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Comment by JaRail | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, a lot of those concerns are handled pretty well by traction control systems, etc. I drive in the snow a lot and really appreciate the things my car does to micro-manage traction.

The main rule for driving in snow is to assume everyone else is actively trying to kill you. :)

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The main rule for all driving is to assume everyone else is actively trying to kill you.

It's something I was told when getting a motorcycle at 17, and it's served me pretty well.

Specifically on snow I think we subcontract too much from brain to ABS, traction control, lovely powerful heater and what not. We don't get Scandinavian amounts of snow in the UK, so whenever we do have snow you'll see dozens of ridiculous accidents because people don't take account of stopping distances or speed, or ABS being a hinderance in snow etc.

  The main rule for all driving is to assume 
  everyone else is actively trying to kill you.

If you were really doing that you'd never drive down an undivided road when a car was coming in the opposite direction, in case they swerved across the divider at the last second :)

Many years ago I was almost taken out when a driver did a very unexpected U turn into the gap he thought was there. Trouble is, the gap in traffic was actually me on large motorbike. So it can happen :p

Or you'd do it cautiously. As a motorcyclist/bicyclist, I have to watch for this because drivers literally do it all the time, they call it "turning left."

My motorcycle instructor advised me to "treat all car drivers as a lower life form, and treat taxi drivers as the lowest of the low." That mindset saved me a few times. U turns without warning, pulling over in prohibited areas without indicating, opening doors right in front of you - they probably aren't actively trying to kill you, but certainly can give that impression.

When we get ice in the DC area, it's always the 4WD cars that are in ridiculous accidents as they are the only ones that get get up enough speed, but pretty much all cars these days have 4 wheel ABS, so stopping ability on ice is equal between those and the cars that can barely start moving.

4WD can be a hazard solely because of the hubris.

"I don't need to go more slowly, I have 4WD!"

Cue Slip 'n' Slide. It's just enough extra performance to make people think that the road conditions don't matter.

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