I do a significant amount of driving, and unfortunately some of that is done in snow. I would recommend to everyone driving in snowy conditions as little as possible, it sucks & can become dangerous.
I was not there. But sometimes if you drive a long distance & heat up your tires, then you park on top of snow, and your tires melt the snow…now your vehicle is effectively parked on a bunch of ice. 😑 This wasn’t ice before, there’s “powdered snow all around it” as some of you are saying, but there’s probably fucking compacted snow & ice formed under those wheels. Probably, again, idk. But I’ve parked & gone to take off, it’s hard to gain traction from parked when everything’s all slicked up. It really sucks.
Recovery methods sand & kitty litter are fine, you can get a little shovel & work on digging yourself out it’s cute but idk you’re just wasting a bunch of time in bad weather conditions & it’s trial & error. I have bought GoTreads and they’re fucking amazing. Just place them, correctly, around the drive wheels in the direction you wish to go and slowly drive onto them to engage. Instant traction & it gets you unstuck, it’s probably saved me upwards of 6 times & I’ve only had them a couple years. I have saved 3 other people.
The “go slow” thing is real, one of those saves was an Amazon Prime driver who was fucking stupid & spun up his RPMs very very fast. Because he was panicked…and a bad driver. High RPMs won’t help engage traction, will heat up tires & the GoTreads…and start to physically melt, destroy the GoTreads. So please, respect the wintery conditions, respect your car, and the recovery equipment. They’re still operational but they’re my backup pair.
If you want to save some money I’ve also used The Portable Tow Truck grip strips, but they’re much cheaper built, not as compact, and I don’t believe they have a lifetime warranty like GoTreads do.
…any recovery method you use is cheaper than a tow (or 2, or 3+). But it only works if you build it out before disaster strikes. Be prepared! It could save your time, your money, your car, or even your life. Winter driving is no joke.
No doubt, no doubt. I got the man unstuck & on his way, and didn’t mention him burning up the GoTreads a little…but when I helped people in the future I made a point to say LISTEN. Go slow, gain initial traction/grip, then you can slowly add more power. Idk, it’s hard to describe, it sounds like you get it. It’s kind of like a good handshake or riding a bike, there’s a certain methodology to getting it right. But you know it when you “feel it”.
And you know what, I just can’t let it go…I do have credible reasons for my biases specifically against Amazon Prime drivers. They seem to have very minimal training compared to other DSPs, and at least in my area, I have heard many complaints about the decisions they make on-road, and have seen a few of them, myself. Going the wrong way around a court. Parking on the wrong side of the road because that’s the side the house is on. They’ve got a well-deserved…‘meh’…reputation. Generally speaking.
The man I helped, didn’t know him from Adam, and IIRC he didn’t stand a chance getting out. He was on the edge of a completely iced driveway, where he stopped before entering the road (no momentum, no movement, no traction). The correct response as a DSP would be to park on the edge of the road, throw on 4-way flashers, and walk it out. Driveway was no good. But as we discussed…you live, you learn, hopefully you do better in the future.