ThanksAJ in Car Accident
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Front-wheel drive is the popular "safe" option because it's like having training wheels for the snow. It's not really the best, but it makes basic driving simpler to grasp for the amateurs. And that's probably important. I've never had a problem keeping a RWD on the road in the worst of conditions, but I know how to drive one. For someone without the training needed to be a "power user" with RWD, you're better off sticking with FWD. I don't mean it to sound condescending, it's just really the difference between the 2. The driver makes all the difference.
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@RojoLoco said:
Obviously we get some kind of oddball snow down here, because I'm sticking with my 4x4 (not AWD, switchable 4 wheel drive). I was one of very few vehicles that weren't immobilized by the 2014 snowstorm (many were immobilized by their own stupidity). And FWIW, my old Jetta FWD was the shit in snow also.
Not oddball, it is that you are trading safety and control for the ability to get up to speed. We aren't saying that RWD have more ability to avoid getting stuck, we are saying that when you need to drive in snow, living is better than dying and trumps not getting stuck.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
If you compare the two on snow, FWD is just better.
How? It has less control, it is dramatically more dangerous.
You're just 100% incorrect. The weight of the engine and trans sitting right on the wheel gives traction. You can start, you can stop. Much more safe than RWD.
That's exactly why it is dangerous. All the traction is in the front... that's what makes the car go into a spin. We are very aware of the additional traction. It is that that traction is what kills you is what those who live in the snow belt are painfully aware of. It's an illusion of control, it's actually a dramatic loss of control.
I explained about this earlier in the thread. It's the common myth that the "extra traction" adds safety.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
If you compare the two on snow, FWD is just better.
How? It has less control, it is dramatically more dangerous.
You're just 100% incorrect. The weight of the engine and trans sitting right on the wheel gives traction. You can start, you can stop. Much more safe than RWD.
That's why anyone with a lick of sense puts weight in the back of their RWD for the winter...
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@art_of_shred said:
Front-wheel drive is the popular "safe" option because it's like having training wheels for the snow. It's not really the best, but it makes basic driving simpler to grasp for the amateurs. And that's probably important. I've never had a problem keeping a RWD on the road in the worst of conditions, but I know how to drive one. For someone without the training needed to be a "power user" with RWD, you're better off sticking with FWD. I don't mean it to sound condescending, it's just really the difference between the 2. The driver makes all the difference.
I don't agree there. I think FWD is the worst thing because it gives people the illusion of control. Only a truly advanced driver who knows exactly why his AWD or FWD is going to try to kill him and how should drive one. They let you get up to speed and then kill you. RWD might cause you to get stuck, but it is going to keep you from having the life threatening accidents.
I wonder what percentage of winter road deaths can be attributed to the belief that getting enough traction to get moving is the priority, not the manner in which a car behaves when it needs to slow down.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@MattSpeller said:
If you compare the two on snow, FWD is just better.
How? It has less control, it is dramatically more dangerous.
You're just 100% incorrect. The weight of the engine and trans sitting right on the wheel gives traction. You can start, you can stop. Much more safe than RWD.
That's exactly why it is dangerous. All the traction is in the front... that's what makes the car go into a spin. We are very aware of the additional traction. It is that that traction is what kills you is what those who live in the snow belt are painfully aware of. It's an illusion of control, it's actually a dramatic loss of control.
I explained about this earlier in the thread. It's the common myth that the "extra traction" adds safety.
You are missing HOW a car stops. If you don't have snow like we do in the NE, you are likely not used to dealing with the level of it that is normal there. FWD cars want to spin the moment you take your foot off of the gas. It's basic physics. Under truly dangerous conditions, you will never even get your foot to the brake before they are in a spin.
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@scottalanmiller when it snows in ATL, everyone goes berserk and entire highways become parking lots, so I am more than willing to risk life and limb to get home vs. being stuck on GA400 with 100,000 idiots. Once I was off the highway, it was super easy to slide up to the gas station and buy beer, which I promptly drank over the next hour (had to go 2.6 miles, took over an hour).
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@gjacobse said:
@IRJ said:
4x4 is a beautiful thing
Just means all 4 tyres spin..
