There are a wide variety of four wheel drive and SUV vehicles out on the road today, and these vehicles are designed to handle weather conditions that challenge your everyday front and rear wheel drive cars and trucks. But just because a specific type of vehicle is designed to handle snow or ice better than the rest doesn't mean that you can drive as you normally would in adverse weather conditions.
And a lot of four wheel drivers seem to fail to realize this simple fact: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should".
For those of you who live in areas where there is a significant amount of snow or ice, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There can be two inches of snow on the ground or a sheet of ice on the pavement, and while traffic is moving along at a slow, but safe speed, you invariably have a four wheel drive vehicle that is driving recklessly along like it was a nice sunny day with clear pavement. The drivers of these vehicles seem to think that four wheel drive means drive as fast as you can, not realizing that the vehicle is only offering them better traction on the road. They bought their highway "tanks" to keep them from getting stuck in the snow, but that doesn't help you much.
And what does this mean for you, the driver who has a plain old sedan with front wheel drive, plugging along behind a snow plow in New England? What can you do if you see an SUV barreling up towards you in your rearview?
It means don't panic, and keep your cool, you do have options to keep you out of trouble. These drivers have one thing in mind, and that's beating the inclement weather to get to where they're going just as they normally would. They don't understand that their four wheel vehicles can still slide on the ice, or hydroplane in heavy rain. So what you need to do is make sure that you can, if at all possible, get out of the way of the four wheel driver. You can, in an emergency, need to turn off quickly, even if it means down a street that you had no intention of turning down. The person driving recklessly in bad weather presents a serious threat to your own personal safety, and a few extra minutes of driving time is better than ending up in an accident with a dangerous four wheel driver.
Source by Scott B Bradford
