34 —.Friday, January 9, 1998 — Narth Shore News - C north shore new AUTO freeze U WHOA! Got pretty slippery over the holi- days, didn’t it? My, was that ever fun. While dreary, icy and slip- Ppery conditions are nothing new to North Shorites, dri- vers seem to treat cach new day as if it was their first one on earth. “What? Rain makes the road slippery? Is that why I'm careening towards the ditch? Weird.” Add a bit of snow into the mix and it might as well be the Rapture. Truth be known, there are several rea- sons which explain our slip- sliding holiday season quite neatly. First of all, not all of our roads are well-suited to our oversaturated, car-infatuated populace. Second, many of our roads are very steep and even etic finest driver can’t change the laws of gravity. Third, extreme weather is a rarity in Vancouver and its sudden appearance often catches drivers off guard. Fourth, we have an inor- dinate amount of boneheads motorying about our streets who haven’: a clue how to utilize automobile technology to its fullest safeness (is that a word?). Some time back in the late Cretaceous period, we humans invented/discovered some- thing called “The Wheel,” which became the single most important aid to civilization save for sliced bread. The wheels on our cars — let’s call them “Tires” —- are not only much more energy efficient than riding around on wooden blocks, they have this uncanny ability to keep us on the road with very little help from us. Providing, of course, that we let them roll. Atire that does not roll is just a hunk of rubber. People are skidding out of signals control every foe! weather day because they are not let- ting the tires on their cars do their thing. There's actually two problems here. First, drivers are unaware or unconcerned about the fact that the greater a car’s velocity, the greater its inertia which is directly proportional ro a car’s inability to stop. Second, stopping is way over-rated. You are much more likely to avoid a crash if you keep that wagon rolling. That and providing you keep the inertia down to begin with. Even on snow and ice, a tire has «ame traction if it is rolling. A hockey puck, for anoth- er example, while round and tire-shaped, spends most of its time lying on its side scooting about in straight lines and ricocheting at vari- ous angles and continuing on at other straight lines. So too will you and your car if you choose to stop those wheels a-turning rather than letting them roll. Car manufactures, noting that many drivers failed to learn trom their wheel- inventing ancestors, went ahead and invented the Anti- lock Braking System, which, to me, is about as useful as crustless, sliced bread. Rather than explain to people that skidding tires are practically useless, they went ahead and took the lock-em- up option away. Incidentally, if you ever find yourself in a panic situa- tion, slam on the binders and find vour ABS kicking in, you're suppose to be steering as well, not just gritting vou teeth and hoping that the darn car stops before slam- ming into something. Hvou decide not to steer while vour ABS is doing its thing, please keep in mind thar a car without ABS may have stopped shorter than you are about to. After all, you wd vour mashed brake pedal are telling vour tires to stop(!) while a litde computer chip iy telling your ures “don’t stop, it’s too slippery, the guy can’t steer if you Stop. Quite a litde battle with technology, no? Sometime before the advent of ABS and atter the appearance of that new-fan- gled contraption called the wheel, a driving technique was developed to best utilize the functionality of a tire while accommodating a vari- ety of driving circumstances. It was dubbed “Threshold Braking” and folks of the time nodded their heads approvingly ar such an obvi- ous example af common sense. I by chanee you are forced to slam on the brakes during an otherwise unevent- ful vet foul-weather journey, you may find that your car Just won't stop as nicely as is might on a dry road. Very lit tle dre screeching too, simply for the lack of traction. Cause and effect and “slamming” the brakes is the wrong thing to do. Pushing the brake pedal only cnough to slow the car is a more appropriate practice and if the tires lock up (skid), easing off the pedal and applying the brakes again with slightly less pressure (and repeating as necessary) lets vou maintain control while effectively slowing and eventually stopping. This is the essence of NEWS photo Paul McGrath RESCENT coid weather created skating rinks of North Shore roads. Traffic guru Shaun Contin reminds drivers that wheels were meant for rolling (not skidding. And that's just what they'li do if you slam on the brakes on icy reads). ld weather shou threshold braking and it is what an ABS does tor vou. ‘To reiterate: you cannot steer when the front tires are skid- ding, a keen understanding of threshold braking is invaluable. Bur, in the end, all this is moot if you're travelling too fast to begin with. Inertia is inertia after all. 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