ThanksAJ in Car Accident
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I have TONS of offroad experience, but my experience with snow is very limited. I wish I could help you out @MattSpeller
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I equate this conversation to the RAID one. In RAID, you know there is a problem when people talk about "how many drives they can lose." That's a highly visible metric that people like to use, but it doesn't actually relate to the safety of the array. It's actually a red herring. It should never come up because the important factor is the chance of the array losing data, the number of drives an array can lose does not directly correlate.
Likewise, that's how I see RWD vs. FWD conversations (funny because I've often used this example in reverse when explaining why someone is looking at the wrong factor in RAID array, literally I use the traction versus control on snow example!!) If we talk about traction or starting/stopping power on snow, it is a red herring. We simply don't care. What we care about is saving lives. If a car is more likely to get stuck, that's annoying, but it isn't what kills people. Spinning and loss of control kills people. RWD are hard to get moving on snow, but that's not dangerous.
What's important is that when you take your foot off of the gas and stop accelerating because you brake, not accelerate, into an accident, that RWD cars pull from the back and attempt to keep the car going in a straight line, nose first into whatever is going to happen and they gain additional control as they slow. RWD do the opposite, they push to stop like someone putting a hand on the front of the car. This causes the rear to want to come around and pass the front. If that's all that it did, that would only be so bad, but it means that the car begins to spin. The harder you try to slow, the more it tries to spin. The more critical it is that you stop quickly, the more likely that the car will spin wildly out of control.
RWD have "control under braking conditions." FWD have "control under acceleration conditions." You can always choose not to keep accelerating. But you can't always decide when you are going to need to slow down. That's why RWD are so much safer. They protect your when it matters.
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@IRJ having lots of offroad driving time is exactly why I can drive in the snow. GA mud is made of clay, which is as slippery as any of y'alls fancy New York snow and ice.
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@IRJ said:
@gjacobse said:
@IRJ said:
4x4 is a beautiful thing
Just means all 4 tyres spin..
No. All 4 tires don't spin unless you have some kind of locker or positraction system. In most 4 wheel drives, one tire per axle drives while the other one freely rotates.
AWD is all four, 4x4 is just two normally. But they still risk pushing against each other.
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@RojoLoco said:
@scottalanmiller when it snows in ATL, everyone goes berserk and entire highways become parking lots, so I am more than willing to risk life and limb to get home vs. being stuck on GA400 with 100,000 idiots. Once I was off the highway, it was super easy to slide up to the gas station and buy beer, which I promptly drank over the next hour (had to go 2.6 miles, took over an hour).
You never get enough snow or ice to get stuck down there, though. In NY we actually get snow over the tires regularly. The getting stuck is a completely different factor
We have no idea how you guys down there even think there is a "stuck" risk. -
@scottalanmiller utter bollox, brakes stop your car not the bloody driving wheel.
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@scottalanmiller when it rains all summer. On slick mud is how I learned to drive at 13-14. When one can control any vehicle on that clay, one can drive in any conditions.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@RojoLoco said:
@IRJ having lots of offroad driving time is exactly why I can drive in the snow. GA mud is made of clay, which is as slippery as any of y'alls fancy New York snow and ice.
How often do you drive on that mud on the highway with traffic around you?
More often than you think. Flash Flooding is quite common here on the island. I have been in water higher than my doors several times this year.
The roads drain as quickly as they flood since the water drains in the surrounding estuaries, but since it is an island at basically sea level it can flood quick.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller utter bollox, brakes stop your car not the bloody driving wheel.
This only tells me that you've never driven is slippery conditions. If you had, you'd know that the car can start to spin even before you get your foot to the brake.
AND if you believe that the brakes are the only thing that stops the car, not the driving wheels, WHY did you mention FWD stopping better? RWD has the engine over the front wheels too. The only time that things are different are while the engine is dragging the wheels as you move your foot from the gas to the brake - and it is in that window that you lose traction and the brakes are useless after that has happened.
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Ever seen those videos of people doing 360s out on a highway while driving in traffic? Those aren't people in RWD cars, nor are they people braking. They are people that take their foot off of the gas too quickly on slippery roads. They are in full spins long before their leg could reach the brakes.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller utter bollox, brakes stop your car not the bloody driving wheel.
This only tells me that you've never driven is slippery conditions.
OK, perhaps I'm slow today. Please explain to me how the driving wheel stops the car and not the brakes.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
If you compare the two on snow, FWD is just better.
How? It has less control, it is dramatically more dangerous.
You're just 100% incorrect. The weight of the engine and trans sitting right on the wheel gives traction. You can start, you can stop. Much more safe than RWD.
That's exactly why it is dangerous. All the traction is in the front... that's what makes the car go into a spin. We are very aware of the additional traction. It is that that traction is what kills you is what those who live in the snow belt are painfully aware of. It's an illusion of control, it's actually a dramatic loss of control.
I explained about this earlier in the thread. It's the common myth that the "extra traction" adds safety.
You are missing HOW a car stops. If you don't have snow like we do in the NE, you are likely not used to dealing with the level of it that is normal there. FWD cars want to spin the moment you take your foot off of the gas. It's basic physics. Under truly dangerous conditions, you will never even get your foot to the brake before they are in a spin.
you will if you drive what my dad called rabbit footed, one foot on each pedal.
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Trust me, if your brakes are stopping you, you're not seeing the conditions we worry about and are driving in situations we consider tame. You can't get to your brakes at driving speed in a FWD without traction issues from the engine unless you are clutching it out first. We are talking about serious snow and ice here. If the issue is a dusting, then the issue is people not knowing how to drive. What is "six months of the year" driving in NY is unheard of, even for Toronto.
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@MattSpeller said:
OK, perhaps I'm slow today. Please explain to me how the driving wheel stops the car and not the brakes.
It's not what STOPs, it, it is what puts you into a slide before your foot touches the brakes. The moment your foot is off of the gas, the engine drags your driving wheels. In truly icy conditions, you have already lost traction from that. When you hit the brakes your wheels are already not moving with the road and possibly not even still facing forward. Brakes are only useful when your wheels are turning with the highway beneath them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Trust me, if your brakes are stopping you, you're not seeing the conditions we worry about and are driving in situations we consider tame.
Please explain to me what is stopping you then.
Answer is traction.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Trust me, if your brakes are stopping you, you're not seeing the conditions we worry about and are driving in situations we consider tame.
Please explain to me what is stopping you then.
Stopping ME is my brakes, because I can safely get to them because I know how to drive.
What stops people in FWD is normally a snow bank.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Trust me, if your brakes are stopping you, you're not seeing the conditions we worry about and are driving in situations we consider tame.
Please explain to me what is stopping you then.
Answer is traction.
Sure, the traction from the side of your car slamming into a birm or a wall.
You are missing that we are talking about snow here.
