Slow down and trust ABS brakes with icy and snowy McHenry roads

McHenry was on the receiving end of a snow storm last weekend. All this snow has made driving a more treacherous adventure than usual. It helps, of course, if you know how to deal with driving on icy, snowy, slippery roads.

Slippery roads create the biggest problem when you have to stop. Your car is liable to slide on the ice or snow rather than stop as quickly as you intended. One way to avoid this problem is to control how fast you’re going.

The faster you drive the harder it is to stop, even on a dry road. Add snow or ice to the road and you’re liable to have a ride carnivals can’t compete with, only their rides are controlled and yours won’t be. So slow down when the roads are slippery.

This is a good time to mention slowing down to those driving 4-wheel-drive vehicles. Yes, 4-wheel drive can help you get out of a ditch or a pile of snow. But 4-wheel drive won’t help you at all on slippery roads. This is why we see so many 4-wheel-drive vehicles in the ditch on snowy roads; their drivers over-rode their braking power.

And this is a good time to mention ABS (Anti-lock Braking Systems). If you have an older car, you may not have ABS brakes. In that case, when trying to stop on icy or snowy roads, you need to pump the brakes. If you lock the brakes up you’re almost certain to go into a spin.

If you do have ABS brakes, you can press down on the brakes as hard as possible and hold it. The ABS brakes do the pumping faster than you’ll ever do manually. Be sure to steer into the spin if the back of the car starts coming around from behind you.

But, as mentioned above, the best thing you can do is to slow down on slippery McHenry roads so you have less need to hit the brakes hard in the first place.

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