So... I currently go to college in DuBois, PA. For those of you outside the U.S., Pennsylvania (especially my hometown of Erie) gets quite a lot of snow during the winter, and road conditions are terrible due to all the ice as well. On my walk to and from class, I pass by a gloss black Camero (not sure what the exact year is) that the owner seems to constantly keep spotless. One day, a couple years ago, in the middle of February, I am walking home, and I hear an engine reving up and down. I immediately know that this means somebody's trying to get unstuck from the snow/ice, which as it turns out, it's the Camero that's trying to get out. Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to be a good Samaritan, and help the owner and his friend get the car out. As I am pushing from behind, I notice that the tires don't exactly look like snow tires, or even your standard all-weather tires. So, I casually ask the owner "hey, do you have snow tires on this thing?", to which he responds "no, I got racing tires on it". Yep... that's right. This guy put racing tires on a RWD muscle car which he plans on driving in winter conditions. Eventually, they gave up on just pushing it out, and went to go to Wal-Mart to pick up some cat litter to throw under the car to get some traction. No idea if that ever worked, since I went home when they left. I was only just starting to learn about cars back then, but even I knew that there was a stark difference between tire types.
Well my father drove down from sunshine village ski hill in the winter with four people in his 1977 Volkswagen rabbit after it had snowed. He was noticing the car was handling very poorly, so once down at the bottom he got out to check the tires, which he then found out were bald... He still has no idea to this day how he made it down the mountain, as its a reasonably twisty mountain road with some reasonably steep grading, which was at the time covered in hardened snow from other cars driving. The tires were so worn they were worn down to the belts. Considering my father is decently car literate that was face palm levels of stupidity, although I can't say it tops your story. Just thought I'd share, thanks.
Though I'd share something similar that happened to my father. He used to own a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle and once had to drive down a very steep road in the winter. The road was for some sort of resort near Banff, Alberta, was about 2km long (all downhill), and ended at a 'T' with the Trans-Canada Highway. It was so slippery that day that in first gear, the drive wheels would spin slower than the car was moving, making the back step out, and second let the car coast too fast. If he so much as thought about the brake pedal, all four wheels would lock up and he would lose steering. This wasn't a straight road, mind you. He put it in neutral and tried shedding as much speed as he could on the straights before he'd have to let off the brakes for the corners. This solution was the best available, but he was still doing about 60km/h when the highway came into view. The rest of the road was straight, downhill for about 100ft before leveling off about 30ft away from the highway. He wasn't slowing down. He did his best to straighten out over the first 100ft, then as soon as he reached the level section, he slammed the brake pedal to the floor, jammed it into first gear, and pulled the handbrake (this Beetle was not new to say the least and the brakes were pretty shot). He coasted the rest of the rest of the way, skated by the stop sign at an alarming speed, then popped the clutch as soon as he hit the dry pavement of the well-traveled highway. The old Beetle squealed, lurched and jolted its way out into the road before finally stopping in the far lane. Luckily there was no one coming and, being an old VW, it drove the 200km home at top speed as if nothing had happened.
Snow tires are mandatory in Germany during the winter. Dutch tourists/shoppers often get fines. They're not mandatory in the Netherlands
Could have been, I'm not sure. I don't know if it was that close to Banff but I know it was somewhere in the area between Lake Louise and Canmore. I said Banff because I knew that's the one most people will have heard of.
