Idiots + Winter - The FAIL Collection Thread

I live in a quiet cul-de-sac with very little traffic and it's a one way.
Three cars today have gotten stuck and as I type a woman in a Volvo S40 has been going backwards and forwards for 15 minutes. :lol:

EDIT: 20 minutes, she hasn't moved.
 
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I'm glad it's not just us that are totally incapable of winter driving. We still might be worse than most though I suppose.
 
47 said:
Some things they don't teach you in driving school. And most people don't put on appropriate rubber.
Click to expand...

I don't know about the rest of the world, but here driving on slippery roads is mandatory as part of the driving school, i kinda figured that was normal all over the world?

if not... that really does explain a lot...
 
Here it's up to the instructor to phase out your lessons during dry and wet conditions, but there's no separate wet-only lessons on skidpans or using skid-plates. It is mandatory to use winter gear from November 15th to March 15th, though.
 
[video=youtube;OX9MVhPc-h0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX9MVhPc-h0[/video]
 
I hope that's the diff only spinning the right wheel and he's not just riding the clutch, cause that's just stupid.
 
I'm pretty sure it has an open diff and it's just spinning one tire at a time.
 
There's no way that car has a limited slip or locking diff.
 
Mr. Nice said:
I can say that the number of accidents I've seen in the South immediately after something like a light rain shower is as high or greater a number than I've seen in the North from a light snow.
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One of my uncles has lived in Texas for over 20 years and is still dumbfounded by some people's inability to drive in the rain. Just a couple months ago his daughter crashed her truck and her excuse was that it was raining and she hit some gravel in a corner. Rain and gravel!?!? Oh my God! ... She's never going to live that down.

Hemily said:
I don't know about the rest of the world, but here driving on slippery roads is mandatory as part of the driving school, i kinda figured that was normal all over the world?

if not... that really does explain a lot...
Click to expand...
:lmao: There are no such requirements in the US that I know of.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6_ghixVN78[/youtube]
 
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Even in Utah the drivers ed I took didn't cover snow driving except in theory. They now have an older Taurus with dolly wheels where the rear tires are supposed to go to "simulate" slippery weather, but it doesn't work very well. For one thing the car is FWD but only the rear ever steps out so you don't experience understeer.

However, it is funny to sit and watch the 15 year olds try to stop that thing. More often than not the car ends up spinning across the practice lot; after they got that rig the driving instructor's hair went from black to white in a year.

It looks like this:
https://pic.armedcats.net/b/bl/blind_io/2010/12/01/skid-monster-cropped.jpg

[video=youtube;L2-NOaouzVE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2-NOaouzVE[/video]
 
I've seen one of those, except it retained all it's wheels and the dolly wheels just took some of the weight off the tires to simulate slippery conditions.
 
47 said:
Some things they don't teach you in driving school. And most people don't put on appropriate rubber.
Click to expand...

In season 12, episode 3 when James went to learn how to drive and went to Finland, he had said that they take several years to get a license, including driving in snow, ice, on a skidpan, in the dark and all kinds of conditions.

What I wouldn't give to have that requirement here in the States.
 
Here, it's like Ice said, the conditions your drive in are based on the time of year and weather you drive in.
IIRC, i drove only in the sunshine, becouse it was the middle of summer.

But I guess most instructors don't even tell you the theory of driving in other conditions.
I picked up things from my father and other people. And experience.

Also, here winter gear is mandatory in winter conditions (meaning, snow). Nut I guess most people don't see the point of spending
certain amounts of money on appropriate tyres if there isn't much snow.
For the past few years there's been maybe a few weeks of snow altogether.
And the main roads are clear anyway after a day or so.
I've always had winter tyres. In my mind, they're not just for snow, they're for cold weather!
 
where comes the idea that your foot has more grip than four tires?
 
When you try to get up a slope and the car slides down backwards with locked tyres after the car has stopped, just leave the idea of going up that slope.

In all of these situations, I can't really figure out if they were sliding because of bad tyres and bad driving, or because the road conditions were terrible.

Snow stops pretty much everything here. We're not taught how to drive in it and everybody gets scared and on summer tyres. I never had too many problems because I use winter tyres regularly and live in a city mainly built on a flat plain. I also get to practice with the dolly wheels. It's great fun and I was quite good. But I exploited the fact that the front tyres grip greatly.
 
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And here comes a young driver in a BMW (at 0:15) :lol:


Some GA hilarity:


P.S. Suddenly my avatar is all too appropriate :p
 
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