I'm terrified of driving on slick, icy roads-any tips?

General Discussion
21

I like OK4450’s take on this.
BECAUSE you are pre-scared of it
and just because of that one fact
YOU are going to create problems for yourself that another diver…in the same car…on the same road…in the same conditions…would not.

Absolutely

Your conscious is completelty shut down to learning, feeling and adjusting to the driving conditions and your sub-conscious takes over and ruins everything ( or is it the other way around )

– this is my wife as well.
Years ago she had her 91 Explorer at work when a freezing rain/snow came at the end of the day as the sun went down and the roads froze over. ( think ; wet rain first, roads freezing up , then snow on top of that. )
They closed I-40 , Gallup to Grants. Her co-worker could not go home in her little Pontiac.
She calls me up, accross town, and states “you know how to drive in this sheeet, come get me and take me home…and Antoinette is spending the night too.”
– I began to point out that she has a capable 4x4 herself - but then I held my tounge because of the above stated fact.
I knew very well that her complete aversion to ever attempting to learn to drive ‘‘in this sheeet’’ would certainly cause her to wreck it, so I simply said OK and went to get them in my 92 Explorer.

In this case it turned out to be mandatory to use the gravel on the sides of the roadway to get there and back via lass traveled back neighborhood streets as the major avenues were virtual skating rinks . ( dozens of cars off the side and more skating into those, the road surface was blindingly polished and shiny )

22

I had a student assistant when I was a university professor who didn’t have a driver’s license. She came from a poor family that didn’t own a car. She had taken driver’s training in high school, but had never been able to get a regular license. I had her get a learner’s permit and promised to let her drive when I needed to run errands. The first day I took her out for a driving experience, the roads were quite slick from an ice storm. She was hesitant to get behind the wheel. She said on days like that, they didn’t take the car out in driver education. I had her drive anyway. We drove around a few time in vacant end of the parking lot until she got the feel of the car and then headed out on the road. She did a great job. My car at that time was a Ford Maverick which wasn’t the best handling car on ice that was ever built.

23

The solution: practice, practice, practice (as many have said), once you get a good set of winter tires.