How to survive a car crash | Hacker News Reader

How to survive a car crash

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Many people are seriously afraid of driving in snow and even recommend things like never driving in it. I come from a snowy region and have never lost control of my car unintentionally for more than a second in snow. I used to drive over a hundred thousand miles in snow each year for about one decade in my life.

Sometimes the car slips a bit when doing something sudden but it’s quickly resolved by not doing the thing (sudden braking, sudden turning, sudden acceleration, and so on). With proper tyres and the roads being salted, and aside from needing to be a bit less sudden about movements, I have never felt more at risk in the snow than out of it.

What is there to be afraid of? Are these people driving with Summer tyres or is there some other reason they seem to find snow so problematic? Perhaps the roads are not salted in the US? Are studded tyres allowed? Is it just that some regions like the US generally do very poorly with driving safety and the “snow effect” is more visible? https://www.lifeinnorway.net/norway-has-worlds-safest-roads/ says, for example, that only 2 fatal crashes happen a year in Norway due to phone distractions. I think this is higher in the US?

The author says there are many accidents after heavy snowfalls, but this is not observably the case in most northern European countries that have about an equal number of snow and non-snow days a year. There may be more accidents in snow, but you cannot observe the increase naturally.

Genuinely hoping to understand. Never experienced anything like what some people who are mortified of driving in the snow describe.

Even in places that get a healthy amount of snow (e.g. in the Midwest of USA), many don't have snow tires -- it's a cost and inconvenience they try to avoid.

Wow, that is really amazing.

I live in a walkable inner ring Chicago suburb, and commute to work by bike or the El. Snow cleanup is excellent in our suburb, and we can get to things we want to drive to in bad weather on roads where the speed limit is never over 25 mph. We just don’t need winter tires.

Very interesting how different the approach is. Many European countries mandate Winter tyres for a period each year, even if they do not get much snow - https://www.uniroyal-tyres.com/car/tyre-guide/winter-care/wi.... The mindset is more that if there could be snow, drivers must use Winter tyres, even when road clean-up and salting are used.

Many countries here that do not mandate Winter tyres for the whole season still mandate tyres appropriate for driving conditions, which reads a lot like a requirement to use Winter, studded, or chained tyres in snow. Most countries like that also recommend Winter tyres.

It's a very different approach from having many people not use Winter tyres in snow. I think this explains the fear of driving in snow to me. I would be very concerned if I had to drive in snow with Summer tyres as well.

Why? I have all season tires and they work fine enough when it does snow but I also don’t drive much.

When I looked into getting winter tires, I saw they generally last 60,000 miles or 6 years whatever comes first and since I only drive like 5,000 miles a year, that means I’d have to replace 2 sets of tires every 6 years instead of 1.

If I drove 20,000 miles a year though I’d definitely get them.

It's amazing how large the mindset difference is between the US and European countries: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35937993.

You are talking about whether these tyres make sense. In many countries in Europe, this is not a question. It is mandated. I agree with your reasoning from an economic perspective, of course.

in snow, I'm scared of other people on the road

Tbf this is a good attitude to have even when it's not snowing.

On a visit to a friend in Norway we went up the mountains, the road was white and we were doing a consistent 60 kph. We stopped to take some photos and I noticed there was about an inch of ice on the road. In Norway you leagally have to have winter tyres and your driving test has an individual ice exam along with motorway and night exams. Training and the right equipment make most things a lot safer.

Snow and ice provide more friction at colder temperatures. People who occasionally get snow are essentially placed in the worse possible condition an at or slightly above freezing surface. They aren’t using snow tires because the roads aren’t covered in snow long enough and nobody is replacing their tires for 48 hours after a once or twice a winter storm.

So, the normal response is to avoid driving in it, which means they never learn how to drive in snow.

Many (perhaps most) drivers have a mental model of driving that bypasses any understanding of traction circle and tire slippage. "When I want to go faster, I push this button under my right foot; when I want to stop, I push the other button to its left. It's usually safe to drive 8 mph over what the speed limit sign says."

Those people are going to find snow problematic, because to drive effectively in snow, you need to have a better understanding of vehicle dynamics than is required to extract 0.25g of acceleration from your car on a clean and dry road.

Even in New England (where we get a half dozen to dozen snow events per year), people often stay home in the worst of it, waiting until the main road are mostly clear, and then they go charging out on those mostly clear roads with their all-wheel drive, ABS, and traction control and then come to grief on a section that isn't in the set of mostly clear because "it was fine for the last 20 miles".

