As temperatures drop, safety on the road often becomes a priority, especially when snow or ice appears.
Dave Weirs, driving safety instructor, discusses what ways they try to prepare students in this type of weather.
“Our big focus is to teach how to drive in all different kinds of weather conditions. With winter being the worst with rain, slush, snow, and ice, we really stress analyzing the weather conditions before getting into a car,” Wiers said.
Statistics from Unitedtires show there are greater chances of tire blowouts due to decreased tire pressure. Cars also can stall due to frozen fuel lines, and vehicle systems can become slower due to thickening of car fluids.
Even though there are risks to driving during the approaching winter months, there are precautions students can take to avoid incidents.
According to Morris & Dewitt Injury Lawyers, some of those precautions are: checking your vehicle’s systems and making sure everything is up to date, letting your vehicle run a little longer than normal, and, if possible, keeping your vehicle in a warmer area such as a garage.
Aside from vehicle upkeep, other dangers arise that don’t depend on a person’s vehicle’s condition. Colder temperatures normally bring ice and snow, which can widen cracks in the pavement of the roads, causing deterioration over time. Even though salt may assist in keeping the roads safer by not having as much ice as they could, the salt dispersed on the road can corrode over time, leading to road deterioration. Many places put out salt on their roads or parking lots when they hear snow may be coming, and Plainfield South does this as well.
“Whenever we get a poor weather advisory, our custodians are out there putting salt on the ground, making sure we have enough traction,” Keith Anderson, a dean at South said.
One of the hazardous conditions that may affect how safe it is to drive on the road is black ice. Black ice is a transparent, thin layer of ice that can form over roads. If you run into black ice on the road, the first thing to do is not to panic and remain calm. Then make sure you take your foot off the gas pedal, but do not slam on your brakes, as it may cause you to lose control of your car.
“I drive carefully [and] I see [other] people driving very slow in the winter,” junior Charlie Muehlbauer said.
Even with all these risks at hand in the colder times of the year, some drivers choose to ignore precautions and drive at higher speeds than recommended, making the roads and parking lots more unsafe.
“I just want everyone to drive safe and stay warm,” senior Jillian Beintum said.
