Chains or Snowtires

If you are serious about staying on the road, studs on 4 M/S tires will do a fine job on ice, I also pack "Full Jewelry" (chains for 4) for my '78 Chevy

3/4 ton 4x4. when I HAVE TO venture in the deep stuff. This is the time for filing Trip Logs with friends, Survival Gear, towchains and ropes along with a good winch and a healthy realization that you may have to turn back at any point.

Your best defense against the other guys out there is to stay off the road if you don't really need to be out there in bad weather. You can get just as dead due to the stupid actions of other unprepared drivers out there as you can by your own actions.

It's pretty darn irrelevant that you are in the "right" when a oncoming vehicle is side-sliding at 50mph straight at you and there's no option to get out of his way, then you realize that the only "right place" is not on the road at all. Spud

Spud, well saod, i agree with you on that.

Yup. When I first learned to drive, whenever I went somewhere in a car with my parents they would ask me over and over "okay,

*now* which side of the road would you bail out?" I would be dead now if my father had not put that training to use himself, in a very near miss with a drunk driver in a truck speeding to pass oncoming traffic around a blind corner. I learned to be always aware on an unconscious level of when there was any safe space to pull off the road in an emergency.

Una

Yep, and that can kill tourists from the states here. You drive on the righthand side of the road, we drive on the left, so your instinctive reaction to head for the kerb and get off the road out of the way of the oncoming car would tend to take you into the other lane full of oncoming traffic here.

usually 2 or 3 deaths of tourists from countries that drive on the right per year in NZ.

rhys

Always did wonder why you guy drive on the wrong side of the road anyway.... ha ;)

The whole people getting killed things is very uncool..

Adair

SOOOOOO TRUE!!! I don't think I could agree much more than I do Spud!!!

rnf2 wrote:

Nope, having an escape plan that considers both sides of the roadway is not the cause of US driver fatalities on NZ roads.

Having driven 1-lane roads in a country where you drive on the left, I can say the danger lies not in the escape plan, but in the powerful combination of routine driving habit and fatigue.

FWIW, oncoming traffic in your lane is not unusual anywhere the local population rarely encounters a divided highway, or drinks and drives, or both.

Una

RE/

When I went to England to visit a relative people kept asking me why I didn't drive. My take is that it's just not safe for a right-hand driver to drive in a left-hand country.

Everybody I talked to sort of pooh-pooh'd that idea and one guy was stationed in Germany - and drove back-and-forth on a regular basis.

But I found that every time I leaned on somebody a little a similar story emerged. Something like "Yeah, I was really tired/preoccupied/whatever and suddenly I realized I was driving on the wrong side of the road". Not just some people, *all* people out of about 20.

UK: "Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to drive there."

In California SNOW CHAINS can be REQUIRED

In California SNOW CHAINS can be REQUIRED on 4xs even WITH snow tires so best option is to have SNOWCHAINS with you that FIT your tires and KNOW how to install them. That way you won't be turned back and disapointed OR worse put in harm's way while "in country".

Always remember that 4xs can move when 2xs can't BUT 4xs DON'T stick to ice any better then 2xs for STOPPING!

BEST place to get SNOW CHAINS that fit perfectly and SNOWCHAINS101 in the bargain is

i figure if you have 4WD with sno tires and they're still makin you put chains on, maybe you shouldn't even be there to begin with

Us sissy Californian's don't really have much snow that isn't plowed off the main roads quickly....I'm thinking Hwy 50 or 80 needing chains with

4WD...That would equal a major snowstorm and dangerous driving conditions

RE/

Aren't there problems with putting them on front wheels? Or do the preceeding messages assume rear wheels only?

Putting chains or cable traction units on the front wheels improves steering and braking; usually more weight on the front so traction is improved also. I learned that from power company linemen when we operated a snowshoeing camp in 1960's. Tight wheel wells may not allow enough room on SUV but should work OK on pickups.

Owners manual (my 98 Envoy and 03 Trailblazer for example) for many newer vehicles say you should not use cha> RE/