And if I read your parent correctly he's mostly driving on said "mostly clear" roads as well, since he mentions salt.

If the road is salted and bare you're not driving in snow. You're driving on a regular road. That's not snow driving, period.

When we've had fresh snow and you have 2 or 3 inches of snow that moves around under your tires, driving is way different. That turn you're supposed to go 50 kph in but would love to take at 70 kph under normal conditions? You really want to slow down because you really don't want to drive on your lane, you want to kinda drive in the middle of the road because you aren't actually sure where the lane ends as it's all just white. The snow will make your car move where you didn't want it to go and while you of course can steer against that to correct if you go too fast and too close to the edge of the road on a left turn you're gonna end up in the ditch. And you don't want to go 70 or even 50 if you're essentially making the road one lane. Sudden braking and all ...

Of course a few days after the snow storm you have a hard packed snow surface that has had crushed stone (yes, no salt, the side streets here are not salted) spread on it. You can't drive exactly like it's summer but for the most part you can. You also now know where the ditch is (aka a wall of snow). Still, every year there's two places not 500m from my home where a snow plow regularly finds itself in the ditch while trying to clear snow and has to be pulled out. Even though they put down stakes in fall.

I drive a sensible European car with standard road tires, it wont climb a 2-3 degree incline with 1 inch of snow on it.

I have never meet a person in real life with alternative weather tires. Its just not a thing in my country.

Yep, proper tires (ideally studded), reasonable speed and avoiding sudden movements is all there is to driving in snowy/icy conditions. Not doing any of these three things can get you into trouble.

Here in Finland statistically the most deadly months in traffic are in summer, when there's no snow or ice, and weather conditions are generally good. Holidays and great weather encourage people to drive fast, stay awake late, and drink alcohol.

> What is there to be afraid of?

All the other idiots on the road with minimal/no snow experience, refrozen sleety wet black ice that's far more treacherous than proper dry snow, hills, roads that are not merely not salted, but so snowed in that even emergency services become unable to move around due to unplowed roads and getting snowed in, ...

I'm arrogant enough to be willing to drive in Seattle snow with careful hill-avoiding route planning (and paranoid checking of hill-prone cross traffic.) Still managed to spend half an hour picking at the ice with a shovel the last time I did so when I didn't give it enough gas to get fully into a parking spot and became utterly immobile on the ice the last time I did so.

This is what we're afraid of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhZCyQ3emQg

Or just this last winter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GButmfkNGmg

> Are these people driving with Summer tyres

Yes

> Perhaps the roads are not salted in the US?

Inadequately

> Are studded tyres allowed?

Depends on the locale - not all-year around around here (tears up the road?), and I don't believe studded tyres are sufficient to be legal to go through the passes.

I’ve lived in the northeastern US my whole life, and the number of people I know who don’t bother with snow tires and run “all-seasons” is shockingly high. The fact that a FWD or RWD car on winter tires is usually easier to drive in snow than an AWD with all-seasons is lost on them.

I've driven in northern Norway with snow tyres. You're correct in saying that it's relatively safe and easy to do.

In the UK no-one even switches to winter tyres when it's cold. With snow or ice people are running on 5-10 year old summer tyres with the minimum legal tread depth.

Plus we're basically always in the melt-refreeze zone around 5 to -5c vs. a proper Norwegian winter at -10 to -40 whereby your car can form ice that will just never melt unless it's an ICE. It's just not the same at all.

I miss proper winters!

I see a lot of cars in the UK with tyres like Michelin crossclimates. I have them on my car too.

FWIU they are basically an all-season tyre that has 75% the capability of a winter tyre ... Not just snow but also general wet weather etc when under 5c.

There are loads of videos of YouTube of Cars using them driving up ski slopes etc. They seem like a good compromise for me for UK climate.

The thing about the UK is that it snows so infrequently* that it's just not worth the investment to deal with it properly. Where I live in the south, I think we've had snow on the roads maybe twice in the last four years, each time for only 1-2 days. The entire country grinds to a halt when it happens, but it happens rarely.

*Or at least it's infrequent these days, I'm sure it snowed a lot more often when I was growing up, and my parents tell me that back in their day it would reliably snow a lot every winter. Must be a Chinese hoax.

