this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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I've driven an EV for five years and made a 50km daily one way commute over rural, highway and city streets for 15 years. I live in Canada and we get snow , freezing rain and more weather. In my experience good driving habits > AWD all day everyday. Pay attention to the road conditions, don't drive faster than the weather will allow, get winter tires, keep your brakes maintained, drive a safe speed even when others are impatient, leave room to stop, if the weather is bad enough don't leave at all, if you must leave plan to leave early enough that you aren't tempted to make bad driving decisions such as speeding. This isn't rocket science, but over the last 15 years and 540,000 km I have seen several impatient people pass me in the winter weather just to end up seeing them again in the ditch within 10 minutes. That includes 1 4x4 truck, 1 AWD SUV and at least 2 sedans. The Bros in the truck all had to climb out the passenger side since it landed on its drivers side, the lady in the SUV was stuck down in the gutter and told me not to worry, she'd call a tow, and in the case of one sedan I ended up driving this small family home, car seat and all. Will AWD help you get yourself out of a slick parking spot, or start up at a red light? Sure, maybe, it depends. But it isn't really going to help with much else and doesn't come close to just learning to drive to the conditions.
Adding to this, AWD gives people a false sense of security and often leads to riskier driving behavior. It's just like you said, there is absolutely no substitute for knowing how to handle difficult road conditions, anything that extends your confidence beyond your ability is dangerous.
By this logic, use summer tires in the winter.
I use all season tires year round. Unless you live in a very remote or hot part of the world: anytime it snows the city/county/state brings out the plows and salt and cleans the road. Yes winter tires are better on ice, but in reality you are almost never driving on ice anyway so it doesn't make much a difference. Just slow down when it is icy and summer tires are fine. And you need to do that anyway because winter tires are better, but they are not perfect.
That was absolutely not my point. My point is that that logic would suggest that you have false sense of security by using all season tires.
Are you saying 2wd is safer than awd?
If good driving skill is equal, I mean.
Edit: since bluegill blocked me, ill update here.. the argument could then be extended to saying summer tires is safer because it reminds you how bad things are, too
You mentioned in another thread to use all seasons instead of winter tires, so I won't take safety advice from you on anything to be honest.
What do you mean by "good driving skill?" Humans almost all get over confident if they don't get constant feedback that things are slippery, so 2wd with the constant reminder that things are bad will give you that feedback and thus you drive slower, which in turn makes it seem like you are a better driver who doesn't get overconfident.
If you can avoid the over confidence problem and drive as slow as conditions demand, AWD is better because when you must stop at an intersect you can accelerate out of the stop sign faster and thus clear the intersection before the next idiot going too fast slides around a blind corner and into it. However I have no confidence that you can avoid that over confidence and so 2wd is safer because most of the time you are not in an intersection.
I didn't block you, I don't know what you mean, I'm also not the person who uses all seasons.
Apologies, I was intending to reply to bluegill
I assume you mean me (but there is intentionally no e in my name) . I did not block you. Just double checked to make sure if hadn't on accident .