. I was carrying: a down sleeping bag, emergency shelter, long-burning candles + candle lantern, down jacket, shell parka, water/windproof overpants, mitts, hat, long underwear, felt-pack boots, clothing layers, jumper cables, chains, flares, and a satellite phone.
PS. I’ve been running Nokian WR tires all year around for many years, and have been very happy with them.
“4WD and AWD does nothing to improve your ability to stop”
I can’t speak for AWD but definitely run in 4WD. The driveline drag allows you to use the the stopping power of all 4 wheels much more effectively. Night and day difference when stopping on snowy, slippery roads. Especially w/PU.
I’ll only add, don’t make the horrifying mistake I did, and clean off your car with a metal snow shovel. You get hundreds of lovely little paint scratches all over your car.
In my defence this was during last year’s DC snowmageddon, and there were like 4 feet of frozen snow on my car. The scraper wouldn’t put a dent in it.
Something my neighbors told me. If you have a pickup truck, especially a light and/or extremely unbalanced one like a V6 S10, shovel the snow from your driveway or sidewalk into it’s bed and compact it. Just fill the truck bed and get some water on the top to freeze it and keep it from flying out onto the guy behind you. Me with my 4.3 S10, my neighbor with his new 6.2 F150 and the other neighbor with a 4.6 F150 were able to get a good enough head start on my street’s hill to get up and over it (I live right on the fall line in SE PA, and it just so happens all the stores are at the top of the hill).
Everything else is covered above I think. Throw some new shingles (drive around and find a house getting a new roof in the summer) in the back for traction failing kitty litter or floor mats. And the first thing to do it go to an empty parking lot and figure the car/truck out in the snow. Just hope the cops don’t show up.
Do not forget to install a block heater. or at least an oil pan heater. these will drastically
shorten your warmup time, which means your screens will be clear sooner. they will also
AT LEAST double your gas mileage for the first 10-17 min. of operation. they will also
extend the life of your engine as most wear occurs during startup. very cold engines run like
hell.. of course fuel injection has made them run 100 times better when cold, but trust me,
your engine still doesn’t like getting out of bed when it is 10 degrees F.
of course of special interest to TTAC’s beloved readers is the added benefit of greatly reduced pollution through the use of a block heater. it cost only a few pennies to run one of these a couple hours before you take off, and they are but $30. 00 to buy. these things are
THE most overlooked means of increasing one’s gas mileage, and WILL pay for themselves
after just one winter’s use. depending on where you live, you might do very well to use it three seasons out of the year.
For more Southern areas where winter is intermittent, not continuous, a lot of the advice given so far is overkill. The number one thing is to go to bed early the evening before the snow storm hits and get up early. Allow extra time. A reasonably skilled driver can drive on just about any slippery road as long as he or she drives slowly. If the trip is intolerably long at 20 or 30 mph, wait a day or two for the snow to be cleared or to melt.
Regarding car maintenance, make sure that the windshield washer fluid is full. As a general rule for life, fill the gas tank on nice days so you don’t have to pump gas when the weather is crappy. For area like Washington DC where winter roads are more likely to be clear than snowy, a set of all season tires that still have tread are probably adequate.
very timely as I am heading from Nj to Montreal this weekend, I did stock up on extra washer fluid after reading this so thanks folks, the only other things I would add are the hand and feet warmers that you buy and than crack open to turn on, about $10 bucks for a dozen and a paper back to read when you either get stuck or decide to pull over for a while. Since I am a gentleman I have headed seats for the naked lady arse ( oh you meant rather than going out in the frist place never mind) Safe driving
My additions that I’ve used for years (FWD, manual):
If you’re going up hill in snow (and have enough speed), I try to put the car in a +1 gear than I would normally use, assuming that wouldn’t drop the RPMs to low to maintain power. In a higher gear, there is less torque to the wheels at the speed, and I find that it gives less of a chance of starting into any tire spin. On a hill in snow, that’s your worst enemy.
Conversely, heading downhill in snow I lay off the brakes as much as possible and maintain safe speed with a gearing of -1 per my usual. I don’t generally engine brake going down hills, but make an exception in the winter.
And a warning for the nanny-systems. If you’re using traction control of the engine-limiting variety, be mindful of how much throttle you’re actually applying. You don’t want to get to, say, the top of a hill, hit an area with good traction and launch forward.
My winter driving means carrying an ax (to cut away trees that block the highway and if they are bigger than a foot in diameter, that means waiting for a road crew) and might I suggest a 10mm. Ax is handy as well. Being in D.C., it’s probably the other drivers you’ve got to deal with. Also..good shoes and gloves. Stepping out in penny loafers and bare handed, well..your might as well be naked.
The axe is also great for when the zombie apacolypse begins.