We had snow on my street for about 5 days early this year (not a main road so didn't get cleared). Didn't grind to a halt at all - just needed a bit more care to get to the main road, which was cleared. I drive an ordinary FWD car with standard tires.

I learned to drive in a snowy part of the US and spent my first several years as a driver in those kind of conditions. When I moved to a place that gets much less snow, but still some, I had the same sort of attitude...how are people here so freaked out and bad at this? But having lived in less snowy conditions for quite a while now, I've learned some pretty important things about the difference, a lot of which are pretty obvious is retrospect.

1) Places where it snows a lot have much more infrastructure in place to handle it. More road treatments, more frequent and better plowing, even roads are designed around snow. It's much easier to be a "good driver" in snow when you have well funded and practiced services backing you up. The reason places in, say, the American south melt down with an inch of snow or ice isn't because people are bad drivers so much as it doesn't take much snow to make roads dangerous as hell if you have no infrastructure to deal with it.

2) Similarly, in places where it snows a lot it makes sense to invest in things like snow tires because they're useful for a significant part of the year. Nobody where it snows a handful of times a year is going to buy snow tires not only because of the cost but because in addition to snowing less, many winter days can also be warm enough that snow tires are going to be a terrible driving experience and wear down much faster.

3) Perhaps most obviously, most things become easier when you do them a lot. "I come from a snowy region and driving in the snow is easy" really should be "I find driving in the snow is easy because I come from a snowy region". I used to be much better at driving in the snow when I did it all the time too, that's how practice works. But that's not really a lesson that does much good to anyone who lives somewhere with occasional snow. They probably are better off just staying home.

4) The thing I learned almost immediately is that regardless of how good you personally are, you're not alone on the road. When I first moved, I felt very comfortable in snowy conditions and regularly went out when it snowed. But it didn't take long to realize doing that meant sharing the road with people with way more confidence than skill (again because they didn't have much practice in the snow). And no amount of personal skill at snow driving is going to save you from someone else losing control and running into you.

> Nobody where it snows a handful of times a year is going to buy snow tires

How about all-season tyres? They wear much slower than snow tyres in my experience.

Are they available in the US? Is there not enough demand in warmer states to have supply?

Those could just as well be called no-season tyres. They are pretty bad in any weather. Not sure it’s a net win, risk wise, over a year.

Did you every try them? I think the "no-season" is a stereotype. They are basically Summer tyres with extra grip, a bit louder, and a bit faster-wearing than some of the hardest Summer tyres out there. They reduce slipping in the rain and increase traction even in the Summer, which I like. In snow they are definitely enough to be completely safe driving around 20-30mph (urban areas) in a modern car in my experience.

Not stereotype. I have all seasons on my sports car that stays in the garage, and snows for everything else when winter hits. All seasons are for if you get stuck in bad weather you can barely make it home. They are terribe compared to a legit winter tire. No seasons is not a exaggeration.

I think there is sometimes confusion between all-weather and all-season tyres. Real all-season tires in Europe have 3PMSF symbol and these should be sufficient for winter.

They are not good in summer, and not very good in winter.

It depends on the region of the US. There were times I've driven to the Minneapolis airport in 4"+ of snow falling down - flew to Washington DC, and found the world doing an emergency shutdown out there. In areas where you get snow, it is a very normal thing. In areas that don't get snow or ice, it is almost comical how many cars are in the ditches.

Some States salt, some don't. Some don't even have the equipment. Studded tires are not usually allowed. I've got winter tires for my 996, as summer tires are terrible up here in the winter. A good all season works well enough.

The internet went nuts over this scene in Raleigh NC about 9 years ago, where vehicles caught fire after their drivers over-revved them trying to get up a hill.

https://www.wral.com/nc-s-winter-storm-in-gifs/13390141/

To be fair, it's not entirely their fault. There just isn't much snow-clearing equipment in southern states - but that's because there's only a "major" (for the area) snowfall every 2-3 years. So there's no point in the state paying for that equipment, and there's no point in people owning winter tires (and needing a place to store them in the summer). And when severe weather does happen, often it's ice not snow. Everyone is going to have a bad day driving on ice.

I do think the point from other posters about modern safety & stability systems making people get complacent is a good one.

Anecdotal data: A former boss kept a count of ditched vehicles on his way to the office one time: 12. Of which 11 were Ford Explorers. They're not bad vehicles, just that that the fact they were driving an SUV caused the drivers to become overconfident.