No. All 4 tires don't spin unless you have some kind of locker or positraction system. In most 4 wheel drives, one tire per axle drives while the other one freely rotates.
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I have TONS of offroad experience, but my experience with snow is very limited. I wish I could help you out @MattSpeller
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I equate this conversation to the RAID one. In RAID, you know there is a problem when people talk about "how many drives they can lose." That's a highly visible metric that people like to use, but it doesn't actually relate to the safety of the array. It's actually a red herring. It should never come up because the important factor is the chance of the array losing data, the number of drives an array can lose does not directly correlate.
Likewise, that's how I see RWD vs. FWD conversations (funny because I've often used this example in reverse when explaining why someone is looking at the wrong factor in RAID array, literally I use the traction versus control on snow example!!) If we talk about traction or starting/stopping power on snow, it is a red herring. We simply don't care. What we care about is saving lives. If a car is more likely to get stuck, that's annoying, but it isn't what kills people. Spinning and loss of control kills people. RWD are hard to get moving on snow, but that's not dangerous.
What's important is that when you take your foot off of the gas and stop accelerating because you brake, not accelerate, into an accident, that RWD cars pull from the back and attempt to keep the car going in a straight line, nose first into whatever is going to happen and they gain additional control as they slow. RWD do the opposite, they push to stop like someone putting a hand on the front of the car. This causes the rear to want to come around and pass the front. If that's all that it did, that would only be so bad, but it means that the car begins to spin. The harder you try to slow, the more it tries to spin. The more critical it is that you stop quickly, the more likely that the car will spin wildly out of control.
RWD have "control under braking conditions." FWD have "control under acceleration conditions." You can always choose not to keep accelerating. But you can't always decide when you are going to need to slow down. That's why RWD are so much safer. They protect your when it matters.
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@IRJ having lots of offroad driving time is exactly why I can drive in the snow. GA mud is made of clay, which is as slippery as any of y'alls fancy New York snow and ice.
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@IRJ said:
@gjacobse said:
@IRJ said:
4x4 is a beautiful thing
Just means all 4 tyres spin..
No. All 4 tires don't spin unless you have some kind of locker or positraction system. In most 4 wheel drives, one tire per axle drives while the other one freely rotates.
AWD is all four, 4x4 is just two normally. But they still risk pushing against each other.
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@RojoLoco said:
@scottalanmiller when it snows in ATL, everyone goes berserk and entire highways become parking lots, so I am more than willing to risk life and limb to get home vs. being stuck on GA400 with 100,000 idiots. Once I was off the highway, it was super easy to slide up to the gas station and buy beer, which I promptly drank over the next hour (had to go 2.6 miles, took over an hour).
You never get enough snow or ice to get stuck down there, though. In NY we actually get snow over the tires regularly. The getting stuck is a completely different factor
We have no idea how you guys down there even think there is a "stuck" risk. -
@scottalanmiller utter bollox, brakes stop your car not the bloody driving wheel.
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@scottalanmiller when it rains all summer. On slick mud is how I learned to drive at 13-14. When one can control any vehicle on that clay, one can drive in any conditions.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@RojoLoco said:
@IRJ having lots of offroad driving time is exactly why I can drive in the snow. GA mud is made of clay, which is as slippery as any of y'alls fancy New York snow and ice.
How often do you drive on that mud on the highway with traffic around you?
More often than you think. Flash Flooding is quite common here on the island. I have been in water higher than my doors several times this year.
The roads drain as quickly as they flood since the water drains in the surrounding estuaries, but since it is an island at basically sea level it can flood quick.
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@MattSpeller said:
@scottalanmiller utter bollox, brakes stop your car not the bloody driving wheel.
This only tells me that you've never driven is slippery conditions. If you had, you'd know that the car can start to spin even before you get your foot to the brake.
AND if you believe that the brakes are the only thing that stops the car, not the driving wheels, WHY did you mention FWD stopping better? RWD has the engine over the front wheels too. The only time that things are different are while the engine is dragging the wheels as you move your foot from the gas to the brake - and it is in that window that you lose traction and the brakes are useless after that has happened.
