[quote=“Barkydog, post:40, topic:26253”]
do cars going up or downhill have right of way
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Uphill or down is not a factor in determining who has the ROW, according to law. But in real life, when no stop sign or light is involved, on a narrow street, in snow, I think a car driving uphill has the ROW. They need to maintain momentum. Those of us facing downhill have no worries in that respect.
The downhill part was because cars might have trouble stopping.
Yeah I had an office there. It’s kind of intimidating going down the hill in the winter when you look ahead and the bay is at the bottom. It’s actually farther away but it looks intimidating anyway. My rule is to stay out of the way of down hill cars that may be out of control, but I also stay away from uphill cars struggling to get up the hill that may proceed downhill. Luckily I wasn’t there every day.
Respecting the situation and needs of the other driver is always the right thing to do. Some call it Minnesota Nice - but it’s not that place specific, is it?
Back in the early days of cars, the gas tank was located just in front of the windshield and fuel was gravity fed to the carburetor. The car going uphill would lose the gravity feed but as long as it was drawing gas fast enough, the siphon effect would continue to supply gas. If it stopped, the flow would lose the siphon and the engine would stall and could not be restarted until it backed all the way down. Most roads were one way back then.
Anyway this was the story I was told some 55 years ago. In truth, most of the time the vehicles could each go partway off the road and go around each other.
I suspect the real reason why uphill has the right of way probably goes further back than that. It probably has something to do with trying to back up a carriage with a horse or team of horses.
Why wouldn’t you get winter tires and use them when the temperatures are below 45 degrees?
It’s the only solution I can recommend. Tire chains tear up the road if you use them when there is no ice.
There are definitely some cars that are better than others, have a bud who got a chevrolet whatever, looks kind of like a pt cruiser, for his wife. She said it was an ice skate in winter. He thought she was exaggerating until he drove it. Snow tires probably would have helped but they have lived in WI for 30 years with different cars and never had to resort to snow tires. In fact I do not know one person who does the snow tire exercise including the 100 plus employees where I worked, and yes some people are on call 24/7.