Wow, 12 vehicles just on the commute? I have never seen this living in a snowy region. I would barely see ditched vehicles at all. Do you mean ditched as in "abandoned after slipping off the road"? I would see one or two every 50k miles. Though it is better to ditch than to drive yourself into an accident, I think.

The over-revving story is hilarious but concerning. It's clear that these drivers were not taught to drive on ice. I suppose it's best to leave the car on the side of the road and return later if you have no instruction, training, and haven't sought out any knowledge for ice driving.

"Ditched" as in "off the road and in the ditch", sorry wasn't clear.

Any training for driving on ice is going to be verbal only, as it would probably be 2+ years before the next winter storm and a chance to acquire practical skills. "Steer into the direction of the skid" doesn't acquire real meaning until you've actually had to do that.

The US is a geographically very diverse country with high mobility. That means there are a lot of people living in climates they are not used to, so did not learn how to drive when it snows or that you need to change your tires during winter. I am not a meteorologist or climatologist, but I have read from multiple sources that the US has the most extreme weather in the world, including blizzards, "Nor'easters," and lake effect snow. These tend to dump a lot of snow all at once, making preparation more difficult.

Link about US's extreme weather : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/why-the-u-s-is-leading-...

The article left out the single most important advice: wear a seatbelt.

I did my neurosurgery training at a fairly busy Level 1 Trauma Center (which treats the most severe trauma) and treated a lot of people involved in car crashes.

Seatbelt use made a huge difference. There could be two people in the same car, and the person wearing the seatbelt was evaluated and released and the person not wearing the seatbelt was taken to the operating room or intensive care unit.

Seatbelts keep you in position to allow the car to take the brunt of the forces instead of your body.

Please, always wear a seatbelt and make sure everyone riding with you wears a seatbelt.

And if possible wear seatbelts in busses as well.

I live in Australia (a country where wearing a seatbelt is instilled in us pretty much since birth, with very harsh penalties for non-compliance) however seatbelts are relatively non-existent in buses, and I have this vague memory that there was a reason for this?

The primary reason (as far as I'm aware) is because buses are (relatively) more massive and structurally different from cars, so they exhibit different collision physics in the event of a crash. In the event of a crash, the greater mass means any forces can distribute across a greater load and lead to less acceleration for those inside.

I think there are more details related to types of crashes (e.g. head-on vs on the side) that are taken into account through a bus's structure and how it's internally designed too, but I'm less familiar with how and why it works.

My understanding is that buses generally reach lower speeds and, because of their mass, a collision is less likely to produce the kind of abrupt stop that throws people through windshields. If a typical car collides head-on with a bus at speed, the car will be thrown back and its occupants whipped around; the bus will keep moving forward with an unpleasant but not devastating jolt.

There are exceptions, I'm sure.

Exception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Broncos_bus_crash

That is a "coach bus" (as Canada presumably calls it, a long distance bus or coach). Those do reach highway speeds etc, and at least in most of Europe they are fitted with seatbelts.

I note the article says some parents campaigned for seat belts on buses transporting sports teams, so presumably this bus didn't have them.

I think the only explanation I've heard for this is that seatbelts are too expensive to put on every seat in a bus. Interestingly, on mine sites the buses all have seatbelts and you're firmly instructed to put them on every time the bus starts moving.

High mass, they don't slow down quickly. There are a few papers out there. There are very few things that can decelerate the mass of a buss quickly

I think the article assumes you're following the law. No drunk driving, speeding, mobile phone usage or not wearing your seat belts.

I don’t think wearing a seatbelt is law everywhere.

Where is it not? I know helmet usage on motorcycles varies, but except for busses and antiques, seat belts are requited, if just to keep the driver in the seat and in control of the car.

E.g. in Arizona, only front seat passengers are required by law

Amazing. I wonder what’s the rationale.

“My freedom™”

Are there really still places that doubt the safety of seatbelts and haven’t made it law?

Two words: New Hampshire.

I knew someone who killed his friend because he was not wearing a seatbelt.

The guy who was wearing the seatbelt was well-restrained in the back seat. But the guy sitting next to him was unbuckled. The unbuckled man flew into the buckled man, and it is only a matter of luck which of the two skulls will crack. As luck had it that day, it was the buckled man's skull which cracked, leading to his death a few hours later.

  > Please, always wear a seatbelt and make sure everyone riding with you wears a seatbelt.

Not only for their safety, but for your own safety as well!

