Winter weather has already hit parts of Canada and with the snow comes reminders to adjust your driving accordingly.
Melanie Paterson, a former race-car driver and the co-owner of the Mercedes-Benz Driving Academy, says it is possible to un-do years of bad habits, starting with these winter driving tips:
Be gentle
To survive winter driving, Paterson encourages drivers to be gentler with their cars and give themselves extra room and time to make decisions.
She says that drivers should be gentle on all of their controls, including when coming off the throttle, applying the throttle, easing off the brakes and turning the steering wheel.
“Everything has to be more deliberate and takes more distance,” Patterson told CTV Vancouver.
Brake against your instinct
According to Paterson, the instinct to lightly press on the brakes before pressing harder is 100 per cent wrong. Instead, drivers should start braking sooner, with more initial pressure, before easing off as the vehicle comes to a stop.
When stopping a vehicle with anti-lock brakes, in an emergency, Paterson says to hit the brakes once and hit them hard.
Don’t "steer into the skid"
“The problem with the term steer into the skid is that nobody knows where the skid is,” said Paterson.
Paterson says the best way to get out of a skid is to simply look where you want to go and steer in that direction. She also says that it’s important to not wait until the last second to steer out of the skid.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s David Molko
