Driving Safety Final Theme for Winter Weather Awareness Week

(KNSI) – Handling snow on the roads is tough.

We saw over 500 accidents Wednesday due to maybe an inch of the white stuff. It provided a good early-season reminder that the next three months are much more difficult for drivers than the rest of the year.

Meteorologist Eric Ahasic says in cold weather, take it slow and expect it will be a longer trip to work or school. “Leave an extra 15,20 minutes early. You don’t have to worry about how you need to drive fast.”

He adds, “When it’s snowing out when it’s icy out, you kind of have to revert back to both hands on the wheel, no distractions.”

Driving safety is the final theme for Winter Weather Awareness Week. Ahasic has a couple of extra tips along those lines. He wants drivers to leave extra stopping distance when roads are slick. His last piece of advice is to be more active in the driver’s seat and rely less on modern features like cruise control, blind spot monitoring, lane assist, auto braking, and rearview cameras.

In a storm, when ice and slush are being kicked up, they offer much less help. Full self-driving or autopilot systems generally refuse to take over in less-than-ideal conditions.

Older technology also struggles this time of year. In particular, avoid using cruise control. When a wheel catches a patch of ice, it pulls, and drivers often overcorrect and spin out. Anti-lock brakes try to kick in and the car keeps sliding forward.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says one in every six accidents occurs in winter weather conditions, resulting in over 115,000 injuries and 1,300 deaths. Only drugs and alcohol are a bigger factor in fatalities from December to March.

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