Likewise, secure heavy items in the cabin when possible.

> As luck had it that day, it was the buckled man's skull which cracked, leading to his death a few hours later.

Situations like this make me wonder if some kind of helmet would be advisable for use in cars, and not only in bikes and motorcycles.

Helmets can come with their own issues like added weight and neck injuries, but the inconvenience means no one outside of Motorsport will use them.

I'm aware of the neck injuries, so the "some kind of helmet". When people hear about helmet usage in cars, people automatically picture in their heads drivers wearing F1-like helmets, or motorcycle-like helmets. But just like bike helmets are different from motorcycle helmets, car helmets would also be different, possibly lighter, to avoid neck injuries. Most law-abiding citizens aren't crashing over 200km/h to need massive helmets coupled to HANS devices like F1 racers.

My physics professor in college would wear a bicycle helmet when driving around in his minivan. The rumor spread in class pretty quickly the first time a student saw him doing that. The general sense of the rumor was, "Our prof is some kind of a freak."

His wife also left him in the middle of the semester. Another rumor was that she just couldn't stand his eccentricities any longer.

Personally, as a cyclist, I have had my helmeted noggin slam against the pavement on more than one occasion. I have come to greatly respect the potential injury that you could get from a collision at high speed. In hindsight, I can fully respect my physics professor's decision to wear a bicycle helmet when driving his minivan around town. In fact in the future if I find myself needing to drive in inclement weather, I may very well start wearing my bicycle helmet in my car. Hope my wife doesn't leave me.

I remember reading something to the effect that mandatory motorcycle-style helmets for all car passengers would significantly reduce the road toll but the inconvenience made it too difficult to implement.

No, just make sure that everybody is properly buckled.

The idea is not replace seatbelts or airbags with helmets, but to have an additional safety layer.

I don’t think a helmet would be all that helpful. For a person wearing a seatbelt in a modern car with airbags, there really isn’t a lot of hard things to hit your head against.

In these situations, the biggest damage to the brain is something called diffuse axonal injury where rotational forces from the sudden acceleration and deceleration cause injury to the neurons. A helmet would not protect you from that.

Really? I would have thought that heads smacking into side windows would be pretty common.

Modern vehicles have side curtain airbags to mitigate exactly that.

Not everywhere in the world. In poorer countries car manufacturers and regulators have perverse incentives to cut costs on safety devices, to be able to sell for a poorer clientele. For example, in Brazil up to 2009 airbags were not even mandatory, and when the regulations finally required it, they were under fire for several years. Today airbags other than the frontal ones for driver and passenger riding shotgun are still uncommon here. See https://apnews.com/article/ac0ec2592da24f2bb6386b58d0db074f

I know someone who was killed by this exact situation. No other injuries (that I'm aware of) for anyone else in the car. Their skull was broken

And if you occasionally cruise a old Sunday show car, there is not shame upgrading that 2 point belt to a 3 point ( if that same car model eventually got 3 points in them)

Since the pandemic began, I've been riding a significant amount in ride-shares and taxis. One universal trait of all drivers is that they will immediately punch it as soon as you close your door. Therefore, it's incumbent on me to work on figuring out my seatbelt and attaching it before closing my door, otherwise I will be struggling with it under pressure. Of course, I'm still under pressure, because the driver is extremely eager for me to close that door already, what the hell is taking me so long?

In the taxi service I use, all cars are of the same fleet, so it's not difficult to figure out the seat belt, as long as it's in working order. The ride-share drivers, since these are personal cars, often have some sort of stupid obstruction that lies across the seatbelt buckles and prevents riders from finding them.

I don't know why it's so unimportant for ride services that they don't care whether riders are safely strapped in. My parents had a strict policy: "the brakes can't come off until everyone's buckled in." This, to me, is pragmatic and caring advice.

I like how none of the commenters here actually read the article, and they're all talking about literally surviving a car crash -- not how to emotionally survive the aftermath of one.

I read it. The most I can do about this is drive safely. The perspective of the aftermath is interesting, but not very relevant to me. So I think about what’s relevant.

Maybe to someone, recovering from brain injury is relevant. They will think about that.

There’s nothing wrong with focusing on what’s relevant to you in a writing.

I just want to take a moment to remind everybody just how insane car travel is as a mode of transportation.

Sure, it's convenient, but at what cost!?

Air pollution, tire particle pollution, covering the Earth with asphalt, etc.

