Tips for driving in extreme weather conditions

Jake is the owner of Jake's Driving School which is one of the local driving schools in Gloucester and at this time of year alot of the driving lessons are conducted in the dark and bad weather conditions. When the weather is bad like it was just after christmas 2009 with temperatures dropping as low as -20 c ,Jake saw this as an ideal oppurtunity to let the learner drivers have the experience of driving in the snow and ice. When the weather is this extreme then yes you should try to avoid unneccesary journeys but you could find yourself in a situation where you have no choice. The ideal enviroment to learn to drive in the snow and ice is with your driving instructor I am one of the driving instructors in Gloucester that offer this and when i do this I am careful where I plan the lessons route such as avoiding steep hills etc where its possible to experience complete loss of control of the vehicle.When driving we should remember that a car is heavy the average car weighs around 1500KG and when this moving along it has momentum so even if its moving slowly it takes alot to make the car stop quickly ideally it should be slowed down and stopped gradually.For example even if driving at a meer 10 mph if you hit the brakes hard you will be thrown forwards as the momentum will be thrown forwards,if you accelerate hard you will be pushed back into your seat the momentum is pushing you back or you corner hard to the left at speed you will be pushed over to the right etc. Now Lets remember that the car has fours wheels but there is not that much actually in contact with the road surface in fact its only about the equivilent to for CD Cases. If we keep throwing that momentum around to suddenly then one or more of the tyres will lose grip which is when we start to lose control. Now with good tyres in good dry conditions the tyres generally have good grip so if make some sudden movements with the car then it might be quite forgiving. In the ice and snow there is virtually no grip. stopping are 10 times greater that the normal stopping distance so when I teach this i say to the learner we need to try to avoid using the brakes and really purely on engine braking and then at the end very lightly touch the brake to bring the car to a gentle halt.when moving off again go very easy with the revs and very gentle with clutch to avoid wheel spinning. when cornering remember that the car really would like to continue in a straight line.Slow right down for turn and aplply the steering very gradually. For more info please contact Jake who can be reached at driving lessons gloucester I can offer you expert advise on this subject and if weather permits and you live nearby maybe we can practice some driving on ice.