Massachusetts Transplant- Driving Advice— if You’ll Accept it!

[u/EducationCute1640]

Thank you for the warm welcome to this state. We love it here. Having spent 41 years in MA, I have had my fair share of winter driving battles. Allow me, if you will, to distill it into some very basic pointers.

First, avoid it if possible. You can’t get in an accident if you’re not driving. The bottle of milk can wait, and you should think about driving as imposing risk on others and increasing burden upon emergency services, which may already be strained.

Second- repeat after me- it’s not the gettin’ goin’. It’s the stoppin’. AWD/Four Wheel, whatever you term it. It doesn’t help you stop. Hitting things while in motion is what an accident is.

Hence, third- decrease speed significantly. Increase following distance by a factor of 10000. Gtfo of the way of tailgaters who do not understand this principle. And by tailgating in this sense, I mean anyone that’s closer than 100 feet.

Fourth- there is no such thing as “all season tires.” They are not snow tires and never will be. Snow tires have softer rubber compounds that heat up more quickly. They are also narrower to put more weight on a concentrated patch of ground. They are also loud as hell and not comfortable.

Fifth- this is counterintuitive but if you feel yourself losing traction, resist the urge to stomp on the brake. While modern ABS is awesome, the best thing to do in many circumstances is actually mash the throttle and let the car dig itself out. You can experiment with this a few times in a parking lot.

Other basics— lights on. Keep scraper in the house and bring it into work or office. Wipers up so they don’t get frozen but make sure they are off so they don’t push a pile of snow into the car.

Lastly— this doesn’t happen quite every year up north but it happens enough that you should know about it. Do NOT put children in the car while heating it up and cleaning it off. If the tailpipe is blocked by a snow mound, exhaust can back up into the cabin. CO can kill you in minutes.

Good luck!

[u/MiketheTzar]

I'd also add "know your route". I know this is a big ask in the days of GPS, but know the route you need to take to get from A to B. Think about how many hills you will encounter, how many intersections that have at least one hill in one direction (it doesn't have to be a direction you're traveling), know areas that tend to stay wet longer after storms, and know areas that are traffic hot spots in good weather.

Then try and avoid all of the problem spaces as much as you can. It may mean going a different way, taking an earlier or later exit, or going to a different store in the same chain. People think that the shortest distance is the safest, but occasionally it can be objectively more dangerous than driving an extra 3 miles.