Also, and this is gruesome so brace yourself, car travel causes incredible amounts of human suffering. Car collisions cause something like 40,000 fatalities per year just in the USA. In fact, more Americans have died in car crashes than in all the wars we've fought. I call it the "Mayhem Lottery". Anyone can play, little kids, old people, pregnant women, everybody. And the tickets cost nothing, all you have to do is be near a street. (Sometimes cars will even crash into buildings. People have been killed by cars while sitting in their own homes watching TV!)

Now the weird, bizarre thing about this state of affairs is that it is the result of a successful mass-marketing campaign! When cars were first introduced people complained of reckless drivers ("Speed Demons"), the car companies and the government got together and created a deliberate plan to change public attitude (about being run down in the street by car drivers), they actually coined the term "jaywalker" to describe people using the street in the traditional fashion (pedestrians.)

It sounds nuts, because it is, yet it really happened: cf. "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM

- - - -

Edit to add: You can see the transition period in the "a Trip down Market Street" film from San Francisco, April 14, 1906, just before the Great Earthquake. The source of the problem is clear: cars accelerate much faster than horses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_1AdYRGW8

Drive slow.

I survived a bad one. I got out with only a scratch due to extreme luck. If I went 5 km/h faster, I'd be dead. If I went 15 slower, there would have been no accident. The whole thing wasn't even my fault.

People where I'm from used to be all macho and say "speed doesn't kill, bad driving kills". Don't do it. Smart drivers drive slow, unless they're on a racetrack and everyone's going the same way.

If I went 15 slower, there would have been no accident. The whole thing wasn't even my fault.

This seems contradictory. Do you mean the other driver was more at fault?

I was driving the speed limit, and the other driver didn't follow the rules.

If I drove slower, I could have made allowances for the errors of others. Defensive driving is the best way.

Probably in the sense that at a slower speed, op would have been able to avoid the bad driving from the other driver. Assuming that OP was driving at 60kph originally, a 15kph slower speed equates to a roughly 0.75 extra seconds of reaction time (assuming braking acceleration is roughly 7.5m/s2). Given that an average humans reaction time is somewhere between 0.25-0.5 seconds, that means 15kph speed difference would have allowed OP to react and affect the situation. Even at higher initial speeds, 15kph gives your more than half a second extra time.

Related to the title, but not the content of the article - some links I've collected related to staying alive and healthy:

Nice guide from Lesswrong with some car safety tips. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7XbcDaeigMaxW43EB/how-to-avo...

Guide to health. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7nH7R9eqYWSPvF4Qm/immortalit...

Another guide to health. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PhXENjdXiHhsWGfQo/lifestyle-...

Poisoning. https://news.arizona.edu/story/poisoning-the-no-1-cause-of-u...

Medical error. Always double check the medications you get prescribed, ask to read the name of any injections or IVs you're given before you're given them.

A google doc from me related to environmental toxins. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34642916

Incredible data exploration tool from CDC, for non-fatal injuries. https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/non-fatal/home

Another incredible data exploration tool from CDC, this one is for fatal. https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/explore-data/home

Great summary images on causes from CDC. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/LeadingCauses_images.html

I'm from South India, and at some point, lived in the midwest for about 10 years. I used to snigger at the big pickups and cars. Until one day, I was driving through a snowstorm. (It was not my first, but this was a beast.) Unlike my usual Honda, I was driving a rented Dodge Charger. The snow was wet, and slippery, and I was driving along a state highway in Wisconsin. The car went into a skid, years of playing racing games triggered my instinct to go into the skid rather than out of it, and avoid braking. The car smoothly came back to the middle of the lane.

The highway was empty for miles around, and even state troopers were out for that storm.

I am pretty sure that if it had not been a heavy low car like the Charger, I'd have been stranded and lonely in a snowstorm for hours on a cold night.

Vouched for your comment, the British spelling of the American "snicker" will get your comment marked as spam.

>Vouched for your comment, the British spelling of the American "snicker" will get your comment marked as spam.

Is that a consequence of the Scunthorpe Problem[0][1]?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

[1] If it is, perhaps this comment will be marked as spam as well?

Yes. I got in trouble in a place well-known for highly literate participants when I correctly used the phrase "putative woman" to describe someone in the news. In fact, one them went as far to posit that since I knew Spanish, I should be well-aware of the derogatory nature of that adjective in English usage!

