Comments on: Notes from a Cold Country

By: Luigi Zanasi

Luigi Zanasi — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:16:54 +0000

No salt is the standard practice in most of Canada’s western provinces as well as in the Yukon where I live. It’s just too cold most of the time for salt to be effective in melting snow and ice. Sand and gravel (often heated) are used to reduce the slipperiness. Winter tires (whose new formulations make them much more sticky on ice), all season and studded tires are all used by different people. One can drive at 100km/h on the Alaska and Klondike highways fairly safely. What the Alaskan didn’t mention is our (Yukoners and Alaskans) permanently cracked windshields.

BTW, snow tires are now compulsory in Quebec since last year, which resulted in a shortage of snow tires in Canada last fall.

By: Sean P.

Sean P. — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:53:37 +0000

This is how it works in Alaska, and people are usually able to go about their daily business without anything terrible happening (yes, studded tires are legal). I stuck studs on a FWD car with 17″ wheels and only managed to trigger my ABS once all winter even though the streets were white from November to April.

The problem drivers are the people who didn’t seem to get it through their heads that AWD/4WD doesn’t improve stopping ability.

By: Eileen

Eileen — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:50:50 +0000

I’m wondering how they handle sidewalks…shovel partway, not at all? Here in DC they clear the major roads (and some side streets) completely, pile all the snow in the crosswalks and curbcuts, neither remove snow from sidewalks nor enforce the laws requiring people to remove snow from the sidewalks. And the result? Pedestrians get to slipslide around and over sheets of ice and icebergs to cross a street where drivers are speeding merrily along in their usual distracted and/or aggressive state.

By: Rich Wilson

Rich Wilson — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:58:02 +0000

I was once a passenger in a car in a city in Russia where there was quite a bit more than a few inches on the ground. The driver was constantly correcting for minor slides. Everyone on the road was. I was amazed at everyone’s ability to not hit each other. In general, I got the impression that Russians pay a lot more attention when driving, because they have to.

By: Rich in CO

Rich in CO — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:35:24 +0000

I dont’ think Fins use studded tires, but they do use Nokian snow tires on all foru wheels and wouldn’t dream of trying to use the same tires all year long.

On the northern front range we too have a similar unintended experiment. We had a serious storm (8-12 inches) followed by plowing of most roads and streets, followed by clear skys and high winds which piled snow some places but left most pavement bare - where it piled it then froze in to imovable ice. Then we got less than 2 inches of additional snow (nobody tries to plow so little snow - generally it melts in a day or two - this time the temps plunged and now you can’t tell the packed powder on top of dry pavement, which isn’t very slippery, from powder on ice, which is. We don’t get this every winter so many don’t mount snows and don’t have much experience driving in these conditions. It’s hard to get up enough speed to do much damage, but there are a lot of wrecks. (I didn’t say “accident’s”)

By: njkayaker

njkayaker — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:30:04 +0000

Do they use studded tires?

By: Michelle in MN

Michelle in MN — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:28:05 +0000

We currently have something similar to Finland’s strategy going on here in the Twin Cites, only it was unintentional: A “base layer” of one to two inches of bumpy, rutted solid ice formed on the streets following our Christmas snowstorm, which gave us 8”-10” of snow followed by a day of rain, followed by temperatures around 10-15F. All the slush froze solid before the plows could scrape it up, and it’s not going anywhere with our current below-zero temps.

The cities have essentially said to motorists, “You’ll just have to slow down; we can’t get the ice off.” All day long I hear cars spinning their tires on the ice outside my office. Salt doesn’t do any good when it’s this cold.

By: Bruce Triggs

Bruce Triggs — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:02:23 +0000

Remembering all the “you should have salted!” tumult last winter in Seattle, I wonder how this works on steep hills?

Finland has hills, are they slippery?

I understand winter there is one of the reasons they have such wicked-good accordion players. Annual time to practice. http://www.kimmopohjonen.com/index.php