I was rather shocked at the unironic chastisement I received at that time!

I'm from Africa, and I moved to Canada. When I bought my first car, I went for a four-wheel drive SUV with winter tires. Why live life on hard mode if you don't have to?!

In addition to your scenario, there's also getting stuck in a snowstorm which can be deadly. And there's deer around too, for which you want the biggest car possible. Sadly tanks aren't road legal yet.

This hits a little too close to home. All the symptoms and thoughts racing through your head during the first 6 month recovery period.

I wish her the best of luck going forward. TBI is something that changes you forever, and not necessarily for the better.

If you know someone with TBI - please be patient with them and give them a little bit more leeway than you would a normal person. We're a little slow and we can't really do much about it.

This is a fine article, full of humanity, insight, strength and high sly humor ... New Yorker-class writing. I could read Anne all day.

"the small town in Ohio starts to suffocate you.... whenever you find yourself in a suburb with houses that have washers and dryers or yards or acres and acres of corn fields or a gigantic Walmart, you start to feel a gnawing helplessness in your chest, like an alien is about to rip itself out of you."

Move over, Fran Lebowitz!

I'll write the practical version instead of the urbane rhetorical retrospective. And before I get the metacontrarian responses, yes, these all require certain sacrifices in order to fulfill, including economic advantage or putting precariats in a more economically disadvantaged position. Not everyone can comfortably alter their life to avoid cars. But hey, live by the car, die by the car.

0. Don't have a car crash: This might seem like an obvious point but it's worth emphasizing. The first step to safe driving is the mindset of avoiding any kind of accident. Always strive to maintain awareness of your surroundings and anticipate potential hazards; when these hazards create a probable environment of accidents, don't drive.

1. Don't drive if you can avoid it: Use public transportation, bike, walk or even carpool whenever possible. The less time you and others spend on the road, the less risk there is of an accident occurring.

2. Shorten the length of your drive if you can help it: This doesn't just apply to distance, but also to time. Try to avoid peak hours when traffic is heavy, but choose routes that minimize your time on the road.

3. Increase the object-level density of your drive when you can't avoid driving: When you're out and about, complete as many tasks in the same area as possible to minimize further need to drive.

4. Leave earlier. It's not a race against the clock unless you make it one: Leaving with plenty of time to spare can help reduce the stress of driving and allow you to drive more safely. You won't feel the need to rush, which can often lead to reckless behavior.

5. Avoid thoroughfares where people act like it's a race: This includes highways, freeways, and other high-speed roads. These can be dangerous, especially for less experienced drivers. Opt for slower, less congested routes when possible.

6. Avoid bad modal neighborhoods: Don't drive in areas, times, or conditions where drivers tend to be more aggressive or careless. These can be certain parts of town, certain highways, certain times of day, or in inclement weather.

7. Double the "safe" following distance: Always maintain a safe distance from the car in front of you. This gives you more time to react if the car in front stops suddenly. The general rule is one car length for every 10 mph; doubling this adds an extra layer of safety. One car length per 10 mph is the minimum time to stop; not the actual time to stop.

8. Focus on driving and driving alone: This means no multi-tasking. Avoid using your phone, eating, or even having intense conversations while driving. Your full attention should be on the road.

9. Obey the speed limit and use all safety devices: Speeding is one of the leading causes of accidents. Always stick to the speed limit, and remember that it's the maximum speed, not the recommended one. Seat belts and airbags save lives. Make sure you're using them correctly and maintaining them.

10. Signal well-before acting: Use your blinkers to signal your intentions to other drivers. Whether you're changing lanes or turning, signaling gives others time to react and adjust their driving accordingly. It's not a formality. Signaling is not a carte blanche-- you must always ensure it's safe to make the move before you actually do so.

> The general rule is one car length for every 10 mph

I really wish other cars on the highway observed this rule, but it’s common to see people doing ~80 mph with like two car lengths of buffer. When I myself maintain proper following distance, other drivers take this as an invitation to move into the empty space, forcing me further back in the cluster (and annoying the driver behind me).

Essentially the problem when one respects sensible security distances. Others just move in. Even when you want to roll faster on say a 2 lane motorway but can't without compromising that distance.

Interesting writing style

The first snow in DC is always fun. All the people who have moved to DC from snowless parts of the country drive unsafely and lots of them end up in the ditch.

It snows once, maybe twice, in Seattle every Winter, and it's like no one's ever seen the stuff before.

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